Mulligan Stew: Stories and Traditions of American Hobos

By Barbara Hacha

Ever since track was first laid for the great locomotives, hobos have listened to the call of the rails, lured by the possibility of free transportation to another place—if they could make their way unnoticed and unharmed. They rode the rails for various reasons—to escape economic hardship, satisfy an urge for adventure, or simply to feed their wanderlust. Along the way, they developed their own culture.

Mulligan Stew contains a variety of ingredients from the hobo culture: hobo life as it was lived at the turn of the twentieth century, women hobos, hobo heroes, hobo signs and symbols, contemporary hobos telling of their experiences, and hobo traditions from the National Hobo Convention in Britt, Iowa—an event that has opened a door into the hobo world every August for more than 100 years. The convention motto is "There's a Little Bit of Hobo in All of Us." Readers who are hobos at heart are invited to open this book and savor the stew.

Praise for Mulligan Stew
No book I know has captured the varieties of hobo experience as well as Barbara Hacha's Mulligan Stew, and in a form that perfectly fits the phenomenon...
—Luther the Jet, Hobo King 1995–96

About the Author
Barbara Hacha writes both fiction and nonfiction and is a freelance book editor. For her historical novel, Line by Line, Barbara researched the hobo culture as it was during the Great Depression. Her research eventually led her to Britt, Iowa, to attend the 111th National Hobo Convention, where she met and interviewed the hobos whose stories are in this book.

Barbara's novel, Line by Line, was a Finalist in the Best New Fiction category of USA Book News "Best Books of 2011" Awards. It also received a Bronze medal in Historical Fiction from the Independent Publisher (IPPY) Awards in 2012 and was awarded a BRAG Medallion on Goodreads.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Hacha
• Release date: Jan 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9780983198758

Barbara Hacha

Barbara Hacha writes both fiction and nonfiction and is a freelance book editor. For her historical novel, Line by Line, Barbara researched the hobo culture as it was during the Great Depression. Her research eventually led her to Britt, Iowa, to attend the 111th National Hobo Convention, where she met and interviewed hobos whose stories are in her book of nonfiction, titled Mulligan Stew: Stories and Traditions of American Hobos.Barbara's novel, Line by Line, was a Finalist in the Best New Fiction category of USA Book News "Best Books of 2011" Awards. It also received a Bronze medal in Historical Fiction from the Independent Publisher (IPPY) Awards in 2012 and was awarded a BRAG Medallion on Goodreads.

Book preview

Introduction

About Hobos—and Freedom

My interest in hobos came about as a sidetrack, in the truest definition of the word: an auxiliary track to the main track. Trains have been part of my life since I was a little girl. My grandfather worked for the railroad, and I remember watching the switcher locomotives moving cars as we passed the freight yard on the way to visit my grandparents. Railroad tracks ran directly behind the first house I grew up in, too, and my friends and I would play near the tracks, sometimes putting pennies on the rails before a train passed by, then gleefully gathering up the smashed and misshapen coins afterward. Trains were even featured in my dreams—including one colossal nightmare about being chased by one throughout the halls and stairways of my Catholic elementary school. You can work out that symbolism for yourself—I'm not going to touch it with a 10-foot track rail.

My husband, Jim, and I have sought out and photographed old train stations and trestles, intrigued both by their architecture and their history. We've ridden, photographed, and filmed trains whenever we could—from the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad in Ohio, to the Oil Creek and Titusville Railroad in Pennsylvania, to the Mt. Washington Cog Railway in New Hampshire, to the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad in Chama, New Mexico, where Jim had his first experience with smashed quarters.

So you would probably not be surprised to read that when I found a DVD titled Riding the Rails at a garage sale, I immediately bought it and brought it home. At first glance, I thought it would be about someone's train adventures, along the lines of the PBS Great Train Trips series. But that was where my sidetrack began. The DVD turned out to be a documentary about teenagers who rode the rails during the Great Depression. And much to my surprise, I learned that of the 250,000 teens who rode freights back then, many were women.

That fact became the basis of my historical novel, Line by Line. I pondered what life would have been like for a young woman in the 1930s who rode the rails, living the life of a hobo. So I began to investigate, exploring the Depression era and the hobo culture—and inventing a life for my main character, Maddy Skobel. Ultimately, my research would culminate in a published novel and a trip to Britt, Iowa, to meet real-life hobos.

Britt lies about two hours north of Des Moines. Its population, given in the 2010 Census, was 2,069. But on the second weekend in August, several thousand more people converge on the small town to enjoy its long-running National Hobo Convention.

