Farm Girl (12 page)

With all the talk about investors losing everything after the stock market crash, I got to thinking about Deveraux Anderson and his young wife.

One summer when I was about ten, Catherine and I were playing outside in my yard, and a big black Cadillac drove into the farm yard. There were four strange people in the car. Who were these people visiting us in a
Cadillac
? Two very excited little girls ran into the house to tell my mother.

The strange people were from Florida and claimed to be relatives of my dad. They had stopped at Ray Wilson’s, who had sent them on to our place. When my dad came in, they explained how they were related, and he was very friendly to them, inviting them to dinner.

Since Mother didn’t have anything ready, they said they would go to town and bring something back for the meal. They invited me to ride along, and I sat on a little fold-down seat right in front of the back seat of their big Cadillac.

The visitor’s names were Deveraux Anderson and his wife, who owned the car, and Clifton and Minnie Brill. Deveraux and Clifton were cousins and second cousins to my dad. Deveraux and his wife were very lovey-dovey. Sitting in the living room visiting with my parents, she sat on his lap and rubbed his face, acting silly with him and talking babyish. I was fascinated with her because I’d never seen anyone like her, dressed so stylish yet acting so silly. No grownups I knew ever talked or acted like that, not even newlyweds.

On the way to Inavale, Deveraux’s wife got very excited and said, “Look, look! There’s an eagle! Stop the car Honeybun, I want you to see the big eagle.”

He stopped and she pointed to a big bird landing on a telephone pole.

I said, “That’s a hawk. We see lots of those around here. They eat the mice in the fields.”

When we got to Inavale, they took me into the drug store and gave me two dollars to buy candy! Never in my life had I been able to buy so much candy. I picked out several kinds, some that I liked and some that I knew Catherine liked, and went home with two big bags of yummy candy. I couldn’t wait to show Catherine.

The two couples stayed with us a few days. Our round oak dining table was extended with leaves and the white tablecloth stayed on. Meal time was a fascinating event, watching these people who were so different from anyone I’d seen before. Deveraux was a promoter and investor and talked endlessly about the opportunities in Florida to get rich. He wanted my father to give him money to invest. Dad wasn’t much interested in that kind of investing. However, Dad did give him $100 when they left, since Deveraux was family and since Dad was afraid they might not make it back to Florida the way he was throwing money around.

In 1929, Deveraux lost everything, and of course he never paid my dad back the $100. We never heard from him again. Minnie and Clifton Brill were more stable, common people and we heard from them often over the years.

When the stock market crashed, I thought about Deveraux and his silly young wife and their big Cadillac, and wondered what became of them.

Back home though, around ‘31 or ‘32, my dad didn’t get hardly anything for his crops. Corn was selling for five cents a bushel, and he said, “Well, I’m not going to sell my corn for five cents a bushel.”

So that year he didn’t buy coal like he always did. He just burned the whole cobs of corn in the cookstove and the furnace. He dried them and then burned the cobs, corn and all.

Dad and Uncle Ford used to drive fifteen head or more of cattle down to Inavale eight miles down the road, both men on horseback driving the herd. Close to the railroad tracks and the Inavale depot was a penned off area for the cattle coming in. When the train came in, the men would get the cattle one at a time up a chute into the cattle car. The chute had fences on both sides to keep the cattle in line. Then my dad would ride on the train with the cattle down to market in St. Louis or Kansas City.

One time in 1927 or ‘28, before the stock market crash, he was so proud because he had topped the market in Kansas City. His cattle had brought $14.98 for 100 lbs., the highest price paid for cattle at that market. Then a few years later, around 1933, cattle were selling for $3.00 for 100 lbs.

Still, my dad had plenty of money, but he wasn’t spending it. He didn’t want to keep it in the bank after a lot of them closed, so he invested it in different places like bonds or mortgages.

One time he held a mortgage on someone who didn’t pay. He’d have me write to them and pretty soon we’d hear back that they were trying, they’d pay as soon as they could. After a period of time, they’d pay. When I was twelve, I had received a bookkeeping set so I could keep track of his accounts and his investments. That really surprised me, because I didn’t get birthday presents, or even much for Christmas.

Once when I was seven, I read somewhere, probably in a book at school, about a birthday party where you invited friends and celebrated your birthday. I told Mother that I wanted a birthday party, and she hinted that I might get one. So that year on my birthday, I looked and looked for people to come down our lane, but nobody came. She hadn’t invited anyone.

That wasn’t mean on her part, because no one we knew ever had birthday parties. The only time I’d heard of them was in books. No one really celebrated birthdays out in our community even before the stock market crashed, you were just a year older. The Depression didn’t make any difference with birthdays, or with Christmas either, because children never expected much at those times. Back then children weren’t showered with gifts, not even at Christmas. I always got a book from Aunt Bernice and as long as there was Santa Claus, I’d get something from my parents.

