I remember the Forties - Stories for my Grandchildren

While going through one of my mother's notebooks, I found this list. I wrote it; I'm not sure when, and I'm not sure why, but Mother had it and saved it. There are some things that probably won't make sense to you, but I'm going to publish it like I wrote it.

• A black cat named "Soot"
• A Cocker Spaniel named "Susie"
•  Being butted off a log by a goat named "Sweet Pea"
• A stove that had a model T coil "pilot light"
•  A Mangle that was also the family note-board
•  A wringer-type washing machine that would grab your hand if you weren't careful
•  A water tank up on a tower in our back yard
• A girlfriend named Marilyn, but she moved away
• Sitting in the car, listening to war news on the radio
• We drove a "four door sit-down"
• Visiting Uncle Marvin and Aunt Polly, playing at the stock tank, getting raw peanuts to roast
• Visiting Uncle Benny and Aunt Lou Amma, making corn-husk boats, "divining" for water, playing "I dropped my dolly" on their piano
• Playing Chinese checkers with Grandmother Bramblett -  until I won
• A trip to Lake Caddo to visit relatives, sleeping on the pool table
•  A cowboy outfit for Christmas
•  A bicycle with a little front wheel and a basket so big in front I could stand in it
• Learning to ride my Daddy's bicycle that was so big I couldn't sit on the seat - even with the pedals  blocked up
• My brother's Cushman motor scooter, and the night it arrived
• Margarine with the yellow dots that you squeezed for color
• Tablets that you added to sugar water to make "maple syrup"
• Walking to a garden plot close to our house
• Losing my favorite toy car in the plowed furrows of Mr. Webber's garden behind his house
• Gathering up all the discarded Christmas trees and building forts; then having a big bonfire with them
• Getting my head busted by Ida Jo Waller and getting stitches
• Swimming lessons at the YMCA- 
• Reading every Bobbsey Twins book in the Public Library
•  Daddy making a crystal radio that really worked
• Rushing to Tatum's grocery to buy Bubblegum when some came in
• Charging groceries at Minchew's little store
• Playing kick-the-can on summer nights
• Mr. & Mrs. Morrison next door, and Fred and Mary Baker the next house over
• The dancing Popeye puppet that Fred Baker made for me
• His dog Rusty, riding in the back of his pickup
• Swinging off of our garage on a rope tied to a tree next to the Kingston's
• The world's largest comic book collection, housed in Danny Webber's room out back
• The Jewel T man - one of the purchases was a pitcher in the shape of a pig. An ice cube often appeared to be its tongue sticking out
• Running away from home - until Mother passed me in the car going somewhere
• Ladies quilting in the basement of the church
• Lemon meringue pie when the visiting preacher came to Sunday dinner
• Not understanding why my sister was crying if she was so happy

Monday Meanderings - 3.25.2013

Walked out of Silver's Gym the other day and found these sitting near the doorway. The only thing I can figure out is that someone was trying to make off with some weights and they fell out of their pocket.

We were rudely wakened the other morning by what sounded like people banging on the roof with baseball bats. Turned out to be only a little hail. There doesn't appear to be any damage, but it sure was noisy!

We've done our spring planting for the year, combined with the annual transfer of the house plants to the patio. Looks a little bare inside at the moment. We reduced the tomato plantings by 1/3; only two plants this year. That is in keeping with our efforts to reduce our workload and heavy demands on our time.

Couldn't help but but think it ironical that a band named "Pillage and Plunder" had their gear stolen during SXSW.

March Madness -  in addition to mind-numbing around-the-clock basketball - has launched a bunch of new TV commercials. Sort of a mini-Super Bowl.

You can't make this stuff up, folks. According to a piece in this week's Chronicle, the latest in a series by the local Vortex Performing Arts center will be a multidisciplinary show performed in 17 tons of dirt, with performers singing, dancing and telling stories of the Earth.

And McDonald's has a dress code. Who knew?