Britt's 111th convention took place in 2011, and sixty-some hobos gathered in the hobo jungle on the northeast part of town. For the four official days of the convention, the hobos sang and read poetry by the campfire, honored and memorialized those among them who had caught the Westbound the previous years, hosted a tea for women in the town, and performed a hobo marriage ceremony. The townspeople, for their part, made giant drums of mulligan in the city park for everyone, elected the Hobo King and Queen who would reign for 2011-2012, and hosted a big parade that starred a hobo float.

When I describe the convention, people are immediately curious, and I'm peppered with questions. Who are these hobos? Do they have jobs? Are they independently wealthy? Are they homeless? Do they still hobo? Why do they do it?

There is no single answer. The hobos range from teenagers to nonagenarians; some have jobs, some do not, some are retired. Some still hobo, some hoboed in the Great Depression while looking for work. Some are bridgers—hobos who have ridden both steam and diesel. Some catch out for adventure; some do it simply for transportation. Some live at the edges of society, and others have embraced the social order enough to earn master's degrees and PhDs. To my knowledge, none are independently wealthy, at least in the traditional sense. They do, however, seem to clearly distinguish wants from needs, and that is another way to define wealth.

The idea of being a hobo appeals to most of us on some level. It stirs our wanderlust and feeds our wish to experience what it would be like to be unencumbered. It's being free, said a bridger named Uncle Freddie. You sleep when you want to sleep. You eat when you want to eat. You work when you want to work.

The slogan for the convention says it well: There's a Little Bit of Hobo in All of Us. That summer, I got in touch with mine, and she wants to hop a freight. If you've read this far, chances are your inner hobo is also clamoring to get out, to sample some mulligan, enjoy some music around a campfire—and, perhaps, catch out to do some traveling.

In this book, I share what I've learned about hobos and the hobo culture and give you a taste of the hobo life. In Part I, Hobo History, you'll learn what it was like to hobo at the end of the nineteenth century and into the first decades of the twentieth. You'll learn about the inventiveness of hobos in developing signs and symbols to communicate with each other, and you'll see examples of carved nickels some talented hobos used in trade. Part II, Hobo Traditions, takes you to the National Hobo Convention in Britt, where you can experience their traditional campfire ceremony, watch as they honor those who have passed away, observe the election and coronation of the Hobo King and Queen, and get a sense of the hobo family. In Part III, through interviews and their own writings, the hobos speak for themselves, answering the questions, What is it like to be a hobo? and Who are these people?

Part I - Hobo History

I became a tramp—well, because of the life that was in me, of the wanderlust in my blood that would not let me rest....I went on The Road because I couldn't keep away from it; because I hadn't the price of the railroad fare in my jeans; because I was so made that I couldn't work all my life on one same shift....

—Jack London, from The Road

Elements of the Hobo Culture

Many subcultures have developed their own ways of doing things, and the hobo community is no exception. In their conversations, for example, hobos use descriptive terms and phrases that are unfamiliar to outsiders; they also invented signs and symbols that enabled them to communicate with other hobos. Some found ways to barter their creativity by producing tramp art and carved coins they could trade for food or lodging.

Hobo and Railroad Terminology

The following list is only a sampling of hobo terms—a complete list would probably fill a small dictionary—but the definitions included here are frequently used by the hobos and can be found in the interviews, lyrics, and discussions in this book.

beat a train Early terminology for hopping a freight. See catch out.

bindle A bundle of belongings carried by hobos.

bindle stick A walking stick carried by a hobo; sometimes it is used to attach the hobo's bindle, and sometimes used for defense.

bindle stiff A hobo (stiff refers to a person).

bridger A hobo who has ridden both steam and diesel.

bull Railroad police.

catch out To hop a train (usually a freight) without paying for the ride.

catch the Westbound To die.

crumb boss The designated cook in the hobo jungle.

double-stack A container car.

FRED Acronym for flashing rear-end device, a modern-day device that marks the end of the train; it takes the place of the caboose.

Frisco circle Old hobos would throw money into a pile in the center of a circle for the purpose of buying food to go into a mulligan stew; currently, the Frisco circle is sometimes used to collect money for a hobo in need, such as for dental or medical attention.

fruit tramp A migrant worker (hobo) who followed the fruit harvest by freight train.

gandy dancer A hobo rail laborer or track layer.

grainer Grain cars—constructed in such a way they have 1 or 2 holes in their steel frame that a hobo can crawl into and be out of sight and protected from the weather.

hobo A wanderer by choice—someone who works for food or lodging; not interchangeable with bum. (Origins of the word are uncertain: it might be from hoe boy, an 1800s-era term used for migrant workers who carried hoes with them and were hired by farmers for help with the harvest; or post-Civil War term from returning veterans shouting from trains: We're HOmeward BOund —we're HOBO!

jigger Someone who does a song and dance to get a handout.

