TRANSCRIPTION
How big was this farm?
That farm is about 120 acres
What did you plant on the farm?
Cotton, Corn, Onions, Sorghum Almum, Cane
What was your chore growing up?
Milk cows two times a day, rain or sunny, hot or cold.
Did you buy our make you cloths?
Mamma made most of them. The thing about is that we always wore handy downs. In those days cloths lasted they didn't go for style they went for lasting. There was an overcoat that went though all three of us and where it come from I didn't know. That is what happed we didn't throw anything away. I still don't, if my not going to us it I try to give it away.
What types of cloths did you wear?
Overalls or coveralls. One year we got a pair of tenny-shoes and man that was big stuff.
What was it like growing up?
The only entertainment we had is what we had our self. Whatever it was.
What was one simple pleasure when you where growing up?
playing baseball
Who was your favorite baseball player?
Well in those days we didn’t have major league stuff, we didn’t have a radio, my only favorite baseball player came up when we had TV. We did know about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and those guys, but only by pictures that we would see every seldom, but playing baseball was it. Playing baseball and softball that followed me up here.
What position did you play?
In baseball I played shortstop and lefted field. In softball I played mainly pitcher, but not all the time. I played for the city league here in town.(Floresville)
What did your parents do?
Momma took care of the house and cooked. She would help in the field sometimes. When it was time to come home for dinner she would go outside and wave a white dish towel. Which would tell us it was time to come in and eat.
How did you parents save money?
There wasn’t any to save. When come to Christmas for present and stuff like that. When you live on a farm you don’t have a job, you have what you get in form the crop, you sell hogs, turkey, eggs, whatever you got on the farm if there is onions you sale onions, but they only come once a year and your lucky to sale them. That is how you get your money you didn’t get it monthly you get it at one time. Most of the time then we owed the groceries store a bunch of money, because they let us have credit for groceries. When we got a crop in we paid them. That is the way it was back then. We sold calves, cows and cotton, corn, and stuff like that is how we got our money. That is how we existed. It was hard, but yet it was fun because we didn’t know any different form now days. Now days you have electricity, running water, toilet paper, back in those days you used whatever was available.
Did you have an outhouse?
Yes, and a big catalog. We tear out pages and do your thing. If you were up in the field or some place like that. You had to go you had to find a stick to do your thing with.
Where did you get your water from?
From the well we had a cistern out there by the windmill. Went out there with a bucket and got it and we dipped that out put it in a pot and heat it. Cook with it and go get some more.
What about washing cloths?
The water that we had at the house was hard water it didn’t soak good. So we always went to the place that we used to live with a sled. The had two, two by fours nailed together and we put a 55 gal. barrel maybe two on it. Drag that over to the neighbors which was about a mile and a half. We would take it over with mules. We filled it up with that water because it was soft. That was every Thursday and Friday was wash day. So we would put the soft water in the kettle and bring that to a boil. She would wash dirt cloths first. Then cut up pieces of soap and add bluing. Then stir the pot. Then we hung the cloths up on the lien to sun dry. There we no dryers to dry your cloths. The good lord would dry your cloths.
How did you make homemade soap?
We made that out of tallow, lye , hot water, and soda. Then you put the ingredients it in a cast-iron pot, make it like you would make grave, you keep stirring it all the time. Then it got to an certain texture. When it got to that certain texture you take it away from the fire to cool off. In a day or so you take a big knife and cut in pieces. Then scope it out to let it dry. We use that for washing and bathing. Every once in a while we get what we called city soap or whatever it was, it was like bread. Sometimes we would call it bacon bread and we’d eat it like nothing. We got it from the bakery.
How was bath time?
Well we took a bath at least ones a week. We took it in a washtub. Mother would heat the water on the stove and carry it out to the smokehouse then put it in the tub then we would put cold water in it to make it warm. We get in there and use our home made soap. Well we didn’t change water every bodied mostly bathe in the same water. between the smokehouse and the house part of it was dirt and the other part was rocks that you could step on. When you go out of the bathtub you tried to find a place to walk were you didn’t get dirt on your feet and when you get to the house you rinse it all off.
How offend did you go to town?
Not to offend, sometimes every Saturday if we’d have transportation. If we had to go to town in the wagons and mules we wouldn’t go every offend and there was a lot of times that the car wouldn’t go. You had a car? sometime an old Nash and that sucker played out. Daddy traded an cow and a calve for that old car. And sometime it would run and sometimes it wouldn’t. We had a mechanic that didn’t live to far from us and he would try to keep it going as much as possible. And one year we had a good crop. We had a lot of corn and onions that brought good money. So we brought a1928 Ford . A green ford with yellow wheel. we got it down in Kennedy. And man we were big stuff that was a 28 and the year was about 36. So the car was are ready eight years old, but it was new to us. Boy did we keep that thing washed and polished we took care of it. Before that we didn’t go to town every offend. If your need flour we had a big 50 pound sack. Daddy would buy, if we could, afford it, he would buy a salt belly. Momma would scrap off the salt and put it in a pot and boil it. And we would us it for beans. In the winter time we’d butcher and we’d had cured meat. We wouldn’t have to buy meat. So we really didn’t suffer we always had something to eat. We had eggs, chickens, a lot of rabbits, doves, quail, ducks. We got hungry sometimes and we’d go to bed with chocolate and donuts or bread.
