The Dust Bowl
Well this “Blog”
is supposed to cover the same things as my book, and the book covers our lives
in Oklahoma, as well. The Dust Bowl and World War Two really defined my father’s
generation. In the book I cover dad’s time during World War Two pretty well,
but I don’t think it mentions a great deal about the Dust Bowl. Also I was a
little ticked off about Ken Burns story on television about the Dust Bowl
because he seemed to think that in Oklahoma, the Dust Bowl only covered the
Panhandle. TAIN’T SO!
As a child I
remember hearing stories about the Dust Bowl, and we didn’t live in the
Panhandle. Dad would talk about seeing “black clouds” in the distance, and know
he had to hurry and bring the cattle back to the barn.
My parents came
from Tillman County, in Southwestern Oklahoma. I remember once looking at the
census records for Southwestern Oklahoma, and nearly every county in the area
had a population of about 30,000 in 1930, and between about 5,00 to 8,000 in
1940 – county after county after county had lost 2/3rds of its population in a
decade. Many left for California. I have relatives who went to California that I've never met. So do many others. The loss of two thirds of the population included my parents home county, and all the neighboring counties
in both Oklahoma and the neighboring Texas Panhandle.
I remember dad
telling Dust Bowl stories as a child. Some of them included stories of him
saying he had to walk one, or was it two, miles to school barefoot, because he
had no shoes. I have seen a barefoot photo of him in a school photo so I now know those stories were true, although as a child I used to think "sure dad" and didn't take his stories as seriously as I wish I had at the time.
He had to work from the age of six or so, on, for the rest of his
life, because the family needed his efforts to survive. He’d talk about how
there was little food, and about eating nothing but corn bread and pintos for days on
end. He mentioned that they made their own jerkey, cutting up meat and placing
it on the clothes line in the heat of the summer when it was over 100 degrees,
to dry it out. Then later in the year when they needed meat, they’d take some
of that jerkey and a couple of homemade biscuits of or a slice or two of corn
bread, and the family shot gun, take off for the day, and bring back a couple
of cottontails or perhaps something else, and have them skinned, gutted, and ready
for cooking. This was in the 1930s, not the 1830s.
But they weren’t
always that poor. He also talked about them having one or two dozen head of
cattle. Dad would always talk about his pet bull. He’d say he really loved that
bull, saying he raised it from birth, from a calf. If mom heard him talking about it, she’d
get all animated and say that was a mean bull. Dad would smile a little as he
knew what was coming – even I knew, after having heard that story over and
over. They'd argue over that bull a couple of times a year at least, a long as I can remember. She’d say walking to school, they often took a shortcut through the
Hawkins pasture. Dad’s family was the Hawkinses. Mother's Plaster family lived
two farms over, with Dad’s Richey grandparents between the two of them. In fact
great-grandma Josephine (Brown) Richey was also a midwife and she delivered
both my parents, as there being no doctor for ten or 20 miles around, at least. Both my parents were born in 1915, and pretty much no one had cars. Momma would start talking
about how all the kids who took the short cut through the Hawkins pasture would
keep a lookout for Dad’s “pet” bull, terrified that he might spot them. If he
did, he'd come running hard, and as he neared them he'd not slow down
his pace, but would lower his head as if he wanted to ram them, horns first.
Momma said they’d run as fast as they could, and hopefully get on the other side of the
barbed wire fence.
Now
if I’d heard this story 100 times, Dad had heard it a thousand. I also knew
exactly how he’d respond. “Oh, that bull was harmless. I raised it as a calf.
It wasn’t a wild animal – it was a pet. When it was a young calf it was happy
to see me. It would see me coming for a long way off, and come running. When he
got close he’d lower his head because he liked to be scratched between his
horns.” I guess the family realized he’d grown attached to that bull, and kept
him, lucky for the bull. As a calf it wasn’t much to see him come running at
you. Dad always said it was harmless while momma always said that bull terrified
her and the other kids in the neighboring farms. Every so often, for as long as
they both lived, they’d argue about that bull. Dad said he rode that bull when
it was a little calf just like it was a horse, and he continued to ride him
when he grew up.
Dad
also had a dog he called “Coaley”, saying he was called that because he was
black as coal. He said as a child that one day his family was looking for him
and couldn’t find him. They got worried after a while. Where did they eventually find him?
In the dog house, of course – literally. He’d fallen asleep, and he and his dog were
curled up together.
As
a teenager, during the Dust Bowl era, he, his dog Coaley, and his pet bull, a
real “pet” bull -- not a “pit” bull -- would work together to bring the cattle
in. Dad said as a child, each family member had chores to perform, and it was
his job to take care of their cattle, and they usually had a dozen or two head.
In
the heart of the Dust Bowl period, it was dad’s job to look out for the dust
clouds coming. When he’d see what he called “black clouds” of dust at the
horizon, he and Coaley would take off across the fields to the pastureland
where the cattle were. Dad, Coaley, and his bull knew exactly what to do. Dad
would hop on the bull, and ride him bareback just as though it was a horse.