jungle A hobo camp.

jungle up To camp in a jungle; camp with other hobos.

knee shaker A sit-down meal, often given on someone's back porch.

lump A handout, usually given at someone's back door.

main stem The main hobo street in town.

moniker A hobo's nickname; hobos rarely travel using their given names.

mulligan Stew made from any meat and vegetables available.

pearl diving Washing dishes.

piggyback A flat car that holds containers or trucks.

reefer A refrigerator car.

ride the blinds Riding behind the coal car or baggage car, a place where a hobo was out of sight of the engineer and other train personnel.

ride the cushions Riding a passenger car.

ride the porch Riding the platform on the front or rear of a grain car.

ride the rails Riding a freight train.

ride the rods Riding the truss supports under train cars—a very risky old-time hobo practice.

round house A round structure built around a turntable used to move locomotives for repair or to turn them in the right direction to make up a train.

rubber tramp A hobo who travels and lives in a motor vehicle, often an RV or van. Rubber tramps have no itinerary, staying or moving on when they choose.

Also called rubber tire tramp.

Sallies Salvation Army.

shack A brakeman on the railroad.

side door Pullman A boxcar.

stiff A person (see bindle stiff).

tender The coal car on a steam train.

tramp A term used to refer to hobos at the turn of the twentieth century.

yeggs Crooks.

Hobo Signs and Symbols

In addition to language, hobos also developed signs and symbols to communicate with each other. These were not meant to be understood by the casual observer, but were used to provide fellow hobos with information, warnings, and directions.

During the Great Depression, for example, a cat symbol might have been scratched into the curb in front of a house in the city where a kind lady was known to feed hobos. Or a circle with an x inside might be chalked onto a fencepost near a house where a hobo could get a lump or a knee shaker. In the country, not far from the railroad tracks, a hobo might notice a sign that meant he could sleep in a nearby farmer's barn, although he might find that the farmer would insist on confiscating the hobo's cigarettes until morning, when the hobo would be safely on his way.

Sometimes hobos wrote their marks on the water towers needed to resupply the steam engines. They could communicate with each other about safe or unsafe camps and neighborhoods; mark a good road to follow; warn about barking or vicious dogs; leave their initials, a date, and the direction they were traveling so a friend could find them later; or show where there's a doctor who would provide services without charging.

Jack London, in his memoir The Road, written in 1907, described how hobos used these signs: Water tanks are tramp directories. Not all in idle wantonness do tramps carve their monicas [monikers] dates, and courses. Often and often have I met hoboes earnestly inquiring if I had seen anywhere such and such a stiff or his monica. And more than once I have been able to give the monica of recent date, the water tank, and the direction in which he was then bound. And promptly the hobo to whom I gave the information lit out after his pal. I have met hoboes who, in trying to catch a pal, had pursued clear across the continent and back again, and were still going.

The following charts are only a sampling of some of the better-known signs and symbols.

Hobo Nickels

If you're very lucky, in your grandmother's (or great-grandmother's) jewelry box, you might find an odd-looking coin dating back to the Great Depression. If your grandparents had owned a store or a restaurant, you might even discover a treasure trove of these little gems. These little works of art, usually nickels, were carved by talented hobos who used simple tools and a lot of patience to carve new relief sculptures into the metal.

The buffalo nickel, which was first minted in 1913, was a choice medium for these artists because it had two large surfaces that could be altered and carved—the Indian head on one side and the buffalo on the other.

Creative hobos would secure these nickels onto a block of wood, using screws and washers to hold it in place. They made tiny chisels out of filed-down nails and used pocketknives and nail files to scrape and texture the metal. They might transform the Indian head into a man wearing a derby or domed hat, a bearded man, a bald-headed man with facial hair, or a clown with a circus-style collar. Then they would scrape away and smooth the ground behind the face to create a cameo.

Sometimes they worked with the reverse side, sculpting the buffalo into a bindle stiff (hobo) with walking stick and pack, an animal—a horse, donkey, rabbit, turtle—and rarely, a boxcar with hobos riding on the top.

When a nickel was finished, a hobo could use it as a currency that bought more than a nickel's worth of something, often trading it for a meal or a night's lodging. The value of these carvings becomes clear in a Depression-era photograph of a Baltimore restaurant signboard displaying the day's specials. A hobo who found a restaurant owner willing to trade could get a meal worth double to five times the value of his nickel.

The prices of daily specials at a Depression-era restaurant.

Two hobos are especially well-known for their carved nickels, both because of the quality and quantity of their work. Bertrand Weigand, known as Bert, and George Washington Hughes, known as Bo, carved nickels before and during the Great Depression. Bert sometimes signed his coins by removing the L, I,