I was (and have always been)
value conscious; Twila says my first question about any article was, “How much
does it cost?” “Easy come, easy go” was
a foreign concept; “hard to get, hard to spend,” was more like it. “A penny saved is a penny earned” has never
been just a proverb to me.
That
something is priced “40% off” has never impressed me; the “60% on” is the
important number. Along that line, I
contend that one can seldom save money by buying, unless the item one buys will
increase in value before its disposition, enabling the buyer to have gained
purchasing power (i.e., investing).
I could be tempted to spend, however; my
first major financial venture involved the purchase of an air rifle:
·
My desire for
the rifle was triggered by an advertisement I saw at the back of a comic book
when I was eight or nine years old; my attention was grabbed by the Daisy air
rifle pictured and described – a Buck Jones pump action model selling for
$2.74.
·
I wanted the
gun badly, so decided I would try to come up with money with which to purchase
it. I “earned” the $2.74 five and ten
cents at a time, over a period of months, primarily by performing small tasks
for relatives (e.g., shelling corn for Papa Grammer).
·
I finally accumulated
the $2.74 and bought the rifle, but found I couldn’t cock it with one hand; I
had to hold the butt of the stock against my upper leg (approximately at the
hip joint), then use both hands to operate the pump action.
·
The rifle was
worth all the time I spent saving the money with which to buy it; I shot
thousands of BBs. Perhaps I should say
I shot dozens of BBs dozens of times, for my dad devised a recycling system for
target practice, tacking paper “bull’s-eyes” to a wooden box; I periodically
emptied the box of accumulated BBs, then reused them.
One of my less-profitable efforts at earning money was cotton picking;
Twila says she and I picked cotton for one cent per pound. At that rate of pay I’m surprised she didn’t
become as value conscious as I, for she says she made only twenty-six cents.
Mother
made our cotton sacks, of canvas-like ducking, just like those used by
grownups, but smaller. I doubt if
Twila’s twenty-six cent earnings would have paid for her sack, even at low
ducking costs of the time.
Discussion of money matters during the years of the Great Depression
reminds me of price wars in Fort Worth between Leonard’s and Mrs. Baird’s bakeries; prices dropped as low as three cents
per loaf at the depth of the depression.
Leonard’s established a six-loaf limit per purchaser, in an apparent
attempt to prevent other retailers from buying their bread for resale, keeping
the supply available to more folks at lowest prices.
◊◊◊
Even though our family had little extra money, we never suffered
nutritionally during the deep depression times of the thirties. I’ve noted that we had chicken and pork (and
sometimes beef) for protein, plenty of milk, and vitamins abounded in the
fruits and vegetables we raised.
Some in the community weren’t as fortunate, relying on federal “relief”
programs for assistance. Trash
piles disclosed whether or not a family was “on relief,” for some
federally-supplied commodities were packed in cans of the shape and size of
old-time coffee cans – about three and one-half to four inches tall, and maybe
six inches in diameter; standard cans were taller and narrower, so the
difference was obvious.
The NRA
(National Recovery Act) authorized federal “Relief” programs. Such governmental action wasn’t known as
“welfare” until President Lyndon
Johnson’s Great Society program to fight the war on poverty was enacted in the
‘60s.
Some government aid programs weren’t as
logical as distribution of commodities to needy families. For example, farmers were paid to destroy
hogs and plow crops under, and at one point potatoes were purchased by the
government and dumped into the ocean; such activities kept farmers in business,
but fed no hungry people.
◊◊◊
Never having much money during
our Acton years, my parents found ways to get things done at little cost:
·
Mother made underwear
and dresses for herself and Twila, plus shirts, ties, pants and underwear for
my dad and me.
·
My dad
“dry-cleaned” his wool clothing in gasoline (he said commercial dry cleaners
used naptha, but gasoline was cheaper and more accessible); he “steam-pressed”
woolen garments by placing a damp cloth between a heated flat iron and the item
to be pressed.
·
My dad
overhauled the engine in our Model A Ford.
