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Post by joebill on Dec 17, 2021 22:26:59 GMT
When we were growing up in the 50's, both of our parents had a strong belief that we should see and experience as wide a swath of the country as practical, which was a bit unusual for the time and place where we were living. We were not international travelers by any means, but it seemed like we were the only kids in school who ever got very far out of town, let alone the state.
Chiefly, we took two weeks plus two weekends yearly as Dad's vacations came around and mostly toured the south, always camping in an umbrella tent that Dad had bought used from a surplus store, and back then there were plenty of state campgrounds to be had, plus some just plain old wild and wooly sections of woods and rivers that others had used for camping that we never did know who owned them, but nobody ever objected.
Some other long weekends and stuff we got together with a family we knew in St. Louis and wandered around some VERY rural areas they knew about and just had fishing trips and woodsy adventures in general.
Some of our friends and their parents were downright puzzled why in the world we took offf at every opportunity and "pretended like we did not own a house", but "tourist cabins" and hotels were expensive, and the folks wanted us to see as much country as possible while we were young. I think this mostly grew from the fact that they both had a lot of travel under their belts as young adults, and valued the experiences.
Dad had left school after 7th grade for a short stint in the WPA, and then on to the CCC's where he got to travel from Indiana to CALIFORNIA and help create the Big Sur national forest! They were building roads and bridges, cabins for the boys and staff, fighting forest fires amongst the redwoods, and, surprisingly to me, part of the adult staff was dedicated to teaching those boys things they would need to know as men, including self defense, moral values, driving a truck AND a horse, things their Dads were not able to teach them from 1000 miles distant. He told stories about the CCC's for the rest of his life, many of them real adventures, and came to know things that nobody else seemed to know just from that experience.
Early on, he achieved some "rank" as company carpenter because he could drive a nail AND read, write, understand a mechanical drawing and build what was drawn. It demonstrated to him that a bit of knowledge was not only power, but also was money early in life.
Later, he WALKED a circuit between Pocahontas Arkansas, Terre Haute Indiana and central Illinois during the depression to keep himself in work. He walked because guys who rode the rails "missed out on too much work and money along the way."
Mom, on the other hand, might have been just as happy never leaving home until she got an opportunity to see the country free of charge. She had been working ina a garment factory and helping to support the family until a family she was friendly with invited her to tour the country, coast to coast. Reverend Calderwood was some high-up official in the Methodist Church and he and his wife were to take a trip and check in and give some sort of help and direction to churches and ministers nation wide, and Mom was invited along to help with youth ministry as I understand it, so it was an all expense paid tour of the nation that lasted....I dunno how long...but sounded like a year or so.
It began in central Illinois, went East to the coast of maine, down and up several cycles and ended in California, this during an era when there were hardly any road maps and not much in the way of roads. She said when they hit a town and wanted to know how to get to the next town mostly if the REA had already been through they knew to follow the power lines, but if not, they just had to keep asking until somebody knew.
She also had a collection of stories and personalities she had encountered and cherished the remainder of her life, and passed on to us, her kids. She said it was the experience of a lifetime.
All of that inspiration did not seem to affect my sister much, but here we are, 1600 miles from our launch point, having lived in a dozen or more places since we married, most of them located at least 50 miles from the nearest traffic light. Our own kids are widely scattered, too, so that old wanderlust must run in the blood.......Joe
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Post by joebill on Dec 18, 2021 3:21:14 GMT
I'll throw in, randomly from time to time, some of Dad's remembrances from that time, since his were mostly about events and Mom's were mostly about people, which I could not properly relate.... As he was walking from state to state and picking up work along the way, from time to time he would encounter a large hill in a pasture that had not been there the last time he passed that way.....and a few months later it would be gone again. He was curious until he finally saw one of the hills in the making. The federals would come in and buy a farmer's cattle, carve out a giant hole in the ground with horses and slip shovels, shoot them and dump them in, cover them up. Soon, they began bloating and raising a hill in the pasture where none had been before, and in time that process would reverse itself, pasture would be flat again. Partial explanation follows; livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/crops_17.htmlI think they also did some of that for diseased cattle, too, but primarily it was government tampering with markets. I know from extensive reading about those times that 25% of the children in Chicago's schools were suffering from malnutrition at the same time as farmers were dumping huge quantities of milk in the ditches to try and support prices. I asked Dad where he slept when he was on the road seeking work, and he said if nobody much was traveling and the weather permitted, he would just crawl in a hedge row or find a patch of trees to sleep in, but if the roads were full of "hobos" or folks that made him uneasy, he often would try to get a night's "lodging" in the local jail, where he felt quite safe and usually could get a free breakfast of one kind or another. He said the local cop could often find him a few hours or days work once he got acquainted. Back to the CCC's, the boys were clothed with military surplus uniforms from world war one, and as often as not, in the pockets they would find little notes written by the girls/ladies who sewed and packed them all of those years previous. Some were only good wishes and claims that the ladies would be praying for those doughboys, and of course others were the mailing addresses and offers to correspond, as well as offers to meet in the distant future "when the war is behind us". Keep in mind that WW1 was, once again, the "war to end ALL wars" Well, I may or may not keep this up depending on when and if the well runs dry and on how it reads in the light of day when I am rested and better able to judge it....G'night.....Joe
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Post by meandtk on Dec 18, 2021 19:42:01 GMT
Good stuff! Keep it coming.