A small family mystery - Stories from the Family Tree

My grandmother Anderson's brother, Lester Starnes - one of the two siblings born in White Salmon, Washington - returned with the family to Texas, and was with them in Indian Territory in Oklahoma about 1905. I posted about that family here. Apparently Lester stayed behind when the family moved on, because in the 1910 census he was married to a Cherokee woman named Mary Payne.

Mary and her father Louis Payne, along with her brothers and sisters, Emma (age 25, Frank (age 17), Albert (age 12), and Fred (age 4) are already living in the Territory in the 1900 census. Mary was 11 at the time. Interestingly, her father and older sister Emma are listed in the census as "white," while Mary and the rest of the children are listed as "7/8 Cherokee." This suggests that either Mary was not Louis' daughter by birth, or that  the census-taker was clueless. Take your pick.

Nevertheless, about 1907, Mary and Lester married and took up housekeeping in Park Hill, Oklahoma, the center of the Cherokee nation, in a state that had just joined the Union. Mary's brother Frank, along with Lester's brother Archie were living with them at that time. Lester and Mary had four children: Frank (born about 1908), Gene Eudora (born in 1911 in House, Quay County, New Mexico), Bertha (born about 1913) and Nancy Ann (born about 1917).

At first, I thought the New Mexico location might have come about because Lester's parents lived in that state briefly and possibly Lester and Mary joined them there. However, I discovered that Gene Eudora was born on a train as they traveled across New Mexico, probably on their way to California. House, New Mexico was simply the town they were closest to!

Little is known about Lester's family after that until the 1920 Census, when we find the children, Frank, Eudora, Bertha and Nancy Ann listed as "inmates" in the David and Margaret Home for Children in San Dimas, California. This institution had been established by the Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church as an orphanage only ten years prior, and it's still in business, though as a group home for adolescent girls in modern times.

What happened to Mary? There's no trace. What about Dad? As far as we know, he was in California at this time, along with his mother and several other siblings, and we can only speculate as to why his children were in an orphanage. There is a family story that Mary became mentally ill, and Lester simply could not care for four children and work for a living, but there's nothing to substantiate that.

We do know that Gene - the name she preferred - married a man named Harold Jack Piatt, had a son Larry and lived in the Los Angeles area until her death in 1985, at the age of 74. I tracked down the son, still in California,  but missed the opportunity to talk to him by mere days; Larry L Piatt passed away Saturday, February 16, 2013.

We also know that Bertha, according to a note in the family records, was "Killed in a motorcycle accident."

We know that Nancy Ann, according to another note in the family history, was “Adopted by Los Angeles family.”

And we know that Frank remained in California and died at age 71 in San Luis Obispo. It is possible that  the Frank Starnes listed as a lodger in the 1940 Los Angeles census, employed as a sheet metal worker, is "our Frank." Maybe, maybe not.

Almost nothing more is known about Lester - the family evidently lost contact with him, or he with them. There is a possibility that he lived in California until his death in 1971, at 82 years of age. But there is another version of the story that's more interesting.

In the 1980's, Virgil, the brother that took off to Canada with his dad, got a tip that a man living in British Columbia near him might be the long-lost Lester. Virgil and Marien visited him, and while many aspects of the conversation suggested otherwise, the man denied being the brother. In spite of his denial, Virgil and Marien came away convinced that he was the brother. Their conclusion was that Lester had lied about his age when he signed up for the Canadian retirement system, and was afraid that if he 'fessed up about being the lost brother it might get him in trouble with the authorities.

So how did Lester and Mary's kids end up in an orphanage, and what actually became of Mary and  Lester? It likely will always be a small family mystery.

Monday Meanderings - 3.18.2013

What we have long suspected was confirmed in a TV news interview the other night; people who come to SXSW tend to stay here. A realtor said the period immediately following South By (as we insiders call it) is one of the busiest of the year for home sales to people relocating to Austin.

 Here's a popular tee shirt making the rounds; the smaller print says, "I hear Dallas is great." You can understand the attraction - the weather is perfect, there's a party on every corner, famous people are everywhere, all the bands in the world are here (and you can hear most of them for free) and if you play your cards right there's free booze, BBQ and swag everywhere. What's not to like? Maybe they should hold SXSW in August. Yeah, that would do it.