I noted earlier that he attended an auto mechanics’ school before he
became a tile setter.
·
My hair was
cut at home, by my dad, using hand-powered clippers – a process I disliked, for
the slow-moving cutters grabbed and pulled hairs if either of us moved.
My
dad received tonsorial care, at twenty-five cents per trip, at a Granbury
barbershop. Mr. Jack Caskey was one of
two barbers in the shop; Twila and I called him “Jack Haircut,” although not in
his presence. Mr. Caskey called Twila
“Redtop” (in her
presence) – an appellation she didn’t appreciate.
My
hair wasn’t easily controllable; cowlicks caused segments to point in all
directions. Virgil called me “Skeezix,” after the
“Gasoline Alley” comic strip character whose hair splayed in multiple
directions from his cowlick. (I tried wearing
a skullcap at night, but it had little or no effect.)
“Recreation” wasn’t a familiar expression in depression-era farm life;
I doubt that I even knew the word. Kids
played, but adults did little except work, eat, and sleep through the week,
then attend church, eat a nice dinner, and grab an afternoon nap on Sundays.
Young men of the community sometimes played baseball on warm Sunday
afternoons. My dad participated in
those games until he was hit by a pitched ball and sustained a fractured
wrist. He never played baseball again,
possibly because he felt he was past playing age (he was around thirty), or he
may have decided Sunday afternoon baseball wasn’t a proper Lord’s Day activity.
Sunday
afternoon baseball may have been deemed acceptable by the community, but work
of the weekday variety wasn’t, and no one (including those who didn’t attend
church) worked on Sundays – until Mr. Snider bought a farm adjoining Papa
Grammer’s and did the same things on Sundays as he did on weekdays. My mother, seeing Mr. Snider plowing as we
returned home from Sunday Bible study and worship activities, wasn’t
appreciative of his violation of the fourth commandment.
My dad enjoyed fishing, although he had relatively few piscatorial opportunities;
I remember two ventures involving the whole family:
·
A combination camping/fishing trip to a place near
DeCordova Bend, south of Acton on the
Brazos River, included our family and several relatives. We all went to the river one afternoon,
where my dad and the other men seined and fished; we had a fish fry, then
camped overnight. (The spot where we
camped and fished is now under water; low lying areas became lake bed when Lake
Granbury was formed by construction of a dam at – or near – DeCordova
Bend.)
·
We started one afternoon toward a fishing hole on Rucker’s
Creek, northwest of Acton near
the Waples community. Our car’s
engine died shortly before we reached the creek, and couldn’t be
restarted. My dad walked several miles
to Papa Miller’s place, borrowed his Model T, came back and, if I remember
correctly, towed our Model A to Granbury with the Model T. The problem wasn’t major; new points and a
condenser got the engine running again, but the trouble ended our fishing trip.
Twila and I enjoyed swimming more than fishing. Walnut Creek had a nice swimming hole just south of the Acton cemetery. Twila recalls being scared half to death when
Harris Hall (Mother’s cousin whom I discussed earlier) threw us into the
creek; she couldn’t swim. I don’t
remember the event, so I must not have been quite as terrified as she, although
I couldn’t swim either.
I spent considerable time around
the Goforth & Grammer Grocery,
which Virgil and Ruth operated in partnership with Papa Grammer. Interesting things sometimes happened:
·
Things got too interesting when Mr. Tucker, the owner of a competing
store across the road from Goforth &
Grammer, came
across and started a fight with a man who had been in G & G; I was astounded, for I’d never seen grown men at
fisticuffs or any other form of combat. I don’t remember hearing any talk between the
two men, but, in a discussion of the event many years later, Virgil said the
man in the fight with Mr. Tucker was a former customer of Tucker’s Grocery, and still owed money there. Mr. Tucker thought the customer should pay
off his prior indebtedness before patronizing a competitor. Sounds like he had a point. But fisticuffs?