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Post by Ozarks Tom on Dec 19, 2021 16:56:08 GMT
I envy the "family time" you were able to spend, and the telling of stories. None of that in my upbringing.
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Post by wildhorseluvr on Dec 19, 2021 17:14:18 GMT
I envy the "family time" you were able to spend, and the telling of stories. None of that in my upbringing. But you can start new traditions in your family, unless they’re not interested in hearing them. You might be surprised, especially if the stories come about while working with someone or during mealtimes. I know you have many interesting stories you could pass on to others, even if not family at all. Don’t have to be feel good stories either, all are of value to future generations. I have a couple kids who aren’t interested in family history. A couple are, and a few of the grandkids. I suspect some might become interested when they’re a little older. When DGD and I work together or go out for lunch, I share stories on occasion. Some are happy memories, some are major mistakes I made and I tell her so she can learn from the good and hopefully not repeat some of my poorer choices. *Even with adult “children” it’s never too late to learn!
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Post by Ozarks Tom on Dec 19, 2021 18:19:12 GMT
wildhorseluvr , Not to throw Joe's thread, which I'm enjoying immensely off kilter, but to your suggestion, that'a more than a little difficult. I don't have any children, just two older sisters who would cross the street rather than speak to me. Long story. Our family was a bit strange, in that I more of less just wandered in and out, sort of doing my own thing without much notice. The few old family stories I have were the product my paternal grandparents who lived hundreds of miles away, and visited rarely. I've lived what most people would consider a "colorful" life, but those stories pretty much stop with me.
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Post by wildhorseluvr on Dec 19, 2021 20:12:18 GMT
wildhorseluvr , Not to throw Joe's thread, which I'm enjoying immensely off kilter, but to your suggestion, that'a more than a little difficult. I don't have any children, just two older sisters who would cross the street rather than speak to me. Long story. Our family was a bit strange, in that I more of less just wandered in and out, sort of doing my own thing without much notice. The few old family stories I have were the product my paternal grandparents who lived hundreds of miles away, and visited rarely. I've lived what most people would consider a "colorful" life, but those stories pretty much stop with me. Strange families seem to be more common than not, even the supposedly best families have their black sheep…or turn a family member into a black sheep. Sharing every R-rated detail isn’t necessary or wise. But relating how various experiences shaped your life and how you overcame some of the bad experiences can be life changing to someone going through a rough time. Doesn’t have to be your own family you share with, plenty of others out there who need to hear it. Seems like God sends them along when the time is right.
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Post by Cabin Fever on Dec 19, 2021 20:27:23 GMT
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Post by UseLess on Dec 19, 2021 21:22:31 GMT
Cabinfever, however in the world did you come by all those CCC pics? I can't read the state locations on the first two, but I see that the latter two are NYS's Adirondacks. The state parks all around my region have so many wonderful constructs: wooden and stone buildings and cabins, retaining walls, bridges.
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Post by Cabin Fever on Dec 19, 2021 22:02:26 GMT
Cabinfever, however in the world did you come by all those CCC pics? I can't read the state locations on the first two, but I see that the latter two are NYS's Adirondacks. The state parks all around my region have so many wonderful constructs: wooden and stone buildings and cabins, retaining walls, bridges. I've been collecting these for years. I watch for them on Ebay. There are several for sale on Ebay right now. There were 1000's of CCC camps in the US back in the day. Many of the buildings and structures in Minnesota state parks were built by the CCC.
