Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–6
knew Cecil Smith, who was a ten-goal man [“Texan...Cecil Smith {was} perhaps the greatest
player in the history of a game more than 2,000 years old.” From the 1994 NYT obituary.—ed.]
They used to go out to the places where the polo ponies were kept when they weren’t having
polo matches. They knew all sorts of people—like LBJ. But when you’re a little kid, you never
ask the right questions. Why did my parents know people like that? This was not the top of
Austin society by any means, but it was a bunch of young people who were having a good time.
That’s really the story of my parents in Austin, except for one thing. I said it was
springtime and the bluebonnets were on the hillsides, and my father saw this as Heaven after
being through the Hell of all these places that were in desperate financial shape. He just felt
Texas was the only place he was ever going to be, and he was an adopted Texan from the day he
got there. Eventually he took the time to take oil-painting lessons, and he only painted one thing,
bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush on hillsides. I just wish I had had the good sense to get one of
those paintings away from one of my relatives. At this point in time, I would really love to have
one of those paintings. I can’t remember how good they were, although it was clear what he
painted, and that’s all he painted.
Years later, I was talking to Annette Schlumberger [of the Schlumberger oil family]. We
had scheduled some sort of event down at her estate in the South of France, and at dinner I was
telling her my father’s story about Austin, and she says, “Well, Schlumberger got thrown out of
the Soviet Union. They had been a big asset for the company. But we were thrown out and had
to come back to Texas and try to make things work.” And she says, “I remember being a young
girl in Austin and riding up those hills through the bluebonnets, and I felt the same way your
father did. We were coming back into springtime after a very low period in the company.” My
bread-and-butter gift to her—which I hope she did something with—was large sacks of
bluebonnet and Indian paintbrush seeds. I would like to think that somewhere in the South of
France, lupine and Indian paintbrush are on those hillsides
ASPATURIAN: And from there, back to you.
TOMBRELLO: OK. I was born in Austin, Texas, and lived there until I was three. I was an only
child. This was the Depression. Lots of us were only children. When I was three, we went to
http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Tombrello_T