|
READERS UNDER EIGHTY MUST BE TOLD
ABOUT DOMESTIC AND WORLD CONDITIONS
DURING THE NEXT ELEVEN YEARS TO EVEN
HOPE TO INDENTIFY WITH LIFE’S
HARDSHIPS FROM
MID 1929 UNTIL 1940
THE STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE AND MAINTAIN
A MODICUM OF DIGNITY WAS PARAMOUNT
TO A POOR SHARECROPPER AND HIS
FAMILY. UNFORTUNATELY OUR STRUGGLE
WAS ONLY ONE OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE
WHO TILLED THE SOIL FOR A LIVING!
IN THE FALL OF 1929 “BLACK THURSDAY”
OCCURRED AND THE STOCK MARKET
CRASHED, IN THE NEXT 28 MONTHS, WHEN
ON MARCH 6, 1933 NEWLY ELECTED
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT DECLARED A
BANK HOLIDAY AND CLOSED ALL BANKS
FOR FOUR DAYS, THE WORLD OF
ECONOMICS WAS ALL BUT DESTROYED,
INCLUDING THE FOREIGN MARKETS.
MOST FARMERS & SHARECROPPERS WOULD
HAVE BEEN HURT BAD BUT MOST WOULD
HAVE BEEN ABLE TO HOLD ONTO THEIR
FARMS AND FEED THEIR FAMILIES.
LAME DUCK PRESIDENT HOOVER WENT
CRAZY AND RAISED TAXES AND TARIFFS
ON EVERY THING AND EVERYBODY. THEN
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT REALLY PUT THE
DAGGER IN EVERYONE’S HEART. WITH AN
EFFORT TO ‘KICK START’ THE RECOVERY
HE ORDERED ALL CROPS GROWING IN THE
FIELD PLOWED UNDER, NO HARVESTING
ALLOWED, THEN MILLIONS OF SHEEP,
CATTLE AND HOGS WERE HERDED INTO
PRE-DUG PITS AND SHOT!!!
THERE WERE STIFF FINES AND JAIL TIME
FOR PEOPLE WHO HID OUT FOOD OR BEEF
CATTLE.
MORE THAN HALF OF THE FARMERS AND
RANCHERS LOST EVERYTHING, NATION
WIDE UNEMPLOYMENT STOOD AT 28.4
PERCENT!
THE BANKS THAT REOPENED WERE GLUTTED
WITH FORECLOSURES TO THE POINT THAT
SOME LOANS ON GOOD FARMS WERE
FORGIVEN AND ON OTHERS THEY ACCEPTED
A FEW DOLLARS A MONTH AND ALLOWED
THE OWNERS TO KEEP THEIR HOMES!
CHAPTER 12 BARE FOOT DREAMER
1930 TO LATE SPRING OF 1931
We children didn’t know about world
conditions but when we moved into
the beat up house way down on a
ridge far off the road near Mt.
Sterling we knew things hadn’t
improved for us. It was a clapboard
three room shack with a couple of
lean to rooms added for bedrooms.
The only redeeming feature was a big
pot-bellied heating stove in the
middle of the living and eating
area, the kitchen was a ‘lean to.’
2.
Roads had not generally been named
with county or state numbers they
were known as the road that went to
the next town or terrain features
River Rd, Hill, Valley, or Cliff
Road.
I think this Pike confusion is
cleared in my mind about the pikes
(roads) that we lived on. This house
was on Paris Pike and to get to Mt
Sterling you went up the road a mile
or two and turned right on the
Camargo Pike! Camargo is a little
town six miles south of Mt.
Sterling.
School age siblings walked to
Moberly School which was about three
miles away by going cross country,
the well if there was one was dry
and as previously described all
water was sledded in wooden barrels
from a creek about a half mile away,
Mom washed her huge pile of dirty
clothes in the creek every week,
also a scrub board and rocks were
her only appliances. They hitched up
Old Betsy, a gray mare, and another
old bay mare, named Nell, that Dad
had acquired from somewhere, to the
sled and left with the ‘laundry and
water express’ early in the morning
and returned at dark with their load
of wet wash and water, Mom hung the
wash on the clothes line sometimes
by lantern light.
Once on just a quick water run, they
left me at home alone, still asleep.
I awoke a few minutes before they
returned and was terrified. I ran
through and around the house
screaming for someone to answer me,
Dorothea heard me when they were
still quite far away and came to me
at a dead run, I can still feel the
panic and terror that I experienced
that day!
School only ran for seven months,
not nine as it is today but they
were good schools and taught each
child to the utmost of that child’s
ability to learn, all eight grades
were taught in one room so the
bright 3rd grader, with
his/hers lesson already completed,
could listen to the fifth grade
children learning basic algebra.
Since most of the students could
only hope to finish the eight grades
the school board loaded the
curriculum, when I left Kentucky
schools in the eight grade I was
solving plane geometry problems!
Schools like that today would help
our present day student to compete
with even the much more advanced
Japanese children!
After surviving the cold winter and
muddy spring there was a lot of fun
things done that summer of 1930. The
kids were all at home and there is
nothing that will attract young men
and older boys like having four
sisters! Margaret and Annie were too
young to be serious about boys but
Lucy and Dorothea were teenagers,
and I noticed that some girls showed
up too, John was eighteen and Archie
although he was only thirteen was a
good looking youngster! Under
Mother’s watchful eyes all games
played were innocent fun!
Picture on the following page shows
Archie peeking around the tree, at
Dot & me.
3.
THE TREE, I THINK IT WAS A LOCUST,
PROVIDED THE ONLY SHADE IN THE FRONT
YARD, AND WAS RIGHT OUTSIDE THE
KITCHEN DOOR.