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Post by joebill on Dec 21, 2021 22:46:47 GMT
After Dad was promoted to "company carpenter", he was brought in off of other jobs by some officers and told he was to build a bridge. He figured it was a foot bridge or maybe something to drive a horse and cart across, but they had the plans laying there, and come to find out, it was a BRIDGE! It had masonry footings, was to span a big old gorge and carry trucks hauling logs across the gorge. He began wondering if he had "hung his shingle too high" as he put it, but the officers seemed unphased by his lack of assurance. Told him to choose a crew of several other boys and start cutting and snaking logs to the site and gathering rocks for the footings. He put some of the lads to digging and got the job started. I asked him how his "pucker" was when he watched the first loaded truck pass over the bridge, and he said it was about as tight as possible, but he had found out shortly before that that the engineers had been going down and inspecting the job daily after he and the other boys left for chow In the course of his work there, he also became a pretty good rock mason, although I rarely saw any of that work he had done. NOT that many rocks to build with in Illinois, but he told me you could tell a really good rock mason from a beginner easily, because the accomplished ones only picked up each rock a single time, after they had eyeballed the rock and the space where it would go and knew for sure it would fit. I did a little of that work, and it is true. I nearly wore the corners off of my rocks early on, and they all seemed to be triangular, which is the very worst kind of rock to build with. He also said they found some kind of large boat had been scuttled in the mouth of a creek, apparently to block other boats from going up the creek, and hung out with an old geezer who lived nearby and claimed he had sold off a huge chunk of the property the park was being built on to the government, and was waiting for his money to come in....a million dollars! Some time later, he dropped by to see the old guy, who claimed his money had arrived, and they should go to town and celebrate, which sounded GREAT to Dad. They rode into town, went into the soda fountain and the old guy bought not one but TWO rounds of strawberry soda pop each, and they went back to the woods, having celebrated to the limits of the old guy's imagination. Dad said he was sure that if the old man was still alive he was still living in that one room cabin on the small parcel of land he had retained when he sold off the rest of it. Said the guy was prone to shooting and cooking up any neighborhood cats that dropped by his place.... Earlier on, when he was working for the WPA, he was a water boy on a road construction crew, and the water boy had other jobs besides that one. Every evening when the men knocked off work, he had to gather up all of the tools and hide them back in the brush someplace to prevent locals from stealing them, and he had to be up and fed early so he could drag all of the tools out to the job site while the men ate breakfast. As I sent my kids off to school and got reports back, I was pretty amazed at how much things had changed. Today, if your kid gets in a fight in school, it is big trouble, but when I was in grade school, boys fought during recess and lunch hour as a matter of course.....just the way it was! More of an athletic contest back then than any kind of hatred or anger mjost of the time, and Dads taught their sons how to do it properly. Every so often as the years crept by, Dad would inquire as to how many of my classmates I could whip, and I recall one time I told him I could whip most of them but was no so sure about Danny Phillips.....and he told me it was about time I found out, then . It was asssumed back then that your sons would be going to war, and the better they could fight and shoot the better chance they had of surviving it......Joe
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Post by joebill on Dec 22, 2021 6:44:19 GMT
My maternal grandfather somehow came out well over 6 feet tall in his adulthood, and a superb specimen of a man, with excellent health, life long. There just might have been some cause for that that would not have been recognized at the time. When HIS father married his Mother, his Dad apparently knew just what he wanted and needed and what he had no particular use for, because inside of a few months, great grandma showed up pregnant and he more or less "took her back for a refund", claiming he certainly had no use for a baby and did not want one anywhere around him.
In the meantime, great Grandma's mother had passed away, and great grandaddy had remarried....a girl somewhere near his daughter's age, who had also managed to get herself in a "fambly way" already!
Well, "the girls" managed to both give birth only days apart and work themselves out a life together until Grandad was old enough to be tolerated in his Daddy's house, which meant he had to be out of diapers and able to speak clearly....and prob'ly do his share of the work, too.
In the meantime, "the girls" shared the workload equally between themselves, including alternately nursing both boys, and in that way I have to assume each lad got a double dose of colostrum....the magic stuff that passes on the various immunities from Mom to child. Grandad got those immunities from two different women with two different histories and records of ailments.
When he was 93 YOA, he sat on our sofa, sick as a dog, and consented to seeing a doctor if one would come to his house, and if not, said he would just curl up and die, which he seemed to prefer. He said if Mom could get "doc Jimsick" to come to his house, he would see him, but that doc had been dead for 35 years, so he finally settled on the new doc in town, a immigrant from Poland.
Doc showed up and paid him a visit, diagnosed him with the flu and asked him various questions about his eating and sleeping habits, etc. Asked him when the last time he saw a doc was, and he figured it had been around 40 years. He asked the doc if he was doing right by his body, and the doc told him if he had not seen a doc for 40 years at age 93, the doc would not presume to tell him anything he needed to change.
Some time later, he quit waking up in the morning, just went to sleep and stayed asleep. I saw him in the hospital once, and that was that.
He was born in the era of the war between the states, lived to read about the sputnic, told me that the air in Saint Louis was unfit to breathe because it was full of coal smoke, horse apples and flies, and he was involved in a racial battle on a bridge over the Mississippi where stevedores fought to the death over who would unload the barges on the river.