Coaley would stir up the cattlefrom the rear, keeping them together, doing his
part. But their cattle knew to follow the lead of the bull, and and they would follow
him back to the barn. If all went well, they’d have all the cattle back in the
barn before the dust clouds hit. Dad said all the young men wore
bandanas around their necks, and turn them around “outlaw style”, like outlaws
on old westerns movies, covering up their noses so they could breathe better
during the dust storms.
Dad
passed on in 1992, but he never forgot the Dust Bowl era. I can still remember
him talking about Roosevelt and his policies. I remember him saying Roosevelt’s
policies “saved his family from starving to death” – Dad said that and I
remember him saying it! He also said all the farmers were told to change their
methods of farming, which his family did, and gradually the farms became
productive again. For as long as he lived, if we were driving down the road and
he saw a farmer plowing the field on a windy day, he’d talk about it, and say
that farmer shouldn’t be doing that, and then add that modern farmers had
forgotten the lessons they had to learn during the Dust Bowl era.
Oklahoma’s first
Republican Governor ever, Governor Bellman, back in the 60s sometime,
popularized the term “Okie”. That made Dad furious. It didn’t take Dad much of
an excuse for finding fault with anything a Republican did, but this was just
beyond the pale. Dad said when he was young, “to be called an Okie was fightin’
words. The Okies moved to California – it was Oklahomans who remained put.”
Well, that’s how he saw it.
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/m/mu014.html
http://www.waterburyobserver.org/node/1643
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/m/mu014.html
http://www.waterburyobserver.org/node/1643
And
he had a couple of stories about Oklahoma’s greatest governor, too. In his eyes
that was our governor during the Dust Bowl, Governor “Alfalfa Bill” Murray. Dad
told stories of “The Red River Bridge War”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_Bridge_War
Texas built a bridge over Red River, they charged a toll to cross it. Well, this got Gov. Murray fired up. He sent the Oklahoma National Guard down there, used bulldozers to tear up the Texas side of the bridge, and left our National Guard troops there to keep the Texas National Guard from rebuilding it. Although there are ten Texans for every Oklahoman, one Oklahoman is worth about ten Texans, so it would have been an even fight. But it never came to that. The Supreme Court sided with Oklahoma, as the southern bank of Red River is the border between the two states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_Bridge_War
Texas built a bridge over Red River, they charged a toll to cross it. Well, this got Gov. Murray fired up. He sent the Oklahoma National Guard down there, used bulldozers to tear up the Texas side of the bridge, and left our National Guard troops there to keep the Texas National Guard from rebuilding it. Although there are ten Texans for every Oklahoman, one Oklahoman is worth about ten Texans, so it would have been an even fight. But it never came to that. The Supreme Court sided with Oklahoma, as the southern bank of Red River is the border between the two states.
Now I know Texan’s are proud of saying “don’t mess with Texas” – that’s just
to try to keep their courage up in the event they come across an Oklahoman. They know they’ll
need it. So ESPN commentators and others, if you are a little afraid to mess with Texas, I understand, it's okay. Leave it to the pro's -- we'll protect you. Just
realize that “rule” doesn’t apply to Oklahomans. We're capable, and we know what we’re doin’. :)
Dad
had another story about Gov. Murray. There is a story about him that a lady
came to his office to visit him, and she was crying. He turned his back to her.
He was in a swivel chair and all she could see was the back of his chair. But
she went on telling the story of how their family had lost their farm to the
bank or whatever it was, I really don’t know but that happened time and again,
so this is a likely scenario. I remember dad telling this story and that he was
quite fond of it. Well she kept on telling the story. Remember there was no
safety net in those days, no Social Security or help for the poor and needy. People
who had no food simply starved to death. She thought he was just ignoring her,
but she kept on telling her story of how her family became poor and homeless. He
never said a thing in response, or asked her a question. It was said eventually
he turned his chair so it was facing her, and it was said there were tears in
his eyes, and he helped her as much as it was possible for a governor, in those
times.Above is a photo of Gov. "Alfalfa Bill" Murray. There was one last story about Gov. Murray dad told. While Gov. Murray was running for office, Dad said he came to the county seat of dad’s home county – Tillman, the town of Frederick. One merchant in downtown Frederick started to chiding him, nagging and heckling him. Dad said the two men got into a fist fight right then and there, with Murray, not a big man himself, whipping the larger merchant. I think Dad saw it, but I might be wrong about that.
I
remember dad saying one time everyone heard about a meeting to be held in
someone’s barn. Apparently officials of some sort, heard about it. I don’t know
if this meeting ever took place or not, but supposedly the organizers were thrown in jail, and it turned out this
meeting organized by Communist agitators. Yup, someone was trying to organize a
Communist Party in rural Southwestern Oklahoma back in the 1930s. Now it never
got anywhere, and I don’t think the people back then really knew how deceitful
the Communists would turn out to be, but it did happen, and it happened right here.