AS THE BABY OF THE FAMILY I RECEIVED
MORE ATTENTION THAN THE OTHERS, DOT
WAS ALWAYS THE MOST ATTENTIVE!
YOU ARE LOOKING AT THE CORNER OF THE
ADD-ON LEAN TO FOR THE KITCHEN NOTE
THE SINGLE 2X4 THAT SUPPORTS THE
TINY ROOF OVER THE DOOR, TODAYS
BUILDING INSPECTORS WOULD GO
BERSERK!!!
4.
We had a windup Victrola that played
the old single sided records and the
newer 78 RPM types. The music was
country and if the recorded song was
more that four months old all of the
young folks knew ever word, so long
before Karaoke we hand loud and good
sing a longs! All of the girls
played guitar, Lucy was far and away
the best, and even I, along with
Mother and all of the brothers and
sisters, could play the harmonica!!
For percussion we all played the
spoons or bones (bones were small
strips of straight grained hard wood
about 1 ¼ by 8”by ¼” thick) The
spoons were played by holding their,
you should pardon the expression,
bottoms together in one hand and
clacking them up to the other hand
and down on your knee. Bones were
held between the fore and middle and
the ring and middle fingers, by
holding the first firmly with a bent
forefinger and shaking your hand
just so, good timing could follow
the beat of a guitar quite nicely!
Necessity, being the mother of
invention and all that!
We had visitors over the years that
had fiddles, mandolins, banjos,
twelve string guitars, and even one
fellow that could play a mean
‘washtub bass’ So as you can well
imagine with a dozen instruments
playing together and 15 or 20 folks
singing we rocked the hills with
good old country songs that could be
heard far and wide!!! A, full
throated, rendition of “She be
Coming Around the Mountain” would
set even the slowest foot to tapping
along with the music!! The fun thing
about the previous song was that
there was a verse in it that says,
‘we will have chicken and dumplings
when she comes, we will kill the old
red rooster when she comes,’ etc.
Dad was hard of hearing by this time
and thought the song said “we will
kill the old red milk cow when she
comes!” Everyone laughed when he
told us, but politely he didn’t like
to be embarrassed!
She’ll be
coming round the mountain when she
comes,
She’ll be coming round the mountain
when she comes,
She’ll be coming round the mountain
when , she’ll be coming round the
mountain,
She’ll be coming round the mountain
when she comes.
She’ll be driving six white horses
when she comes,
She’ll be driving six white horses
when she comes,
She’ll be driving six white horse,
she’ll be driving six white horses,
She’ll be driving six white horses
when she comes.
Oh, we’ll all go out to meet her
when she comes,
Oh, we’ll all go out to meet her
when she comes,
Oh, we’ll all go out to meet her,
we’ll all go out to meet her,
We’ll all go out to meet her when
she comes.
She’ll be wearing red pajamas when
she comes,
She’ll be wearing red pajamas when
she comes,
She’ll be wearing red pajamas,
she’ll be wearing red pajamas,
She’ll be wearing red pajamas when
she comes.
She’ll have to sleep with grandma
when she comes,
She’ll have to sleep with grandma
when she comes,
She’ll have to sleep with grandma,
she’ll have to sleep with grandma,
She’ll have to sleep with grandma
when she comes.
THE
WORDS ABOVE ARE DIFFERENT, WE AND
OTHER COUNTRY FOLKS, ADAPTED AND
INSERTED VERSES OR WORDS MORE
SUITABLE TO OUR LIKES, NEEDS, AND
SOMETIMES TO OUR MORAL STANDARDS.
5.
I
remember that we played family
versions of ‘Spin the Bottle,
Musical Chairs, home drawn Pin the
Tail on the Donkey, and others I am
sure. We lived in a sub standard
house but not in squalor nor did we
exude a mood of defeat so except
when Dad was grouchy it was a happy
home and since there were no crops
to tend that year there was plenty
of leisure time. One of the Hughes
boys, friends of Dorothea and John,
had a ‘Tin Lissie’ or a ‘Skeeter’ it
was a Model T with the body taken
off leaving just the chassis,
nothing but the steering wheel,
motor and gas tank, he had built a
seat, like that on a wagon, that
seated the driver and two
passengers, we all got to ride up
and down the dirt road always with
bigger kids holding on to me real
tight, it was great fun for me!!
One of
Pony Arnett’s relatives, a nephew I
believe, had a beautiful small pinto
horse which I got to ride, first
with him and then with him leading
the, big to me, horse! I was in
heaven sitting way up there holding
on to the horn and looking down on
everybody!!! Twice that summer we
went in Dad’s car to Mt. Sterling
and went to the picture show, one
movie was a Shirley Temple movie and
the other was a cowboy movie.
The
summer flew by and then school
started, I am sure I drove poor
Mother crazy being constantly
underfoot because of being lonely.
Then the rain, snows and cold came
and what had been a wonderful place
became a mud bound, leaky, and cold
nightmare. That place in its
contrast reminds me of the Italian
saying that ‘If you laugh too much
in the day you will cry before you
sleep!’ Just so our happy summer
turned into a life of misery by
Christmas. Life did go on and I
remember we had fun making Xmas tree
decorations, foil wrapped cardboard
stars and circles, strings of
popcorn some white and some red,
colored by soaking in beet juice.
Mom surprised us with enough green
and red Christmas rope to crisscross
the room with a big red paper
Christmas bell that folded when not
in use!
In
February both Margaret and I caught
bad colds which quickly turned into
pneumonia, we were moved into the
living room near the stove but as I
got better poor Margaret got worse,
not being strong anytime she, as she
became weaker and could not cough up
the stuff filling her fragile lungs,
she passed away in March of 1931.
Then
and as I feel now, I am so glad she
had a fun Summer before she left us…
|