They threw a black man over the rail to his death, and he said he was finished. NO job was worth killing a man over.
Another small cog in the mechanism of history......Joe
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Post by joebill on Dec 22, 2021 6:57:45 GMT
Next up, my OTHER great grandaddy was John Henry. No, he was not black and as far as I know never drove any steel spikes, but there was John Henry and John Henry Jr. and people have been asking after him my entire life, UNTIL I tell them the truth about him....Joe
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Post by joebill on Dec 22, 2021 18:00:35 GMT
When I was standing in line in my skivvies at the induction center in St. Louis, in the process of failing the physical for the military, some chief petty officer came down the line shouting my last name at the top of his lungs, and I figured I was in trouble again over something, but I stepped forwards and said "HERE"!
He began grilling me about my paternal great grandfather, where he came from and what happened to him, and I simply had to tell him that I had no idea about any of that stuff, and he walked away mad, which was OK with me. Made me wonder if great geepaw was a draft dodger or what, and what they expected to do about it at this late date, and then, of course, I just forgot about it until I got back home and decided to ask the folks.
That was the point at which Mom began assembling a lot of old photos and documents that had been stuffed in drawers and feeding rodents for decades. She also had a trunk full of old stuff from HER recently deceased father and other family members, and slowly the stories started coming to light about both sides of the family. I didn't think I would be very interested at first, and never did get into the minute details, but some of the stories give faces to those who came before, and I found them to be interesting.
There were no photos of John Henry (great grandfather, paternal), but there was a photo of a long line of people, one holding an infant, and in true form for the times, nobody was smiling. Turns out that the infant was my Dad, and the woman holding him was my great grandmother, and most of the rest of the crowd were her ELEVEN CHILDREN that her husband had left her with in Terre Haute Indiana when he ran off with a prostitute and headed west.
That cattle call in the induction center was only the beginning. For most of my life, people have either driven up in front of my various houses and knocked on the door or called me on the phone, wanting to know about John Henry, where he came from, where he went, who were his parents and what other children he had and what happened to THEM. Whole pages in various family-tracing web sites have been dedicated to him, and every so many years a fresh generation of his descendants will show up asking the same questions. You see, he seemed to have left the midwest heading west and just kept right on leaving "deposits" as he traveled throughout the decades, and I dunno if he ever made the west coast, but he left plenty of pockets of folks who bear his last name all of the way through Arizona, at least.
I was contacted by one of Tucson's biggest slum-lords, a car dealership owner, various others who hardly introduced themselves but demanded answers anyhow, and I told each and every one of them the truth as I knew it, and each and every one of them allowed as how it was impossible that they were related to a scum bag who would desert multiple families and just keep breeding more of them. I finally established a standard response which I still use from time to time when questioned online about old John Henry, which is "We dunno where he came from and we dunnno where he went, but we dang sure know what he was doing along the way!" and that is almost all I know about John Henry, except one story told by his son, my grandfather. He said he was playing in the yard as a small boy and a hobo came from the railroad tracks and knocked on the door wanting a handout....something to eat.
He said his Mother told the guy she had nothing fixed, but would make him a jelly sandwich to tide him over until he could find a full meal down the tracks someplace, and the guy accepted.....but later in the day, John Henry rode into the yard on a mule from wherever he had spent the morning and jerked the front door open, asked her if she had given "the boy", meaning my grandad, a sandwich, and she told him the only sandwich she had made that morning had gone to a hobo who dropped by. He established which way the hobo had gone and grabbed the shotgun and took off after him on the mule. It seems he had taken a single bite from the sandwich and threw it on the ground.
John Henry chased the guy down over a period of an hour or two, walked him at gunpoint back to the house, made him pick up the sandwich and finish eating it, then let him go. "waste not, want not".....Joe
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Post by joebill on Dec 23, 2021 5:29:47 GMT
My uncle Joe that I was named for was a steam engine man. His full name was Joseph Abraham Young and his brother was named Abraham Joseph Young, and their Dad gave them each a choice between a steam threshing machine and a high school education to start them off in life.
Joe chose the threshing machine and never expressed any regrets that I heard about and Abe chose the education and seemed to be equally satisfied, and Joe told me on numerous occasions that "if you have never throttled any steam, you have not yet lived" and so I still look forwards to doing that if it is ever possible.
Something like this might be the answer;
I had a number of other uncles, both by marriage and by blood, and at least two were buried as infants by the light of the moon in or near Long Point Illinois cemetery without benefit of clergy because there was simply no money and no time nor any lumber nor tools.
Families CAN come back from times like those, though. NO condition is permanent unless one gives up hope.....Joe
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