By Ruth Ann Ruiz
The Post Newspaper Features Editor
On sultry Southern Tuesday evenings, the Galveston Beach Band provides its audience with a rousing round of instrumental music. Most of the songs are from eras gone by. Vocalist Karenna Lee serenades listeners with songs from before the middle of the 20th century.
It almost seems like nothing could be more enjoyable than being taken away for just a bit on a trip down memory lane with music. Then Leslie Watts enters, and another dimension of Southern tranquility is added to the evening.
Leslie Watts, dressed in flowing white linen, gauze or cotton takes her place in front of the band, and with a voice that could lull an orphanage to sleep, she begins sharing true stories from Galveston history.
After her slow, smooth reading from either something she has written or from the writings of her dear, departed friend, Gini Brown, she strolls to the sidelines as the band plays a soft rendition of the song Glen Campbell made famous — “Galveston.”
Audience members sit mesmerized by her words as they glean new information.
“I just learned something new tonight about our history,” says a listener.
“She has such an enjoyable way of telling history makes you really grasp the information,” says another listener.
Watts didn’t start off as an onstage personality. For 10 years, she was a writer, a reporter, a journalist who wrote about fashion for the Houston Chronicle. She was sent to cover fashion shows in New York City.
“I didn’t go to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but I did go to dinner at Cartier,” reminisces Watts of her years covering the fashion industry.
While in New York City, she met and interviewed celebrities, such as Olivia Newton-John, Patrick Swayze, and Cher. Fond memories come back to her as she recalls spending an afternoon sipping coffee with Cher, who Watts describes as being an enjoyable person.
In addition to traveling to fashion shows for the Chronicle, she covered food and wine. After a decade of doing so, she decided it was time to come down south of the causeway and purchase her forever home. She has never looked back.
“I came to Galveston intending to die here,” said Watts, who is 81 years old and has a job along with her volunteer endeavors, such as reading for the Galveston Beach Band. She has four adult children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
With her grandmotherly skills, she oversees the maracas that children are invited to use during the Beach Band Concerts, and she distributes American flags both large and small to participants who want to march in a small but enduring weekly tribute to our nation.
Life in Galveston afforded Watts a new set of VIP experiences. She was hired at the University of Texas Medical Branch during the100th anniversary of UTMB and served as the Centennial Writer. While at UTMB, she wrote speeches for the school’s president.
Her writing career has spanned several decades, and her writing has been read by thousands of people.
While in Galveston, she also taught high school algebra and middle school English. She entered teaching as a sophisticated, accomplished professional and as a grandmother. Her students were the beneficiaries of her professional experiences, along with the wisdom she had gathered through finding her place in the world of grandparenting.
Watts’ love of history and enjoyment of some fame was ushered in by the unusual circumstances surrounding her birth.
She reports she was one of The Breakers’ babies. Her father was serving in the Army when she was born, so she was born in Palm Beach, Florida at The Breakers Hotel. The historic resort has hints of The Grand Galvez in its design and was commandeered by the military for use as a hospital during World War II. There were only about a dozen babies born in the hotel while the military used it.
Prior to Watts contributing as the historian at the Beach Band Concerts, Gini Brown entertained the audiences as Leslie sat in the back thinking to herself how classy Gini looked and thought it might be a fun job to have.
Both were women of words, and so the two formed a friendship. Together they authored a book, “Tuesday Night Love Letters,” a collection of the history of Galveston that the two ladies had spent years researching.
It came about that Gini was getting up in age and needed an understudy for her Tuesday night readings, and Leslie stepped into the role.
Then Gini got further up in years and returned to live out the last years of her life with her family in Louisiana. Gini Brown passed away on July 3, 2024. She was just a little more than a month shy of her 102nd birthday. Leslie will be reading a tribute to Gini at the Beach Band Concert on Tuesday, July 23.
Leslie has no intention of leaving Galveston. She purchased one of the island’s famous historic homes several decades ago and continues to call it her home where she plans to live till God calls her to his eternal home.
With her delightful, vigorous approach to life, her commitment to history and her passion for sharing her knowledge with others, we can look forward to many more years of Leslie inspiring audiences as she shares the history of Galveston.
If you are interested in a copy of “Tuesday Night Love Letters,” which is written in the smooth, Southern manner of her speech and features wild splashes of the past and truths as only she and Gini could share them, you can meet the author at one of the Tuesday concerts or send her an e-mail directly at watts7@flash.net be sure to put the word book in the subject bar.
And don’t forget to come out and enjoy another nostalgic Beach Band Concert on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Sealy Pavilion, 900 24th St. in Galveston.
