Your recent article (March 29) on Gen. John J. Pershing contained very interesting information. Please see attached photo and Belgian-American history written about Aviel “Tip” Vander Poorten, which gives some detail of another connection of Pershing and San Antonio. Tip opened a service station and café in San Antonio and eventually added a bowling alley. When I search the Internet for “Tip’s Bowling Lane, San Antonio,” I only find “bowling tips” for better bowling! Can you please guide me to more history on this prominent Belgian connection to Pershing?
— Rebecca De Winne Savage
With his siblings, Aviel Vander Poorten emigrated from Belgium at age 16, arriving in New York on Dec. 24, 1912, according to his naturalization record.
From there, he made his way to San Antonio, where he lived on Somerset Road with his sister Estella. He worked as a gardener or in the truck farms where other Belgian immigrants grew produce for San Antonio’s markets. His name is sometimes misspelled Eviel, Evialt and even Evill.
He became a naturalized U.S. citizen Jan. 13, 1916, and got a license to operate his “Indian (brand) motorcycle” June 6, 1917 — the same month when he registered for the draft, about two months after the U.S. entry into World War I. “From his draft registration, it looks like he may have been working for the Army as a civilian before being drafted,” said Jacqueline Davis, director of the Fort Sam Houston Museum.
As a soldier in the U.S. Army, Vander Poorten was shipped back to Europe on Sept. 29, 1917, a member of Motorcycle Co. No. 1. “Being an officer’s driver, even for the commanding general (of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe, as Pershing was) is really a detail, not an assignment,” David said, so this status may not have appeared in Vander Poorten’s service records.
But he was involved in motor transport, and he arrived in France at about the time Pershing’s more famous driver, Eddie Rickenbacker, left that post to go into flight training Oct. 10, 1917. His departure would have left a spot for a chauffeur just as Vander Poorten arrived in France.
After the war, Vander Poorten returned to San Antonio and according to city directories, resumed work as a gardener. By the 1920 U.S. Census, he and his wife Margaret (also known as Marie or Mary) were living on Division Avenue, and his occupation is listed as “operator of a truck farm.”
At some point in the 1920s, he acquired the nickname “Tip,” after the popular song “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” according to “The Belgian Texans,” published in 1994 by the Institute of Texan Cultures, because “He was excessively generous with his rendition of the melody.”
In the late 1920s, he and his wife bought land that was then about five miles out of the city near the intersection of Frio City, Quintana and Kelly Field roads and started Tip’s Three Point Service Station at 2351 (later 2610) Frio City Road.
By the 1930 census, the Vander Poortens had two children, Alice and Louis, and Tip was “proprietor of a filling station.” They added Tip’s Café the following year and with the end of Prohibition in 1933, added a bar for a tavern renamed Tip’s Place. On the sand in the back, people could play a Belgian bowling game, Rolle Bolle. Sometimes called “bolling,” the game is kind of a cross between bowling and horseshoes, where a heavy disc is rolled toward a stake buried in the ground, with the object of landing as close to the stake as possible.
At his death in 1936, “Vander Poorten was a highly respected leader of San Antonio’s Belgian community,” according to “The Belgian Texans.” His widow took over the business until her death in 1942 from complications of influenza. From then on, the café was run by their adult children. Alice Vander Poorten Persyn kept the service station when her brother Louis started a new venture after World War II.
After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, Louis Vander Poorten returned to the business and started Tip’s Lanes in 1947. This was a six-lane bowling alley that took advantage of the sport’s postwar boom as well as the family’s reputation for hospitality. Bowlers could enjoy keg beer and sandwiches from the café while playing on modern lanes that met American Bowling Congress standards.
Tip’s Lanes offered both open and league bowling, drawing customers from the Belgian American community as well as Kelly workers and airmen. Organized play included the Mixed (coed) Belgian as well as the Hi-Flyers, Royal and Western leagues whose standings were covered by the sports sections of both daily newspapers. In 1957, Tip’s closed briefly to install automatic pinsetters — only the second bowling alley in town to do so.
The combined tavern/bowling alley remained a community hub.
“There is not a Belgian family in San Antonio whose parents or grandparents didn’t frequent Tip’s,” said Charles Persyn, whose grandfather Leo Persyn and Tip Vander Poorten were friends. Born the year Tip’s Lanes opened, the younger Persyn remembers visiting through the 1950s, when “Many of the Belgian kids my age would tag along with their parents and play in the back shed and sand.”
Air Force personnel made up the rest of the customer base.
“Most everyone who worked at Kelly Field went to the bar or bowled at Tip’s,” said Jackie Van De Walle, responding to a Facebook query. For years, Tip’s Place and Tip’s Lanes had advertised their location a quarter-mile outside the Kelly gates, but that proximity put the Vander Poorten property in the way of progress.
Both businesses closed in the mid-1960s for construction of the “Kelly Access Road,” a 1.7-mile road that went right through the Tip’s complex on its way to tie the air base to U.S. 90. Named General Hudnell Drive, the connector honors Air Force Gen. W.T. Hudnell, longtime San Antonio area air materiel commander at Kelly and was intended to streamline the traffic flow for Kelly personnel — the same people who enjoyed stopping at Tip’s for a cold beer.
Tip’s daughter Alice and her husband Dan Persyn relocated the service station to a new spot on Loop 1604 West, since replaced by a Jim’s restaurant.
Anyone with photos or memories of Tip’s to share may contact this column. All replies will be shared with the family and may be published in a future column.
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Tip’s Place near Kelly was popular gathering spot for San Antonio’s Belgian community in first half of 1900s - San Antonio Express-News
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