·
My mispronunciation of the word “gypsy” provided Ruth and
Virgil with a laugh at my expense. I
didn’t know what a gypsy was, but knew a familiar comic strip’s punch line,
“It’s the gypsy in me,” was used as an excuse for one’s
actions or behavior. So, when asked why
I had done a certain (probably dumb) thing, I replied, “I guess it’s just the
‘gipes’ in me;” I pronounced the word to rhyme with “pipes” – or as “gripes”
without the “r.” Thereafter, when I
said or did something less-than-intelligent, Ruth and Virgil would comment, “I
suppose it’s just the ‘gipes’ in you.”
(Later, when the Denny Dimwit comic strip came along, I was called “Denny”
when I acted less than “bright.”)
·
We all got a laugh out of Twila shortly after she saw a
customer’s eight-passenger Packard sedan parked out front. She was impressed by its roominess (jump
seats between the front and rear bench seats) and remembered the brand name,
for she later told us she wanted a Ford Packard.
Goforth & Grammer sold Gulf gasoline, regular grade only, manually
pumped. A customer needing fuel would
tell the number of gallons wanted, whereupon the attendant (sometimes Twila or
me) pumped the gas into a glass tank (with gallon markings from one to ten on
its side) at the top of the pump fixture, then let it drain by gravity into the
automobile tank. Pumping was a back and
forth lateral motion; small people, such as we were, had to use both hands to
operate the pump lever. Gasoline cost
ten cents per gallon. [Acton people
also used lots of kerosene (or coal oil, as most folks called it); everyone had
kerosene lamps, some burned kerosene in portable heaters, and a few homes had
kerosene cook stoves. The tank from
which the store sold kerosene was above ground; the gasoline storage tank was
below ground.]
Numerous farmers gathered at the courthouse square in Granbury on Saturday afternoons to discuss weather, commodities prices, and
other matters of common interest, but my dad and granddads didn’t participate
in those “spit and whittle” gatherings.
Our family never went to “town” (Granbury) just to be going (as many
county residents did), but from time to time we’d go for shopping and/or
entertainment. My dad took me to a few
Saturday matinee movies; I liked “Tailspin Tommy” and western serials (“horse
operas”).
We saw weeknight movies as a family on a
few occasions. “David Copperfield” came
to town, so we went, presumably in honor of author Charles Dickens; I remember
buttons popping from the dress of one character as a result of her great pride
in David’s accomplishments, but recall nothing else about the story, perhaps
because I hadn’t yet read the book.
Twila says we also saw (1) comedies starring Joe E. Lewis and (2) a
Shirley Temple movie, but I don’t recall having seen any of those performances
– although I was well aware of Shirley’s stardom, and spoke of her as my girl
friend.
◊◊◊
I enjoyed Granbury’s annual “Old Settlers’ Reunion.” Numerous folks who had been a part of the
development of Granbury and Hood County were still alive in the ‘30s, but I doubt that any resident was
the first recorded owner of the land upon which he lived. Regardless, the reunion was a big event each
year.
The reunion grounds covered the top of a small hill at the northeast
edge of town. The tabernacle and a tool
shed were the only things visible most of the year, but at reunion time the
grounds were covered with people, concession stands, and thrill rides; the
Ferris wheel could be seen from miles around.
Reunion programming included music and speeches under the
tabernacle. I sat with the adults
during those performances, but my interest was really outside, where more
interesting things were happening:
·
Midway rides were the greatest attraction. Though tame compared to thrill rides one
sees nowadays, they were exciting enough for farmbound kids.
·
A snake handler walked through the crowds with one or more
reptiles wrapped around his neck and head; he even put their heads in his
mouth.
·
Some features were promotional, a fact I didn’t realize at
the time. One year the Chrysler
Corporation provided an outdoor “movie” promoting the 1936 Plymouth.
◊◊◊
Less enjoyable trips to Granbury (for me) occurred on election nights, when people gathered at the
courthouse to see election results posted.
Twila remembers the election of Texas Governor James V. Allred (1934); I
don’t remember election night itself, but I recall his campaign posters tacked
to telephone poles.
