In Those Days Book 3 Hiding From the Great World War

By Dusty Kohl

At less than twenty years old, Nellie birthed three children. Her friends’ husbands return from the beginning of World War I, dead or mortally wounded. When the local draft board sends for her husband’s conscription, he loads their buckboard and takes them far from civilization. She must find resourceful ways for them to survive at the peril of her young daughters. Living off the land in the wilderness and nearly single-handedly fighting for survival forever changes the way she looks at her marriage. It also changes the way she looks at herself.

In this book, she tells how her fearful husband puts them on the run once more. He finds new reasons to hide even farther from Nellie’s home and family. The safety and wellbeing of their toddler daughters aren’t as important to him as avoiding conscription during World War I. Wilderness in early twentieth century America? He leads them into the middle of it. Nellie and her daughters are forced to go along when Britt hides in the wilderness for nearly three years. Grit. That’s when she developed grit. And there is no grit like that of a Texas woman fighting for the survival of her young children in dangerous circumstances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dusty Kohl
• Release date: Jun 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311052544

Dusty Kohl

Dusty Kohl taught as a classroom teacher and reading specialist for nearly two decades. He began writing poems and short stories during his own elementary school days. Dusty is one in a long line of storytellers of oral traditions from family history. When he isn’t remodeling, landscaping or kicking back with his dogs, he’s out people watching and interacting. His goal is to keep his storyline characters realistic while his plots take twists, turns, and surprises.

Book preview

In Those Days

Book 3

Hiding from the Great World War

Third in the series

Copyright 2015 Dusty Kohl

Published by Dusty Kohl at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Other books in this series by Dusty Kohl

Introduction from Dusty Kohl

Chapter 1 Reservation Please

Chapter 2 The Gathering

Chapter 3 Government Agent

Chapter 4 Ain’t Lion

Chapter 5 Conestoga

Epilogue

About the Author

Connect with Dusty Kohl

Acknowledgements

Books from the series In Those Days

Novels from the series Swim Coach

Other books from Dusty Kohl

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Other books in this series by Dusty Kohl include:

In Those Days Book 1 The Ties That Bind

In Those Days Book 2 On the Run

In Those Days Book 4 Where Home Is

Other books in this series will be published soon.

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Introduction from Dusty Kohl

This is Book 3 in this series, In Those Days. It begins after In Those Days Book 2, On the Run. The first book in this series is In Those Days Book 1 The Ties That Bind. Book 1 carries my deepest introduction and the first eight chapters of the series. I strongly urge that this series be read in numerical order.

Nellie loved her parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters. When they fled crop failure in East Texas to find a temporary living in Oklahoma, all of them believed they could pull through the worst of circumstances. Instead, they barely scraped by with enough to eat. After she ran off to marry Britt, she learned they would not return to her family. She made fast friends along the way, birthed three children, and set up house in Enid, Oklahoma. When her father finally caught up with them, he did not kill Britt as feared. Instead, he confirmed for her that she had to live with her decision to marry.

In this book, she tells how her fearful husband puts them on the run once more. Britt finds new reasons to hide even farther from Nellie’s home and family. The safety and wellbeing of two toddler daughters aren’t as important to him as avoiding conscription during World War I. Nellie must find resourceful ways for them to survive at the peril of her two young daughters, as she and her daughters are forced to go along when Britt hides in the early twentieth century American wilderness for nearly three years. Grit. I’d have to say that’s when Grandma developed grit. And there is no grit like that of a Texas woman fighting for the survival of her young children in dangerous circumstances.

These books are based on the stories my grandmother told me repeatedly through the years. It is not my intention to give an accurate day to day biography of her life. A few of the stories worked well together; accordingly I combined them for the sake of text. I changed all of the names for the privacy of the descendants. Some of the characters became amalgamated among those stories. A few people I simply omitted as they did not play a significant role in her life. So any resemblance to people either living or dead should be taken as purely coincidental and not as fact.

Nellie lived through many an era, from horse and buggy to men walking on the moon. Grandma knew more than any history book could tell, from gunfights, train robberies, outlaw bands, Women Suffrage, and Prohibition to serial killers, government scandals, street gangs, Civil Rights, and the Hippie drug culture. She would pause from telling a story to acknowledge how things changed over the years. People, customs, behavior, science, and even religion, she explained how different these were in those days.

I can never go back to those wonderful years I spent with Grandma. So many of her stories I’d love to hear her tell again. Here I am trying to write those stories so other people can learn about her life. Perhaps they can even learn a few lessons about life from her as I did. By the time you finish reading these books, you may come to know What’s it all about? from the life she lived in those days.

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Chapter 1 Reservation Please

Lela Mae was a tiny baby, long but scrawny. I told you that. Anyway, Susan and I started bottle feeding her canned milk on top of her nursing. I’ll never forget the day. Britt was off at work on the railroad. Susan was busy with her two daughters’ upcoming weddings and I knew she wouldn’t be coming to town that day. Jack borrowed Ebony for some sort of work he needed that his horse, Strawberry, wasn’t enough to do.

I felt lucky ’twas an extra warm day for early April, with not much wind but bright sunlight. You should know, the only time the wind isn’t blowing at all in that state, well, you best take shelter because it’s a saving up to kick the life from you. Anyway, the redbuds were budding. The dogwoods stood nearly spent and irises began blooming. Red, white, and blue the colors I came to know of spring in Oklahoma. Another month and oaks would make a mess of all of it as they dropped yellow catkins full of sticky dust and the cottonwoods would fill the air with drifting white fluff that reminded me of summer fields back home in Texas.

