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| A book about West Texas romance and rebels during the Dust Bowl of the 1930's and 1940's. Copyright 2015 Grace Reinbold |
"JOE"
CHAPTER ONE
This book is about Joe and yes, he was shot by the Sheriff on December 15, 1940 but don't think for
one second that's how this story ends because it doesn't. Chapter One describes what Joe's
life was like when he decided to escape and run away from home at the age of sixteen.
After that, Joe ran his whole life, as short as it was.
Powdery black earth was everywhere in
1936. It was the worst drought to take
place in North America in more than ten centuries. High winds blew dust into
huge clouds that blackened skies over nearly one hundred million acres in
Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado. Many thought the world
was ending and were frightened because they had nowhere to run.
The only news that farmers and their families received came from radio or postmen who stopped just long enough to relay information about the looming war in Europe and which neighbors had died or moved away.
As a wedding gift to Harold and Mari Miller in 1917, their parents helped them buy a small farm near Panhandle City, West Texas so they could grow vegetables, wheat and cotton. Before too many years passed, they had a few milking cows, goats, three horses, sixteen chickens, twelve turkeys, and two dogs. They also raised three children.
Mervyn Joseph “Joe” was first-born of the Miller family’s three children. He was two years older than Albert who was serious, gentle, and never complained about doing chores. After a day working in the fields of yellow wheat before the drought ruined almost everything that lived, including many neighbors, Albert helped Mari in her vegetable garden and marveled at the beauty of flowers she grew. Their little sister Laurie was only ten and didn’t understand what was going on. She was too young to know there was life without dust, dirt and black clouds looming above her.
Joe was tall, lean, good looking and personable, but mighty restless. He became a rebel before he was sixteen. He’d hide from chores by laying on dirt piled high behind the barn that was deteriorating from dreadful dusty winds. He didn’t have to be told it would soon be time for the Miller family to join others who vacated farms, sometimes leaving in such a hurry that pots and pans remained in the kitchen because there was no room for them on their wagons or trucks. He didn’t dare say out loud that he hoped his parents would leave their farm as soon as they could. That would have torn the heart right out of his father’s chest.
Thousands of farmers and homesteaders had already migrated to California to search for the holy grail of fertile soil and breathable air. They left their homes reluctantly and only when it became imminent they were about to lose everything they owned. Most farmers could have made it through a drought because droughts come and go but this was worse than a drought. The dust and dirt just kept coming and was as wicked as if it blew straight out of Hell. The worst loss of all for farmers was the loss of self-respect, enduring one hardship after another until there was no more hope to see the end of this catastrophe of biblical proportions.
Nearly all businesses and banks in Panhandle had already closed and the small town had become a no man’s land with temperatures sometimes climbing as high as 118 degrees and bringing blizzards of black dirt from as far away as Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado. Black clouds could be as wide as 200 miles and travel at speeds of 65 mph. When homesteaders wanted or needed to walk anywhere, they were forced to rely more on memory than eyesight because the dust was so thick. No one was shown mercy. Winds filled with dust were so ferocious and black that some people who happened to be outside when the winds arrived got lost in their own backyards. It was frightening to be in the blackness of clouds that just blew and blew. Funerals for loved ones who died of dust pneumonia were a frequent and sad occurrence.
Frankly, Joe didn’t care where his parents decided to go just as long as he did not have to work in fields anymore, or participate in rabbit drives. He cringed at the mere thought of Jackrabbits. They were so plentiful they looked like a herd of sheep, actually making the ground move as they foraged in countless numbers for what food they could find. People from miles around gathered together to make a party of surrounding the long eared short tailed lagomorph mammals with long hind legs. The rabbits were corralled so when they tried to escape the circle, they were clubbed to death.
That served two purposes. First it helped rid the land of critters that ate whatever produce was still growing and second, it provided food for those who needed it, which was just about everyone. Nothing was wasted. Even the rabbit fur was used for coats and hats. Rabbit drives were essential but Joe hated seeing the pools of blood that was so thick it didn’t even seep into the dry cracked earth. He especially hated smelling leftovers in bonfires left smoldering after the clubbing was done. Men, women and children walked home with large bags of warm dead rabbits that would be meals for many days.
As early as 1934, after the children went to bed at night, Harold and Mari started whispering about moving from their farm. For almost two years they silently prayed about it before every meal. Their thoughts and prayers began when the earth was still able to produce a few potatoes, corn and other vegetables that were not eaten or destroyed by mountains of jackrabbits and legions of grasshoppers.
Most farmers who migrated elsewhere went to California but Harold considered moving to Chicago near the shores of Lake Michigan. After the postman told him Chicago was blanketed with twelve million pounds of dust, Harold decided the family would instead take their chances and travel south to Houston and plant roots near the Gulf of Mexico where water was also plentiful. Most important to Harold and Mari was being able to grow crops in soil they could depend upon.