Modern
day Oklahoman’s have forgotten many of these things, and need to be reminded of
what their grandparents thought and the way they felt. There are things that
aren’t in the history books. So many people are busy trying to rewrite history.
The fact is that our grandparents were proud to have set up a safety net for
the hungry and the needy. They thought that to be good Christians, this was
their duty. I remember what Dad thought about these things. Today all Christian organizations care about are concerns rich people have, and that's a shame. It's like a modern generation grew up that has forgotten the ways of their fathers.
Now where have I heard that before?
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ps -- those were just "friendly" jabs at Texas -- I have many relatives down there -- please don't take it seriously.
That reminds me of another story. Dad served in the Army Artillery during WW2. He used to say his best friend was this guy named "Thompson" -- don't recall his first name. He was from San Antonio. Dad said when they first met he said somesomehting about Oklahoma Dad didn't like, and Dad responded by saying something in kind, about Texas. well before long they got in a fist fight. Later in the war though, they became best friends. Dad said he was permitted to say jokes about Texas, and his buddy was allowed to talk about Oklahoma -- but nobody else was allowed that freedom! If anyone insulted Texas, Dad had Thompson's back, and if anyone called Dad an "Okie" or something worse, Thompson had his back. As I said, originally the term "Okie" was offensive to Oklahomans. But I think everyone has forgotten about that, now. They went through the war together, from Schoefield barracks on Oahu in 1940, through the Pearl Harbor attack, as cadre stateside (both became Drill Sargeants), then on to Europe, arriving about the time his brother (who was in the First Army) was killed in July 1944 near St. Lo, Normandy. Dad and Thompson were in the 3rd Army with Patton, through the Battle of the Bulge, and into Germany.
Photo is, Dad said, him and his buddy, Thompson, taken at Schoefield Barracks, Oaho, Hawaii, before the Pearl Harbor attack. Dad is the one throwing the punch, Thompson is rearing back, about to do the same. They were just joking around for the camera.
That was another breed of man. They don't make them like that any more.
ps 2 -- As a result of this blog I went and read up a little about Murray. It said some disturbing things about him that I didn't know. I read he was a racist. I didn''t know that when I first wrote that up. It read he tried to get the same Jim Crow laws passed in Oklahoma that were in the Deep Southern States and was NOT successful. But we DID have some of those laws -- just not as many. I also have a friend who said when the grayhound bus passed over Red River and entered Texas, the bus driver stopped, there was a chain 2/3rds of the way back, that had "Colored" written on it, and if there were any Negroes onboard, they had to go to the back of the bus at that point. So we weren't as bad as Texas. But there were race riots in Tulsa in the 1920s, so we were probably not that much better either.
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ps -- those were just "friendly" jabs at Texas -- I have many relatives down there -- please don't take it seriously.
That reminds me of another story. Dad served in the Army Artillery during WW2. He used to say his best friend was this guy named "Thompson" -- don't recall his first name. He was from San Antonio. Dad said when they first met he said somesomehting about Oklahoma Dad didn't like, and Dad responded by saying something in kind, about Texas. well before long they got in a fist fight. Later in the war though, they became best friends. Dad said he was permitted to say jokes about Texas, and his buddy was allowed to talk about Oklahoma -- but nobody else was allowed that freedom! If anyone insulted Texas, Dad had Thompson's back, and if anyone called Dad an "Okie" or something worse, Thompson had his back. As I said, originally the term "Okie" was offensive to Oklahomans. But I think everyone has forgotten about that, now. They went through the war together, from Schoefield barracks on Oahu in 1940, through the Pearl Harbor attack, as cadre stateside (both became Drill Sargeants), then on to Europe, arriving about the time his brother (who was in the First Army) was killed in July 1944 near St. Lo, Normandy. Dad and Thompson were in the 3rd Army with Patton, through the Battle of the Bulge, and into Germany.Photo is, Dad said, him and his buddy, Thompson, taken at Schoefield Barracks, Oaho, Hawaii, before the Pearl Harbor attack. Dad is the one throwing the punch, Thompson is rearing back, about to do the same. They were just joking around for the camera.
That was another breed of man. They don't make them like that any more.
ps 2 -- As a result of this blog I went and read up a little about Murray. It said some disturbing things about him that I didn't know. I read he was a racist. I didn''t know that when I first wrote that up. It read he tried to get the same Jim Crow laws passed in Oklahoma that were in the Deep Southern States and was NOT successful. But we DID have some of those laws -- just not as many. I also have a friend who said when the grayhound bus passed over Red River and entered Texas, the bus driver stopped, there was a chain 2/3rds of the way back, that had "Colored" written on it, and if there were any Negroes onboard, they had to go to the back of the bus at that point. So we weren't as bad as Texas. But there were race riots in Tulsa in the 1920s, so we were probably not that much better either.
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