I carried Lela Mae in my arms and held tight to Nancy Margaret’s little hand as she trotted along side me. Children at that age seem to walk sometimes on tiptoes a few steps and nearly stumble. My hand kept her upright, and my slow pace matched what she could handle. Off down the street we went. Headed to the grocers’ with a few coins I had left from Britt’s most recent pay envelope. There was enough to get a can of milk for Lela Mae and a break from the house for me.

All of a sudden, all the church bells started ringing and ringing! They continued ringing in no particular pattern. Doors on the houses we passed slammed shut! Windows closed, curtains yanked tight, and blinds drawn. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! The bells continued.

WAR WAS DECLARED!

To this day I’ve no idea how everybody knew it but me. Nor how my luck put me and two young babies shutout from the store with no reason. I stood bewildered at the locked door. Not a soul was in sight.

One of the women from our church swooped by in her buggy, stopped a little past us and looked over her shoulder. Sister Nellie! Get in with a quickness! We gotta get y’all home!

I handed her the baby, lifted Nancy Margaret into the surrey and climbed in beside her. The woman, nearly my age and a mother herself, instinctively pulled Nancy Margaret close to her as I stepped up and sat on the black leather bench. The seat was hot from the sun and made me glad my toddler and I had socks on under our long dresses.

YAW! She raised and slapped her horse’s reins. The buggy bolted forward with a speedy jolt that made me hang onto Nancy Margaret with one arm and the back of the seat with my other. The swift hooves of the horse sprayed dirt up at us. I shielded my toddler’s face as she spat out dust, and I marveled at my friend’s ability to hang onto my baby under one arm and wield the horse by her other.

What is it? I asked. What’s going on?

She looked sternly at me. THEY DECLARED WAR! Tain’t safe t’ be on the streets!

War? Do you mean the North and the South?

Worse ’an ’at, she replied. War with Germany. Surely you heard the talk about Europe an’ the Kaiser?

She happened to see us as she raced to pick up her own children and get them home. Stay inside, Sister Nellie! Stay where it’s safe, she cautioned me as she dropped us off at my house.

My thoughts surveyed the world map in my mind. Seemed to me Germany was a good piece away from America what with France and then the Atlantic Ocean between us. And Oklahoma was even further from the shore. Britt soon returned from work with what little more knowing he had of the goings on. All businesses closed. Town gossips made their rounds spreading horrible rumors. America was at war with Germany. At the time, I couldn’t imagine how they would fight. I even thought maybe the Germans were here and battling their way towards us, marching down our street!

Days passed. Uneasiness prevailed. The grocery stores finally reopened, but shelves were quickly picked clean by desperate people with no certainty of tomorrow. As true news came, people eased, but not by much. There was talk of Southern insurrection if this war was lead by a Yankee President. First time I recall paying mind to politics. Worse yet, I had my own opinions and that was unladylike in those days. Many people tried to shush me. But I didn’t see the harm in a woman speaking her mind about politicians and politics. Still don’t. Politicians? When people talk about them, they’re letting some good person rest. HA!

Jaqualin and Melinda’s weddings were two days apart. Beautiful brides they were. Susan’s fear of her Native blood and their futures was unfounded. One married our minister’s son who was studying to be a preacher. Churches were the social hub and a minister’s wife had status. The other married a medical school graduate, which meant high status also. Men often took brides younger than themselves, and brides often married established older men in those days. Not so much age difference like Britt and me or Fannie and Frank, but older grooms just the same.

OH! shouted Britt as he came home from his regular three days’ stint at work. OH! Nellie!

What is it, Britt? What’s wrong?

It’s that Pr..president Wilson! He said he’d keep us out a the war an’ now they’re talking c..conscription. All us men gonna have t’ fight as s..soldiers!

NO! Britt, surely they’ll need the trains! You’ll be safe. You gotta be. You got two babies here! Maybe ’twas selfish of me but I worried. How could I support our babies? No. Surely they won’t take you. Papa and Mamma seemed farther away than ever! Where else would I turn? The thought of me driving a buckboard with two small children from Enid to Whitehouse sent chills down my spine! I would if I had to.

Within a month or two after that, Jaqualin and Melinda’s husbands got drafted and sent off to the Army. The girls moved back home with Susan and Jack. Susan decided that was a good time to distract all us women and we set about learning to make a wedding ring quilt whenever we weren’t working in the garden. She had a small, stiff piece of paper cut with an arc across the top and slanted to a curved bottom. Of all the boxes full of old clothes and scraps of cloth, we cut the pattern pieces. Seemed like a million of them and Susan insisted we keep those all sorted not just by color, but if plain or patterned among the colors. We sewed one layer of cotton fabric to the batting. The other layer, Susan supervised us laying out the pieces we’d cut. She wouldn’t allow any of the rings to have the same source pieces. And on that large plank table of hers, we moved them around until she had them intertwined as circles to her satisfaction. A double wedding ring quilt she called it.

None of us spoke of the war for the sake of the girls’ worry of their husbands. My daughters and I stayed at the Hills’ during the days when Brit was off at work. I didn’t feel safe in town alone, even with our guns. Would those Germans come a marching down our street at any moment? My frantic husband came home with bad news. Some of the men he worked with were gone to the Army. No choice. No notice. Just gone.

They won’t take you. Your older ’an those men. I was sure I settled the matter when a loud knock came at the door. A loud, rapid, persistent knock!