Usually the panhandler's signs say things like "Any thing helps" and "49 cents shy of a cheeseburger," but Barb and I have noticed a trend toward longer, autobiographical signs. She saw one that gave a detailed history of how that person ended up on the street - replete with things like "wife left, lost house, lived under Congress Ave bridge until cops chased me out, VA stopped sending checks...." and on and on. Far too much info to read at one light change. I saw a guy holding a billboard sized sign: "All the musicians have come to SXSW to show the world how good they are, but I don't have the time or the $$$ to indulge....." and that's all I had time for. Seriously considered driving around the block just to read the 2nd half.

We're going to have to train a new waitperson at Chuy's. That's the problem with establishing relationships with your server; we are in it for the long haul. Our mantra is we were here before you came, we'll be here after you leave -  they are in it only until something better comes along. Courtney left to go to mortuary school (!); Virginia stopped to have a baby and never came back; Angie left for a classier place (as if!), so hello, Delia, fresh from Mexico. The first thing we have to teach you is that when we say "limes," that means lemon verde. 

This will mean something to only a very small portion of you, faithful readers: I was sitting in the doctor's office, and the nurse called out the name "Sparkle." After a young woman went in an older gent across from me said,  "Do you suppose her name is Sparkle Plenty?" I said, "You and I are the only ones around who know who that is." Do you remember Sparkle Plenty? No, I didn't think so.

Speaking of doctor's offices, my allergist has placed a Keurig coffee device in his waiting room. Since you have to wait around for a half-hour after getting an allergy shot, I think that's a great idea. Free coffee, free WIFI. All that's missing are muffins and cookies. Why do I think the doc's fees are going to go up soon?

And the games are afoot. Conference playoffs have begun, leading up to full-blown March Madness. Happy, Happy, Happy. Texas men had a dismal season; they are going to have front row seats - at home in front of the TV for the first time in 15 years. The UT women were only moderately better; they might get an NIT bid.

We have enjoyed a lovely Spring Break here in Austin; slept late, ate at some of our favorite places, successfully avoided the crowds, read some good books, got in some quality patio time, even a nap or two. I think we'll do it again next week.

Peace

The knee

It's a hotly contested basketball game; the players are battling it out under the basket, the crowd is cheering for the home team. You see a player drive toward the basket, plant the foot to turn and shoot, and crumple to the floor. The piercing scream transcends the roar of the crowd, and suddenly that is the only sound you can hear. Everyone else has gone absolutely silent, knowing that, once again, they have witnessed an athlete "blow out" a knee. The dreaded torn ACL.

Barb and I have been court-side for this injury a half-dozen or more times, and we saw it again last Tuesday night. Jess Harlee, a key member of the West Virginia women's basketball team, untouched by any other player, made a move that her anterior cruciate ligament could not withstand, and became another statistic. Everyone around her knew immediately what had happened; Karen Astin, the Texas coach, began at once frantically calling for the West Virginia trainers and medical staff. Players turned away with that stricken look - that "there but for the grace..." look.

Barb and I have seen so many of these injuries - too many - primarily because we follow women's basketball. Female players have four times as many ACL tears as male athletes. Some say it is the physiology of the female knee; others say other things. In the period from 1985 to 1992, ten Texas women basketball players tore the ligament. A huge amount of study and effort went into the cause and prevention of knee injuries by the University, and since 1992 there have been only three. But they still happen.

There's as much psychological trauma to the player as there is physical injury. Every athlete knows that an ACL tear means as much as a year-long period of healing and rehabilitation. Seasons - even careers - end on the floor beneath the basket. Some are inconsolable; one night in Regional play we saw a young woman from Louisiana Tech fall to the floor. She wouldn't let anyone touch her except Leon Barmore, the coach. He ended up carrying her off the court to receive medical help.