What about church?
We went to church every Sunday. I made my first communion atSacred Heart Church . We had catechism outside under a cider tree. We went to holy week. Us boy sometimes went during the week in a wagon. After mass people would gather in the front and talk. That was the only time that people had time to talk. On Sunday we would go to church mass the 8:oo mass. We would stop by the Smith drugstore. Daddy would always get a paper. The Sunday paper for ten cents and we would get an ice cream a double dipped. On Sunday that druggist would put a little bit in the middle. After we did all that we went do the icehouse to get a block of ice a 50 pound block of ice and take that home. We wrapped it up and chip some of for lemonade. Then we wrapped it up good and bury in the cottonseed in the barn so it didn’t melt. At night we would mike the cows and we’d come in the house and make our own milkshakes. We us fresh milk, vanilla, and sugar and man it was good and rich. On Monday if we had a little chuck left mama would put it in a bunch of lemonade and bought in out to the fields. We’d sit under a shade tree and eat a sandwich and drink our cool lemonade. That was it for the other six days. About that milk, we had Jerseys and they have the richest milk. We’d put in the crock and let set over night. It would have that much cream on top. We’d would skim the top off and put that in to a bowl. If we got enough of it we churned it and made butter. That anther good thing. We put salt in it and stir it up. If you want something good us that for fried eggs. that is big time good, there is nothing taken out of it everything is in there.
did you go to school?
Well I went to the county school. All the way first grade to the eight grade. If you made the eight grade you were big time. The next school was called city school. You had to go to town to graduate from the high school and high school was to the eleventh grade at that time. They didn’t have no buses or transportation to go to school. me and another were the only ones to graduate form the eight grade. Most of the children we they get 14 or 15 they quit school to work on a farm. Which made a lot of scent because education didn’t mean a whole lot. As long as you know how to write, spell, and your multiplication tables, reading, and stuff like that. You’d be ok more or less. But daddy didn’t think that was right, god bless his soul, his say "ya’ll are going to finish." I graduate and my brothers graduate from the eight grade. My sister and brother the twins after we left for the war they were still in school and daddy couldn’t work the farm any more so they moved to town. That enable them to go to high school and they graduate that is the only ones that graduate for the eleventh grade in our family. The rest of us graduate from the eight grade but we new algebra, reading, writing, and stuff like that. I am a big believer in education and my daddy was that like. Then when I grow up I could understand what that where trying to teach us. We where just coming up harder then what they our now, but you can’t feel sorry any body because we had fun in our own way. We didn’t know any different.
When you were a little kid did you have any little crushes on girls?
Yeah sure, Well there was only two of them. And one of them though I was it. She was flirting with me with everything she had. One was Lucy Stobs she was ok, but the main one was Evelyn Snyder. I didn’t run with any of them I had baseball and basketball on my mind. Any way us boys were out there playing basketball. We were going to enter the county meet and we had to make our own goal. We were out there putting thing together. Franky and Odis and the teacher was in the school doing grades. Any way those girls come out there and they were yak’n. I told one of them you know what, I was talken to the other guy. I punched him in the arm. We need a sky hook. He say yeah that’s what we need. I asked the girls if they could go in to the school room and behind the bookcase there is the sky hook and if you don’t see it there ask the teacher. The took off they run up there they come back, I forgot what they sad. But any what they told the teacher that Erwin and Franky wanted a sky hook. Of course it hit him right between the eyes to, he new what was up. He said "Did they say where it was?" "Yes, behind the bookcase." "Well go a head and look" Did they say what it looked like?" she said "You can hardy see it." Of course he had to explain it to them that there was no such a thing as a sky hook. That’s when it hit the fan.
What was one memory that stick out?
there was quite a few thing that I was proud of. I guess the best was when we won the county meet championship in softball and I had a lot to do with it. I was pitcher and catcher and we won a blue ribbon. That stands out even to day. There was another one that I proud of because my daddy was so proud of it. He was worked with a neighbor build an house which wasn’t to far from a low swamp lake. It was in February and I could see these ducks coming from the cost. They where migrating, going north. The cloud was hug. There was thousands and thousands of them. They landed on the swamp. So I unhitch the mules and told mammy that I was going to go get some ducks. That was about an mile I guess to cross the field. I got down there and sneaked up on them, we had broom weeds. I went down the road and I got close enough to where they were in rang. I put the gun in between the weeds and I lined them up. Then boom and another boom and ducks there fallen e every where. I got eight of them in those two shots. Daddy was help’n the neighbor and they found one of them. So I took the ducks by the neck and put the gun on my shoulder. I walked go home and I was tired. Then I hitched up the mules and went back to plant’n. And mamma said "what ma I going to do with all this?" I acted like I didn’t hear her, but any way she always kept the feather. She would make pillow case and feather beds.
How did the Great Depression make you into the man that you are?
I couldn’t thank the good lord enough for the way that I rised up because it made me tuff. Now things that happen to day I could see come’n all long time ago. When we had the cold or flue the first thing mother would give us was a dose of castor oil, but that in it self made us a lot better without even knowing it. Any ways it was tuff you could see that we didn’t have hardly any shoes, because they would go out of size in no time and clothes and a big o’ straw hat and the world was ours. We would go hunting, make a sling shot.