Their journey would take them about 600 miles south to Houston with stops in Amarillo, Lubbock, Abilene, and Waco. Harold conservatively calculated the trip could take up to two weeks because dust clouds would most likely cause him to drive slower than the 15 mph he normally would drive. Still, Houston was five hundred miles less than people going to Fresno, California had to drive, plus he would not need to take the truck and trailer over mountains or through the Mohave Desert. Gas was 10-13 cents a gallon and he could travel about twenty miles on one gallon of gas. He figured he needed at least 50 gallons of gas plus money for fixing anything that went wrong with the truck along with food and maybe one or two nights in a motel so they could all wash up and change clothes. Harold hoped the $240 he saved was enough for the trip, and for getting started all over again.
At dawn one morning when the winds slowed, Joe and Albert helped Harold pack the 1929 Ford two-door pickup truck and the rickety two-wheel wagon that would be pulled behind it. He and Mari had sold everything they could to raise money and buy that truck. The first thing they did after bringing it home was to secure a long chain to drag on the road behind it for the purpose of discharging static electricity that accompanied storms. If they didn’t do that, they could certainly count on getting badly shocked when they got out of the truck.
They loaded as much furniture and clothes as possible on the wagon. It took them an entire day to tie it all down. The two boys were to sit on the small truck bed, lined with mattresses and covered with blankets to keep them warm and protect them from being suffocated by dust. Laurie, because she was the youngest and she was a girl, would sit in the front between Harold and Mari.
On the day of departure from the land that had turned against him, Harold watched Russian thistles blowing over the fields where wheat once produced golden harvests for the world marketplace. In addition to the fields of wheat Harold once sowed, Mari had a half-acre garden that just a few years earlier had looked like the Garden of Eden, complete with a miniature windmill. She grew rows and rows of vegetables for canning every fall. Some years she canned as many as 600 quarts and that was always so welcome because the food lasted all winter with some left over to share with neighbors. However, that now was yesterday’s memory.
It was not difficult for Harold and Mari to say good-bye to the small wood-framed house their parents helped them buy many years earlier. It had become only four walls between which they and their children lived in a black and brown world.
Harold looked up to the sky and gazed at a flock of birds headed south. He knew the time had finally come for him to gather his family and do the same.
The only news that farmers and their families received came from radio or postmen who stopped just long enough to relay information about the looming war in Europe and which neighbors had died or moved away.
As a wedding gift to Harold and Mari Miller in 1917, their parents helped them buy a small farm near Panhandle City, West Texas so they could grow vegetables, wheat and cotton. Before too many years passed, they had a few milking cows, goats, three horses, sixteen chickens, twelve turkeys, and two dogs. They also raised three children.
Mervyn Joseph “Joe” was first-born of the Miller family’s three children. He was two years older than Albert who was serious, gentle, and never complained about doing chores. After a day working in the fields of yellow wheat before the drought ruined almost everything that lived, including many neighbors, Albert helped Mari in her vegetable garden and marveled at the beauty of flowers she grew. Their little sister Laurie was only ten and didn’t understand what was going on. She was too young to know there was life without dust, dirt and black clouds looming above her.
Joe was tall, lean, good looking and personable, but mighty restless. He became a rebel before he was sixteen. He’d hide from chores by laying on dirt piled high behind the barn that was deteriorating from dreadful dusty winds. He didn’t have to be told it would soon be time for the Miller family to join others who vacated farms, sometimes leaving in such a hurry that pots and pans remained in the kitchen because there was no room for them on their wagons or trucks. He didn’t dare say out loud that he hoped his parents would leave their farm as soon as they could. That would have torn the heart right out of his father’s chest.
Thousands of farmers and homesteaders had already migrated to California to search for the holy grail of fertile soil and breathable air. They left their homes reluctantly and only when it became imminent they were about to lose everything they owned. Most farmers could have made it through a drought because droughts come and go but this was worse than a drought. The dust and dirt just kept coming and was as wicked as if it blew straight out of Hell. The worst loss of all for farmers was the loss of self-respect, enduring one hardship after another until there was no more hope to see the end of this catastrophe of biblical proportions.
Nearly all businesses and banks in Panhandle had already closed and the small town had become a no man’s land with temperatures sometimes climbing as high as 118 degrees and bringing blizzards of black dirt from as far away as Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado. Black clouds could be as wide as 200 miles and travel at speeds of 65 mph. When homesteaders wanted or needed to walk anywhere, they were forced to rely more on memory than eyesight because the dust was so thick. No one was shown mercy. Winds filled with dust were so ferocious and black that some people who happened to be outside when the winds arrived got lost in their own backyards. It was frightening to be in the blackness of clouds that just blew and blew. Funerals for loved ones who died of dust pneumonia were a frequent and sad occurrence.