In 2010, the men of the West Virginia Mountaineers had reached the Final Four after defeating the 1-seed and tournament favorite Kentucky, in large part because of the playing of Da'Sean Butler. Late in the second half Butler was driving hard to the basket and the left knee gave way as he planted. I posted back then, and I'll repeat it here - I have never been as impressed with a coach as I was with Bob Huggins, down on the floor consoling his injured star.

Monday Meanderings - 3.11.13

I just noticed that today's date is a palindrome. It's the same backwards as forward. Of course that only works in the short form, as above. In the short form, 3.1.13 was also palindromic, as was yesterday, 3.10.2013, in the longer form. When is the next one, in any form?  Not for a while.

The clunking compressor on our refrigerator finally drove us to the appliance store in search of a replacement. In addition to the wonka-wonka-wonka, it seemed to be running almost continuously, so we now have a new fridge. I'll be glad when we get used to the different, but clunk-free noise that it makes. And, like we found when we replaced the washer and dryer, appliances are bigger these days. Had to hunt to find one that fit our space.

Oh, and a note to the salesman in Sears that began the conversation with a strong-arm pitch for the extended warranty before showing us any units - even after I repeatedly told you I was not buying a warranty. Did you notice that you didn't make the sale?

Went to a party this weekend where there was a DJ, with his lap-top music machine and all the trimmings. Have to confess that we seldom go to parties where there is a DJ. In fact, this was a first. Not sure why there was a DJ at this party, since it was primarily a BBQ dinner. I guess it was in keeping with SXSW.

This is the time of year that we start looking for Bluebonnets, and we scored the first sighting on Thursday. Just a few, but it's early.

Got a 50th Anniversary packet in the mail from ACU, complete with a map of the campus, since there have been a few changes since I was a student, and a parking pass, that entitles me to look for a space in any of the public lots. Funny, they used to have these things during homecoming.

I forgot to include in last week's list of activities taking place in Austin these days, the 50th anniversary convention of the American Atheist Association. Madelyn Murray O'Hare was making a lot of waves when we first moved here. One of my favorite stories was when, during an interview, she told the group that "They should be able to read the handwriting on the wall."

The Passport - Stories from the family tree

 Barb's grandfather, Ray Mordella Brown, or perhaps Mordella Ray Brown (there is official documentation for either sequence; for that matter, his name sometimes appears spelled Mordello instead of  Mordella), a gentleman who was living when I married into the family, had a secret.

Well, I'm sure some in the immediate family knew, but of all the stories told by and about grandaddy Brown - and there were a lot of stories - neither Barb nor her brother nor her sister ever heard that as a young man Ray left his family behind in Texas and hopped a ship to live in Guatemala for a year. Or did he?

I came upon this mystery while engaged in a favorite pastime, digging through ancestral records on the Internet. A few weeks ago, I found a passport application that Ray Brown filed in late August, 1920 at the New Orleans Passport Office. The stated purpose of the document was to allow Ray passage to Guatemala for a period of a year, where he was to be employed by the Standard Fruit Company as a railroad engineer.

In August, 1920, Ray is three months short of his 29th birthday. He has a wife and two boys, ages 8 and 3 1/2 back in Pleasanton, Texas and in less than 6 months his wife will give birth to Walter Allen, my wife's father. So the first question is, why on earth is Ray headed to Central America?

WWI had ended just a few years earlier, and by 1920 and 1921 the country was in what most termed a depression. Ray had been driving trains for the San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf Railroad, based out of Pleasanton, The S.A.U. & G. had fallen on hard times and in 1917 had filed for bankruptcy. Like every other US railroad, the S.A.U. & G. was taken over by the federal government on January 1, 1918. It was returned to the bankruptcy receiver in February of 1920, still broke and now without government subsidy. Ray was in all probability out of a job.

Since Ray couldn't come up with a birth certificate, it was necessary for him to go up to San Antonio early in August and get his father, George T. Brown, also a railroad man, to prepare a sworn statement that Ray was born in the US of A, in 1891. He also got two other individuals, John Starr and  J. L. Ginn to vouch for him, swearing that Ray "...is a loyal American citizen and worthy of consideration." Affidavits in hand, he set out for New Orleans.

