In those days, wives and mothers worked in the fields right
along with their husbands, AND were expected to take care
of the house and family -- and my mother did just that, and did
it well.
When I was two and my sister four (still too young to work in
the fields), I recall one situation that today would result in
charges of child neglect and possible abuse. Out of necessity,
our parents would sometimes leave my sister and me at home so
they could go to the fields and work all day. They could get a
whole lot more done if they didn't have to keep one eye on the
kids while working.... One time, we were left at home and my
sister had completed all her chores -- so we decided to go to
where our mother was and see her. We were lonely there all by
ourselves, so off we went!
At that time, we lived not too far from the Sulphur River. We
knew our parents were working somewhere by the river, but on the
other side -- it was only a couple of miles but, to us, it seemed
like forever. We walked for the longest time and finally came
to the river.
There was no bridge to walk across, but a very large tree log
had been felled and laid from bank to bank. We studied the
situation for the longest time, and my sister decided that she
could walk across OK. Being two, I was not too sure I could
make it walking, so I remember sitting down on the log, one leg
on each side, and scooting across. It took me awhile, but we
made it OK. What was so scary to us was looking down into the
black murky water which was full of poisonous snakes and other
horrible creatures.
I finally made it across, scooting on my bottom, and then we set
out to find our mother. For the life of me, I cannot remember
how we knew where to go, for neither me nor my sister, to this
day, can ever remember having been there before.
Another problem we failed to consider was just how high the
cotton stalks were, and just how short we were! No one could
see us in all that tall green cotton, so we simply walked up and
down the rows until we found someone. The first person we saw
was our uncle, so we inquired where our mother was. Thinking he
was being funny, he told us she had left and gone home.
We of course believed him, and immediately set out for home,
crossing over the log the same way as before, and on back to the
house. However, when we arrived at our house, she was not there!
Now we were really frightened, because we thought she was lost
-- perhaps she fell into the river amongst a roiling bunch of
water moccasins!
Back to the road we went, on our way back to the river. A good
neighbor, Mr. John Whitaker, was plowing his land across the
road from our house, and saw us heading toward the river. He
stopped us and wanted to know where we were going? We told him
we were looking for our mother, because she got lost. He must
have figured out what happened, so he refused to let us leave.
He put us on his plow and rode us up and down the rows, knowing
that soon our mother would come looking for us.
In the meantime, our uncle came up on our mom and asked her if
she had seen us kids? She got really upset when he told her we
had been there looking for her! She immediately took off
looking for US, fearing the worst, and wondering to herself if
we might have fallen off that log into the waters of the
river.
We were riding with this kind neighbor when we saw her running
frantically up the road. As soon as she saw us, she started
laughing and crying at the same time! We of course didn't think
we had done anything to cause her to cry, but we knew something
was amiss and that we just might be in trouble. Normally, I
would have received one of her tough spankings, but she was so
relieved that we were safe, I lucked out!
There were many such memories that my sister and I share, and
today we get a lot of laughs recalling them!
The part of Delta County where we lived was bounded by two
rivers, one on the North boundary called North Sulphur, and one
on the South called South Sulphur. During the rainy season,
both rivers would flood, and since they were so crooked and full
of willow trees and other growth, the water would stay on the
land for weeks at times. This was a real problem for farmers
trying to make a living on the land, so the farmers on the North
decided, along with all proper authorities, to hire a contractor
to dig a long, straight channel so the water could run off
faster. Their idea worked very well. The North Sulphur would
still flood, but the water left quickly after the rains stopped.
The land owners on the South River decided they would build a
system of levees instead of a channel. Well, their levee system
didn't work any better then than they do today, and the land
continued to be almost unusable.
This flooding situation continued on for years. They didn't
start to think about new and workable solutions until after WW2.
The channel on the North was started around 1926-27, and I
remember being only a little past two years old when we all went
down to the river on a family outing to watch this monster
machine dig. It was a steam shovel but, to me, it was gigantic.
I had never before seen anything man-made quite that large, and
I stood there in awe as I watched it move mountains of dirt.
Incidents like that were always very impressive to me, and I
wanted to know all about how they worked.
Right after the river channel was dug, we were on the move again
and the year was 1928. This time, we moved to a farm near a
little town called Enloe, and we called this home the Douglas
Place. This was where we lived when the crash hit the stock
market. This is where we lived when my mother and father told
me it was time I started to earn my own way, where we lived
when I met my lifelong friend Hershel Eugene Oyler, sortened to Gene by his friends, and where we lived when my little brother came into this world. It is where we lived when the Great Depression really started, and where our life was to change drastically.
A Great Adventure
Watching the Wheels of Progress
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