Frankly, Joe didn’t care where his parents decided to go just as long as he did not have to work in fields anymore, or participate in rabbit drives. He cringed at the mere thought of Jackrabbits. They were so plentiful they looked like a herd of sheep, actually making the ground move as they foraged in countless numbers for what food they could find. People from miles around gathered together to make a party of surrounding the long eared short tailed lagomorph mammals with long hind legs. The rabbits were corralled so when they tried to escape the circle, they were clubbed to death.
That served two purposes. First it helped rid the land of critters that ate whatever produce was still growing and second, it provided food for those who needed it, which was just about everyone. Nothing was wasted. Even the rabbit fur was used for coats and hats. Rabbit drives were essential but Joe hated seeing the pools of blood that was so thick it didn’t even seep into the dry cracked earth. He especially hated smelling leftovers in bonfires left smoldering after the clubbing was done. Men, women and children walked home with large bags of warm dead rabbits that would be meals for many days.
As early as 1934, after the children went to bed at night, Harold and Mari started whispering about moving from their farm. For almost two years they silently prayed about it before every meal. Their thoughts and prayers began when the earth was still able to produce a few potatoes, corn and other vegetables that were not eaten or destroyed by mountains of jackrabbits and legions of grasshoppers.
Most farmers who migrated elsewhere went to California but Harold considered moving to Chicago near the shores of Lake Michigan. After the postman told him Chicago was blanketed with twelve million pounds of dust, Harold decided the family would instead take their chances and travel south to Houston and plant roots near the Gulf of Mexico where water was also plentiful. Most important to Harold and Mari was being able to grow crops in soil they could depend upon.
Their journey would take them about 600 miles south to Houston with stops in Amarillo, Lubbock, Abilene, and Waco. Harold conservatively calculated the trip could take up to two weeks because dust clouds would most likely cause him to drive slower than the 15 mph he normally would drive. Still, Houston was five hundred miles less than people going to Fresno, California had to drive, plus he would not need to take the truck and trailer over mountains or through the Mohave Desert. Gas was 10-13 cents a gallon and he could travel about twenty miles on one gallon of gas. He figured he needed at least 50 gallons of gas plus money for fixing anything that went wrong with the truck along with food and maybe one or two nights in a motel so they could all wash up and change clothes. Harold hoped the $240 he saved was enough for the trip, and for getting started all over again.
At dawn one morning when the winds slowed, Joe and Albert helped Harold pack the 1929 Ford two-door pickup truck and the rickety two-wheel wagon that would be pulled behind it. He and Mari had sold everything they could to raise money and buy that truck. The first thing they did after bringing it home was to secure a long chain to drag on the road behind it for the purpose of discharging static electricity that accompanied storms. If they didn’t do that, they could certainly count on getting badly shocked when they got out of the truck.
They loaded as much furniture and clothes as possible on the wagon. It took them an entire day to tie it all down. The two boys were to sit on the small truck bed, lined with mattresses and covered with blankets to keep them warm and protect them from being suffocated by dust. Laurie, because she was the youngest and she was a girl, would sit in the front between Harold and Mari.
On the day of departure from the land that had turned against him, Harold watched Russian thistles blowing over the fields where wheat once produced golden harvests for the world marketplace. In addition to the fields of wheat Harold once sowed, Mari had a half-acre garden that just a few years earlier had looked like the Garden of Eden, complete with a miniature windmill. She grew rows and rows of vegetables for canning every fall. Some years she canned as many as 600 quarts and that was always so welcome because the food lasted all winter with some left over to share with neighbors. However, that now was yesterday’s memory.
It was not difficult for Harold and Mari to say good-bye to the small wood-framed house their parents helped them buy many years earlier. It had become only four walls between which they and their children lived in a black and brown world.
Harold looked up to the sky and gazed at a flock of birds headed south. He knew the time had finally come for him to gather his family and do the same.
CHAPTER TWO
Joe became more and more restless.
He informed Albert he could walk faster than
they had been driving.
Albert was tired of listening to Joe complain about everything and told him so. He suggested that maybe
Joe should get out and walk if he wanted to. Joe replied, “Maybe I will, maybe I will just do that.”
Chapter Two will be posted on this blog on August 25, 2015.
Albert was tired of listening to Joe complain about everything and told him so. He suggested that maybe
Joe should get out and walk if he wanted to. Joe replied, “Maybe I will, maybe I will just do that.”
Chapter Two will be posted on this blog on August 25, 2015.
