Just wanted to share this memory my Dad sent me. Background, my Grandfather moved from Mexico to the US and made his living farming about 50 miles south of Dallas. My father grew up in poverty as a son of a tenant farmer. This is a memory from his childhood. Excuse the grammar, English is his second language.
Memorable Event
casa de los alamos
The Christmas Eve that I was six years old,and some months, is remember very well by me, because of the uncommon things that happen.
Mother, Dad and the whole family were in a sort of emergence that as a six year old would not understand. The thing that is vivid in my memory, that I was hungrey,sleepy and very irritated. The whole family was moving to a make shift home at night.
Dad, in the daylight hours of that December 24, was disassembling the old chicken coup that he had made for the chickens, my brothers were removing the turkey holding pent. The five or some cows had already been taken, to where , I did not know.
Mother, was putting important things to her in cardboard boxes and gunny sacks, What seem to surprise me, that all this was been done in the dark.
The only usual familiar thing happening was hunger and sleepy, and very miserable.
Dad, was very proud of his baby chick house. The baby chick house was use for the baby chicks and baby turkeys. Mother and Dad were very carefull with the baby chicks when brought home from the city’s commercial hactchery. The middle of the chicken house had a, six feet diameter, umbrella.Hanging from the ceiling by baleing wires, the edges was about 6 inches off the floor. Henry, my little brother and I, would go in with mother when watering and feeding the baby chickens or turkeys, that were brought in about a day or two old, we love to play with the cute little things. Of course the admonition was constantly from Mother “don’t squeeze them too hard nor step on one” Surely by stepping on one it would be the end of the little critter, and the stepper would get a knuckle on top of his head. The umbrella had a kerosene heat burner enclose in it’s pinnacle (or top) to keep baby chicks warm. The reality of the thing it was an artificial hen keeping it’s chick warm. The metal umbrella could warm about 150 baby chicks or turkeys. If the baby critters would get cold, they would bunch up and suffocate. It was nice and warm in that room and we like it.
The chicken house was use to grow the poultry to the age that their feather would shed water, at that time, they were move to the open air pents. Then the metal umbrella was shut down for the season, would restart with baby turkeys or vica versa.
When the baby chick were brought to the farm, there was no way to tell which would become a hen or roster only until reaching the age of a four weeks.
The to be hens were kept to lay eggs for the family to eat, but the chicken that started to grow a crest on the head were to be rosters. Mother never separate one from the other. The only difference was when the little roster grew they would become Sunday dinner for the family, or a guest dinner.
All these disassembling and moving at night, but why?
Next day, I woke up in these house that had bales of hay stack outside. Later I found out that Dad had move the family to these ,box plank, house that had been use as a barn for years. The hay had to be move out for us to move in. Have you ever heard the phrase, “close the door, were you raise in a barn” In my case that would be true, at least for a year. For we move again, the following articula eve, and at night one more time. Like fugitives.
So Dad had to move out of a farm, and farm house that he had farm and lived in for 18 years. I think his sence of security was shatter. The house, we move out from, was a standard house for the general area. Box and plank, except it was one step less, it had no windows. For windows it had two 1 by 12 boards and for hinges two pieces of leather. The latches were pieces of rope or wire tied to a barb wire staple. The doors for door knobs had a hole, but no door knob. A pull string was attached to the door knob hole and tied to a nail in the wall to keep the door shut.The house did have one luxury. Some one in the past dream of putting the water well next to the porch where the woman of the house would not get off the porch to get water. The house had three rooms, one was the kitchen, second was for my four brother’s bedroom, for my little brother and me slept with mother and dad. My sister would sleep in a cot in the same room with us. That particular farm in the later years we would refer to as “la casa de los alamos” meaning the house with the cottonwood trees. The house had the formation of a T. the top cross bar of the T were the two rooms; kitchen and my four bothers bedroom. The vertical leg of the T was as we would call it now would be the master bedroom, with porches east and west side of this room, and a breeze way between the three rooms.
We could stand on the east side of the breeze way, to our left 40 feet away stood one cottonwood tree, and to our right the same distance stood the other cottonwood tree. Both trees were about 60 feet apart, and about 50 feet high. There was a striking appearance of theses trees for neither had lower limbs. The first set of limbs were about 14 feet high. Overs the years some one had cut all lower limbs, and to my thinking was done to keep kids from climbing. Now to think, that my family lived in such conditions must have been at the edge of very very poor, or under the edge. I do remember Dad would always wear same blue overalls, like the grandfather in the Mccoy series. But, my Dad’s overalls had new patches of clothe sewed where the britches had been torn by too much wear. Only on Saturday he would ware kakies waist pants to go the the city of Corsicana. To fetch whatever groceries the family needed. Mother and my sister would go shopping all afternoon to sundown. Henry and I had no choice, be with then all this time. For them two to be shopping; for us would be just to be looking. Dad would be in the pool hall. Playing billiard to night fall, or until mother would get fed up waiting for him, then sent us boys to tell him that mother was ready to go home. Dad had a corn on his left little finger cause by laying his left hand on the pool table to take his turn to hit the cue ball.
The bedroom where the four brothers slept had a big hole to the attic who no one seem to care and it was always open, just for lack of maintance. Looking back we must have been the Mexican hillbillies of hee haw, to lazy to even move, if not that ignorant.
The wind charge would never be forgotten by Dad, for it was use to recharge the six volt battery that run the radio, he never do without his radio. This was a must, for there was no electricity. For light, kerosene lamp was the only thing we ever had. The wind charge was a propeller, like a ceiling fan, on edge to catch the wind. The propeller was setup on a oil derrick type tower made of wood ten feet high. That tower was the first to be setup the next day. Radio in this family, by Dad, had priority over other things.
Going back to the moving at night would make you think now that my father was stealing something.
The second day after we had move two white men and the sheriff came to see Dad. After they left, I over heard him telling mother, after she asked “ what did those men wanted.” The two men were the one’s that foreclose on the farm from our landlord, was asking for me to return the baby chick house, and the chicken pens. So I mention to them that I was working the farm on the halves and these were part of my half. They continue to insist. Then I told them that “I was going back to Mexico with my family. And further more when I am ask at the border why am I leaving the country when I have sons that in a year or so be eligible for the army. I am going to tell them because you have taken my property under the pretext that it is legal.” Right away they drop their insistence and said “forget it” and got in their car and drove away. For the country was at World War Two in the east and the west, and any person of eligible age for the army was forbidden to leave the country. Dad’s crop had been stolen, years before in another farm. On this articular farm dad felt safe with Jack Crews, the land owner.
This place that we were moved in also belong to Jack Crews, and had not been foreclose.