In addition to the statements vetting Ray, there is a letter in the file from the Assistant to the Vice President of the Standard Fruit Company addressed to the Secretary of State of the United States, the Hon. Bainbridge Colby, urging quick action, as a Mr. M. R. Keller, General Superintendent of Railway Lines in Guatemala,  had already hired Ray to drive locomotives for their company, and they needed him to set sail to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala as soon as he could! The passport was to be hand delivered to the New Orleans offices of Standard Fruit, in order to expedite things.

Standard Fruit (which became Standard Fruit and Steamship Company, which became Dole Food Company) apparently had some clout; Ray made application August 21 and the passport was issued August 25th. Try that today.

But did Ray actually set sail to Puerto Barrios? That's the big question. No one in this branch of the family has ever heard a whisper that he spent a year in Guatemala. We know he lived in Mexico as a boy. We know he began a 50-year career in railroading as a fireman for the National Lines of Mexico at age 15. We heard the stories about having to carry a rifle in the cab during those days to prevent the likes of Pancho Villa and his banditos from stopping and bording the train. We know he famously rejected all things General Motors when diesel locomotives made by that company replaced his beloved steam engines and displaced his firemen co-workers (no one ever told him that his new Frigidaire was made by a GM subsidiary).

But there are no stories from a year spent in Guatemala. There is a lengthy article from the Zavala County newspaper, published upon his retirement in 1957, describing his long and varied career, mentioning many of the lines he worked for and places he lived. Guatemala is not mentioned,

Did he go and find the situation so intolerable that, like some war veterans, he never spoke again of the experience? Standard Fruit and its larger competitor, United Fruit, were notorious at the time for mistreating and endangering native workers, often aided and abetted by the greedy dictators of the various countries they did business in.

 Did he not go? Maybe he got cold feet after hearing that US troops had just been sent to Guatemala to protect American interests while various local factions were engaged in the National Sport of all Banana Republics - guerrilla warfare? Or maybe he decided that he couldn't take a week of sea-sickness?

Or perhaps on August 22, he got a telegram from Pleasanton that said:

COME HOME AT ONCE -STOP- 

MISSOURI PACIFIC HIRING -STOP-

You pick the ending you like. Chances are, we'll never know for sure.

Monday Meanderings - 3.4.2012

Notice anything different here? That's right. No bags. Austin is now officially bag-free. Or to be more precise, there are no more free bags. As befits our quirky city, it is now illegal for stores to offer single-use plastic (or paper) bags. You may bring your own bags, buy heaver, multi-use bags (notice the paper bags further up the aisle), or carry your groceries home in your arms.

We've noticed that some stores are taking this opportunity to adopt a more European style of shopping; bring your own bags and do your own bagging, as well. Since we have been carrying reusable bags for some time now, the bag ban is of no consequence to us, but the hullabaloo is interesting.

We didn't have to struggle with snow, as they did in the Panhandle, but the same storm blew all our top-soil, lawn chairs and small furry animals to the coast this past week. I found some roofing shingles in my back yard, but I don't think they came from my house. Numerous trees blown down over all over town.

I have mentioned before that one of the great rites of passage in Texas schools is coming to Austin in the Spring. UIL girl's basketball is currently underway; boy's basketball is next. It now seems that coming to Austin in the Spring is a global thing; Verge conference was this weekend, Grand-Am racing at Circuit of the Americas as well, SXSW starts March 8 and attracts crowds from around the world for about three weeks, and for the first time in forever, UT is going to hoist an NCAA Regional. Did I mention the Rodeo is in town? Oh, and Texas Relays is up. Should make all the bars and hotels in town happy, happy, happy.

The downside of getting a new designer belly-button is that that area is very tender for a while. I quickly learned that the normal waist band and belt was out of the question, so I found an old pair of jeans a couple of sizes larger (sweet!) and held them up with suspenders. That made a very comfortable wardrobe, but it didn't do anything for my self-image. Barb says I need to reconcile myself to the fact that looking like an old, doddering man is not a stretch. Humph!