One time around Christmas, we were in town and I saw this nice, big beautiful doll that had curly brown hair, a beautiful complexion, and eyes that blinked. She was about two feet tall, and you could move her arms and legs. Oh, how I wanted that doll!

Mother bit her lip and said, “Oh dear, Lucille, look how expensive it is. I don’t think you can have that.”

Dad laughed and said, “That’s not for you, Lucille, it’s not worth it.”

A few weeks later I was playing in the bedroom next to the kitchen and saw a box under the bed. There was that doll! I didn’t say anything, just pushed the box back under the bed.

I got that from Santa Claus on Christmas Day, and that was probably the biggest present I ever received from Santa or anyone.

One Christmas Eve, Dad came in from doing the chores kind of late.

He said, “Better get to bed, I hear some noises out there.”

I hung my stocking on the cupboard. Our tree was a few branches from one of our pine trees, stuck in a can of sand. You couldn’t go out and cut trees, this was Nebraska farm land, and trees were scarce. And you wouldn’t think of buying one.

We’d always celebrate Christmas with the Lutz’s, Aunt Dora, Uncle John and their kids. One Christmas Eve they arrived in their car, and it was kind of snowing. We could see Ford and Bernice coming over the hill in their horsedrawn wagon.

Aunt Dora teased them, “All you had was a mile to go, and you had to take the wagon!” Back then, people drove their cars in good weather, but in rain or snow they felt more secure with the horse and wagon.

I’d get a present from the Lutz’s, a present from Ford and Bernice, and one from Santa Claus. In my stocking, I’d get candy, an orange, pencils, a necklace or bracelet. One year when Christmas was at the Lutz’s, my dad gave me a leather case with a manicure set containing a file, scissors, and a cuticle pusher. I used that for years and years; it was a very useful present.

I always looked forward to getting a book from Aunt Bernice, usually the Bobbsey Twins. I loved to read and always wanted more books to read. I couldn’t get books at the Red Cloud library because you could only keep them two weeks, and we weren’t sure of getting to town in two weeks. It was a nickel a day if you were overdue. We’d go to Inavale to trade eggs every week, but there was no library there. Just a post office, a bank, a lumberyard, a drug store and the Schneider and Waldo’s stores.

While Aunt Bernice was home from Lincoln for her Christmas vacation, Dad and I would go over there and visit in the evenings. Mother didn’t go, she preferred to stay home and work on one of her projects.

Dad, Bernice and Ford would talk for hours. Once I was telling Aunt Bernice about our school play, and I gave my part in the recitation as well as everyone else’s. I had them all memorized, and she was so tickled by that.

Ford’s house was heated by a round hard coal burner with lots of chrome that sat in the middle of the dining room. It had a point on top, glass doors where you could see the red fire, a chrome rack around it so you could sit close to it and put your feet on the rack. I’d sit on the little footstool next to the stove, listening to their conversation, enthralled by Aunt Bernice’s stories. And we’d eat candy.

Aunt Bernice always brought lots of candy home at Christmas, chocolate-covered cherries, ribbon-like hard candy, and raspberry candy with soft centers. She would tell us stories about teaching third grade. When it was time for recess, she had her students turn, rise and pass before they went out to play. She would say “turn,” and they’d turn in their seats, then “rise,” and they’d get up from their seats, and then “pass,” and they filed out for recess. Her biggest discipline problems were kids shooting paper wads in class.

One of her students she called “Hoodabooboo,” because that was his favorite word. He was mentally deficient and always said “hoodabooboo” about everything. She was trying to teach him something and trying to help him along.

I remember her talking about one little boy who was her favorite. She thought he was such a nice little boy. She told us how well-mannered and polite he was, and such a good student. Then it turned out that this little boy grew up and went to prison. He robbed a bank in southwestern Nebraska and killed seven people. Aunt Bernice could hardly believe it possible, because in third grade he had been the nicest boy. I remember when that happened, reading in the paper about him.

The paper quoted him, “I wish someone had stopped me, I was afraid I was going to kill people.”

He said he had tried to get help but no one would listen. I had read in the Bible about demons in people, and it sounded to me like he had a demon. So I thought, maybe there is something to this idea about demons in people. It would explain a lot, especially in a situation like that.

I felt very fortunate in the kind of wholesome life I’d had growing up. Besides our nice farm, we had a network of friends, neighbors and relatives both in the New Virginia and Norwegian communities. I never felt affected much by the stock market crash or the Great Depression, because not that much changed for me. I came home summers and holidays; my life went on as usual.

The hardest part was seeing the hardship on the farmers and their families in our community. First it was the Depression, then the dust storms began, and then it was a long drought when no crops would grow.

The Nebraska farm girl home for the summer

Farm girl by the car

Catherine May

Chapter Twelve:
A Sad Tale