| Migrant Farm Workers page 2 |
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| South and a little east of Dallas, about a hundred miles, you will find a town called Athens. Located on the southwest corner of town there was an old abandoned brickyard. In 1935 and 1936, the depression was hanging heavy over the families displaced from their farms by that dust bowl tragedy. Whole sections of drought stricken farms had been foreclosed and their former owners were now migrant workers. Spread out over Texas, Oklahoma and other mid continent states devastated by the wind driven sand. Many had gone to California where some found work in the orchards of that great state. And many had been turned away when California refused migrants entry into the state. My father, mother, and my brother, JT, and I moved from field to field around Texas looking for work. One day we joined five other families setting up camp in that old brickyard. The tents were arranged in a circle around a fire pit that they had constructed with the clutter of broken bricks. The members of this little migrant camp pooled their supplies. By doing so all would have at least something to eat even if it was nothing more than water and flour gravy poured over weeks old bread obtained from the Wonder bakery. For a dollar you could buy a hundred loaves of old bread that was meant to be used for hog food. The members sat around the fire pit and each took a bucket full of bread and taking each piece out they would turn it over and around looking for any spots of mold. The spots were picked off and thrown into the pit. The salvaged slice then put into a paper-lined box to be divided among the participants. The conversation between the adults, after the young ones had gone to sleep, consisted of where to find work. What could one do to get some money to buy food? Japan was buying all the scrap metal that they could find; therefore, one could make some money by scrounging for scrap iron to be sold to the local metal yard. Abandon stoves, iron bedsteads, are any other metal part could bring in a dollar or so at the metal yard. However, with so many people out of work, and with many scouring the area for scrap iron the supply was running out. One evening when I was supposed to be asleep I overheard the adults outside around the fire pit discussing where the next meal would come from. They came to the conclusion that they probably would have to resort to accepting relief food boxes from the government relief center. The boxes contained the bare necessities to exist. Surplus flour, rice, beans, peanut butter and the like were rationed to the most needy. I heard my father saying, "If I have to I will take some to keep Vernon and JT from starving, but I ain't gona eat none of that stuff myself." My father was a proud man if not a practical one. |
| I was too young to really appreciate the difficulty. I never remember going hungry. For my contribution I found two abandon heavy cardboard signs from the sides of a Wonder bread truck. These I brought to the campsite and laid them on the dirt between the beds in our tent. They made a tremendous difference in the comfort in the tent. |
| Another thing about that brickyard was its location next to railroad tracks. There was a series of extra large steam locomotive engines that passed our site every day. I remember their numbers ran from 7000 to 7007. Each engine had a distinctive sound to its whistle. After a time I could recognize each engine by its whistle sound. They were probably Mallet Locomotives made with two engines joined together When a 7000 train came through it always pulled between seventy-five and a hundred cars. |
| Go west from Athens a little over a hundred miles and you will come to Corsicana, Texas. Here by father got a job cooking in a small six-stool snack shop. He served hamburgers that cost five cents (ten cents with lettuce and tomato). A large bottle of Nehi root beer was a nickel. JT found a job working in a bicycle shop across the street from the snack shack. The only thing that really sticks in my mind about that place was the counter he put outside in back, and using two garbage cans as stools he would serve any black patrons that came by. I got a job selling newspapers on the street. Hardly any money but it kept me busy. |
| The next episode puts us at a farm west of Corsicana. An old man by the name of Calaway owned the farm and being 86 years old needed someone to work the place for him. The story around town was that no one ever stayed with him long enough to bring in a crop. It was said that he was impossible to live with, but my father gave it a try. So, we moved in, papa, mama, JT and I. It would have been the summer of 1937. I know the year because I remember papa coming in from town one day saying that Emelia Earhart was missing on a round the world airplane trip. He brought a newspaper from town that contained the following story. |
| "On July 2, 1937 Amelia Earhart was lost over the Pacific Ocean near Howland Island in her Lockheed Electra KHAQQ. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca had been standing off Howland Island for some days to act as a radio contact for Amelia. Several short transmissions were received by the Itasca with varying signal strengths, but they were unable to get a fix on her location because they were too brief. At 19:30 GMT the following transmission was received from the Electra at maximum strength... "KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you but cannot see you...gas is running low..." At 20:14 GMT the Itasca received the last voice transmission from Amelia giving positioning data. The Itasca continued to transmit on all frequencies until 21:30 hours GMT when they determined that Amelia must have ditched at sea and began to implement search procedures."4 |
| On that date in history we were living on "Old Man Calaway's" farm several miles to the west of Corsicana, Texas. Papa had agreed to help the Old Man farm a few acres of land and share in the crop. The farm was located on a section road between two main highways, about two miles north of one and two miles south of the other. By the end of the summer we all had had as much of "Old Man Calaway" as we could take. He was not the easiest person to get along with. One day he said he would give me a nickel to walk down to the highway, about two miles south of the house, and check the mailbox to see if he had any mail. I started off for the mailbox and returned a couple of hours later having checked and found no mail in the box. When I told him there was no mail he scowled and asked if I looked all the way back into the box. I replied that I had indeed looked all the way to the back, and could I please have my nickel. Whereupon, he said, "I told you I would give you a nickel if there was any mail." He then turned and left me standing with my hand sticking out. Another time he came to me with a bundle of chicken wire all crushed together and tangled. He asked me to untangle it for him and he would give me a nickel. I jumped to the job and a couple hours later I had it all straightened out and rolled up nicely. When I showed him the roll and asked for my nickel he responded, "Oh, I said I would give you a nickel if I could use the wire. I don't have any use for it right now, but if I ever do I will give you a nickel for straightening it out." |
| After harvesting the string beans, cantaloupe, corn, and the like we decided we would be better off not working for "Old Man Calaway." I am sure he stood by the promises made to my father about sharing the crops as he did with me. We packed our stuff in the old trailer and planed to leave the next morning for Coolidge, Texas where my father knew someone that might be able to direct us to some late cotton picking jobs in the area. However, the next morning "Old Man Calaway" insisted on checking through all the stuff we had packed maintaining that he was missing something and wanted to make sure we were not making off with it. So, it was about ten in the morning when we started to pull the trailer down the road to the south highway. We had not moved more that a few feet when JT yelled out, "Wait a minute, someone is coming this way from the north highway. It looks like it might be Jesse." |
| We stopped the car and all got out to see who it was, and it was as JT had said. Jesse and Ola May (Glendene's mother) were walking down from the north road. Jesse was carrying Glendene. They had traveled by bus from Granite, Oklahoma to Corsicana, Texas, then hitchhiked from there to the north road and walked the two miles to the farm. If "Old Man Calaway" had not held us up that morning we would have missed them. What they would have done if that had been the case is anyone's guess. But, it was not meant to be. Now you ask, what does this have to do with the Amelia Earhart story? First it establishes the above in time. It also demonstrates that many things we desperately want to do are just not meant to be. Amelia Earhart's desire to become the first woman to fly around the world was just not meant to be. Many of our own desires fall far short of our plans. No mater how hard we try it seems that the particular task was just not meant to be. In the above paragraph we were not meant to leave "Old Man Calaway's" before Jesse, Ola May, and Glendene arrived. It was just meant to be. |
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