The
first governor to whom I paid any attention was W. Lee “Pappy” O'Daniel, sales manager in
the early ‘30s at Burrus Mills, a Fort Worth manufacturer of flour and other
grain products, who later in the ‘30s owned his own mill, producing “Hillbilly
Flour.” He and his country and western group
popularized (on radio) a song titled, “Please pass the biscuits, Pappy!” His music and a promised old age pension
system seemed to be major factors in effecting his election to the governorship
in 1938; perhaps “Please pass the biscuits, Pappy!” was a subtle suggestion
that as governor he would fill the stomachs of his constituency. He is reported to have said during the
campaign that he didn’t know whether or not he would be elected, but the
campaign surely had been good for his business.
I
didn’t hear his daily radio broadcasts while we lived at Acton, but he
continued Sunday broadcasts when he became governor (after we moved). His Sunday broadcasts opened with the song,
“Beautiful, Beautiful Texas:.”
You’ve all heard the beautiful stories/Of the countries far over the
sea,
From whence came our ancestors/To establish this land of the free.
There are some folks who still like to travel/To see what they have
over there,
But when they go look it’s not like the book/And they find there is
none to compare, to
Beautiful, beautiful Texas/Where the beautiful bluebonnets grow,
We’re proud of our forefathers/Who died at the Alamo.
You can live on the plains or the mountains/Or down where the sea
breezes blow,
And you’ll still be in beautiful Texas/The most beautiful state that I
know.
You can travel on beautiful highways/By the city, the village and farm,
Or sail above on the skyways/And the beauty below you will charm.
White cotton, green forests, blue rivers/Golden wheat fields and fruit
trees that bear,
You will look to doomsday/And then you will say, oh
Beautiful, beautiful Texas/Where the beautiful bluebonnets grow,
We’re proud of our forefathers/Who died at the Alamo.
You can live on the plains or the mountains/Or down where the sea
breezes blow,
And you’ll still be in beautiful Texas/The most beautiful state that I
know.
[I
should confess my inability (as I started writing this) to remember all the
words and the order in which they were presented, so I’ve copied them from an
Internet website.]
◊◊◊
“Pappy” O’Daniel and his “Hillbilly Flour” had several contemporary Fort Worth
manufacturers of grain products who helped enhance my awareness of things
outside Acton:
·
We saw Bewley
Mills' "Chuck Wagon Gang" (originally the Carter Quartet, composed of
three Carter siblings and their father, introducing themselves as Rose, Anna,
Dad, and Jim) at least once; Bewley's traveling chuck wagon and the Gang
visited towns all over North Texas, promoting Bewley's Best Flour. The chef cooked while the Gang sang, then
served hot buttered biscuits to assembled crowds. Bewley Mills also sponsored the Chuck Wagon Gang's daily radio
show, which featured western and gospel music; they came on the air singing,
"Bewley Mills is here again/Singing a song for growing men/Full of pep as
we can be/And as you see/We eat the bread that Mother bakes/Biscuits, pastries,
pies, and cakes/From east to west, ahead of the rest/It's Bewley's Best…And
Anchor feeds."
·
Burrus Mills
produced Light Crust flour and sponsored a daily radio show featuring the
"Light Crust Doughboys," another popular western music group. All I remember from their show was the
introduction, "The Lightcrust Doughboys are on the air!" followed by
their theme song.
·
American
Beauty flour sponsored a fifteen-minute broadcast of gospel music by the Stamps
Quartet (Walter Rippetoe, Bob Arnold, Bob Bacon, and Frank Stamps - with Marion
Snider at the piano) on KRLD radio at noon on weekdays. The Stamps came on the air singing the
chorus of an old gospel song, "Give the world a smile each day/Helping
someone on life's way/From the fields of sin bring the wand'rers in/To the
Master's fold today/Help to cheer the lone and sad/Help to make some pilgrim
glad/Let your life so be that all the world may see/The joy of serving Jesus
with a smile…A bright, sunny smile."
The significance of all those
country/western/gospel music broadcasts sponsored by flour manufacturers
escaped me at the time, but I eventually realized there were thousands of North
Central Texas housewives baking millions of biscuits and other goodies for hungry
husbands and children – and each sponsor was hungry for a greater share of the
market.
I
heard few, if any, of the above broadcasts while we lived in Acton, for we had
no radio at our house, but I listened to them regularly in later years.
◊◊◊
Even though I’ve often said we lived so far
out in the sticks that Sunday didn’t reach Acton until Tuesday, I wasn’t
unaware of things going on in the “outside” world (e.g., the deaths of Wiley
Post and Will Rogers in
an Alaskan air crash or the escapades of “Bonnie and Clyde” – Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow).
Bonnie and Clyde were Texans, but we had
Texans gone wrong even closer to home, when Bird Tracy, together with Max Cash, robbed a Hill City
country store, killing a young storekeeper in the process; Bird grew up at Fall
Creek and attended church and school at Acton, but got in with the wrong crowd
and spent several years in the state penitentiary as a result of his
waywardness.
[I
didn’t know the identity of the Hill City robbery/murder victim until after I
began these writings, when Mrs. Virgie Holmes, a friend in Tolar, told me the
murdered young man was Thomas Holmes, brother of her
late husband, Alvis Holmes. Thomas was
only eighteen, and his expectant wife gave birth to a son two weeks after his
death.]
Bird Tracy’s life wasn’t a total waste, for
he became a minister after being released from prison, and pastored in the
Texas Panhandle. My uncle, Virgil
Goforth, told me some years ago that Bird had visited with him after having
become a pastor. Virgil may also have
told me Thomas Holmes was the Hill City murder victim, but if so, the fact
didn’t register, for I hadn’t known him.
◊◊◊
Perhaps the most impressive evidence of a greater world than I had
yet seen was displayed in the sky over Acton one summer evening shortly before
dark, when a dirigible of
the type then being used to cross the Atlantic flew close enough over our farm
that we could see lights in the windows of the passenger cabin.
Commercial
lighter-than-air passenger transportation was discontinued after the fiery
demise of the Hindenburg, a Graf Zeppelin, at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6,
1937 (while attempting to dock at the end of a trans-Atlantic flight);
thirty-six people were killed. Blimps,
such as those seen nowadays over sporting events, resemble the dirigibles of
the ‘30s, but are much smaller; the Hindenburg was over eight hundred feet
long.]
Most trips away from home had serious
(usually business) purposes. However,
even business trips could be enjoyable to a kid; for example, I liked going
with my dad to deliver livestock to the Fort Worth stockyards.
One
stockyard trip involved the sale of a calf I’d been given by our pastor,
Brother Leland Turner; his milk cow had given
birth to the critter, but having no place to keep a calf, he gave it to
me. I fed the baby calf with milk given
by Alice, our cow; when he was old enough to forage for himself, we put him on
Papa Grammer’s “prairie place,” at a cost to me of fifty
cents per month for grazing rights. Then, when my elders deemed the calf ready for market, he was
sold at the stockyards; after paying for grazing I netted thirteen dollars – a
veritable fortune to me.
Our whole family occasionally traveled the 35 miles to Fort Worth –
usually for shopping, but sometimes to see a doctor or take in some special
event. We went to Fort Worth one Sunday
afternoon to hear Gypsy Smith, the evangelist, at Will Rogers Colisium. Another trip, on which Ruth and Virgil
accompanied us, lasted until late evening, because we saw a show at the
Majestic, the largest and nicest
theater in town at that time; it had been built in the days of vaudeville, so
had a stage, as well as a screen. Both
live entertainment and a movie were presented the evening we attended; I have
no idea what we saw, but I’m sure my parents, aunt, and uncle enjoyed the
attractions.
◊◊◊
As a small child, I particularly enjoyed Christmas shopping trips and
the opportunity to tell Santa Claus what I wanted. On shopping ventures during my younger years Mother held my hand
as we made our way through the larger stores.
One day in Leonard’s she turned loose for a minute, and I didn’t notice
when she moved along. Then, when I
reached for her hand, I found myself taking that of a lady of much darker
persuasion; panic gripped me before I saw Mother and ran to her.
◊◊◊
My dad’s oldest sister’s family (Stella and John Woollard, plus Dean, their daughter) operated
what would be known today as a “convenience store” on Vickery Boulevard a few
blocks east of South Riverside Drive in Fort Worth’s Polytechnic area; they
filled short orders (e.g., hamburgers) at an eating counter in the northwest
corner of the store and carried a limited line of groceries and related items;
their living quarters were in the same building. I always looked forward to visiting them.
Dean, ten years older than I,
the oldest of my three cousins, had the ability to make one feel he was the
most important person ever, so was well-liked by all; she retained her “bubbly”
personality right through the last time I saw her, a year or two before her
death in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s.
Stella and
John were both musicians and had a player piano, the first I’d ever seen or
heard. John had been a gospel musician
and singing school conductor in his younger years; he and Stella met when she
played the piano for one of his singing schools. He also wrote music; I have an old gospel songbook with one of
his compositions in it. He left his
career in gospel music when his employer, the Sing Music Company, moved
from Dallas to Memphis.
John died while they lived/worked on Vickery Boulevard. Our family attended the memorial service at Harveson
and Cole Funeral Home in Fort Worth, then joined the procession from Fort
Worth to his burial place near Hamilton, where he grew up. Rain fell all day, and some of the cars “got
stuck” in the mud of one of the back-country roads traversed; my dad helped
“unstick” them, with consequent mussing of his “Sunday best” clothing.
Stella married again a few years later, to Perry Hutchison, a first
cousin (the son of Aunt Penny, one of Mama Miller’s sisters). They lived near Lipan (in Hood County) for a
time, then moved to a place west of Mineral Wells on the Brazos River. After Cousin/Uncle Perry’s death, Stella
moved back to Fort Worth, to live with Dean and her husband (Curtis Harris) until her death at age 88.
At some
point during the early years of her second marriage Stella acquired and rebuilt an old pump organ. She took the organ with her when she moved to Dean’s place. My family (after I’d grown up, married, and
had children) visited her occasionally at both Mineral Wells and Fort Worth (too infrequently,
unfortunately); we always wound up gathering around the organ, which she played
as we sang gospel music.
◊◊◊
Texas observed the Centennial of its independence in 1936.
Fort Worth and Dallas each produced summer-long exhibitions. Fort Worth’s exhibition, at the Will Rogers auditorium
and coliseum area, majored on entertainment; the Dallas offering, put on at its
fairgrounds, was more culturally oriented.
Fort Worth and Dallas have always been
competitive; that both produced Centennial Expositions, even though the two
cities are only thirty miles apart, evidenced their competitiveness. Dallas folks tended to think of Fort Worth people
as country bumpkins; Dallas was eastern/cultured/sophisticated – while Fort
Worth was “Cowtown,” “where the west
began.” Their rivalry was sometimes
humorous; for example, Fort Worth folks jokingly exhorted each other to be sure
to flush their commodes, because Dallas needed the water (Dallas is downstream
on the Trinity River).
Our family spent a day at the Dallas exposition, which was located at
the fairgrounds. I was most impressed
by the Ford exhibit (during which
two men completely assembled a V-8 engine in seven minutes) and the Cavalcade of Texas, a
presentation of highlights of a hundred years of Texas history. The curtain between Cavalcade acts was liquid;
colored spotlights shining on and through water spray prevented viewers in the
stands from watching scene changes.
That “centennial trip” was my only visit to the Dallas
fairgrounds as a child; we never went to the State Fair itself. Nor did we ever
attend Fort Worth’s annual Fat Stock Show.
My first visit to the State Fair was as an adult, in the mid-‘50s, when
my family went with a family of Arkansans who had moved to Texas; I’ve never
visited the Fat Stock Show.