The Fields of Yesterday

By Alfred Duncan

The Fields of Yesterday is about the life of Alfred Duncan. It begins in a small Arkansas town in 1929 and in a chronological manner follows his life for over seven decades. Several things set his life apart and makes it interesting. They are related to the gifts and abilities that he was blessed with and how he has used them. The hardships of the 1930s and somewhat into the mid 1940s had a profound effect on shaping him into the man he became. He had a strong work ethic and did not expect anything from life that he had not earned in some way. The concept of an entitlement was totally foreign to him and for the most part, those of his generation as well.
His friends and the games they played give an interesting insight into what children used to do with their idle time. His work and actual employment when still a child also gives good insight into how things were with many families in the 1930s and 1940s. Being a shoe-shine boy gave him some insight into human nature as well as did being a newspaper delivery boy. Even though he did not realize it at the time, those things were teaching him good business practices, organization and administration. All that would be of great value to him in the years to come.
His time in the United States Navy in 1948 1952 continued his preparation for life in a much different manner. One specific skill in the area of woodworking was especially honed as he served as one of only fifty Patternmakers in the entire United States Navy. His travels into waters off Europe, North Africa and western Asia gave him exposures to other cultures as he visited small towns and large cities in those areas of the world.
Our nations economic difficulties in the early and mid 1950s was in the mix for making decisions that involved marriage, family, moving and putting down roots. That was expected to turn out as a typical American dream, meaning a home, a good job and a secure future. Several things contributed to that dream becoming a realitynot the least being his employment by Dixie Cup Company. Added to that was schooling under the G.I. Bill and finally the establishment of a sideline occupation. His high school training in Architectural and Mechanical Drawing plus added studies by correspondence combined with his experience as a Patternmaker enabled him to hang up his shingle as an Architectural, Mechanical and Patent Draftsman. That opened doors to a new level of relationships with people as well as added income to the family.
During those years he and his family had settled into regular participation in the life of their church and that brought them into a deeper understanding of what it means to be a Christian, or maybe better, A Follower of Christ. That understanding also brought some unrest to Mr. Duncans life in the form of career dissatisfaction and a seeking for what God was leading him to do. After several months of prayer and thought he determined that God was calling him to enter the Pastoral Ministry. The settled life that he and his family had been living suddenly became unsettled.
A rural church invited him to serve as their Pastor, and with that, move into their parsonage. Some burning the bridges decisions were made as they sold the home they had worked so hard for and he quit his job that had been the source of economic security. This was starting all over at age thirty, and involved entering into an area where he had no prior experience. The years that followed, and the record of the churches he served, reveal the victories and the defeats that are so much a part of being a Pastor. His life was indeed a great adventure and this book will certainly inspire others to meet life with courage as they trust God to supply their every need.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 5, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462805327

Alfred Duncan

Alfred Duncan was born in Mansfield, Arkansas in 1929 and his life was certainly molded by the influences of the Great Depression. He started work as a child and in the years that followed he developed a strong work ethic. After high school he joined the Navy and ended up serving extra time because of the Korean War. Not many people have had the privilege of “wearing as many hats” as he has worn or had such a wide variety of education and life experiences. At age thirty he entered the ministry and for over forty years served as pastor or interim pastor for several churches. He is now retired and lives in Northeast Louisiana.

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Copyright © 2008 by Alfred Duncan.

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Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1

The Fields of Beginning

Chapter 2

Fields of Imagination

Chapter 3

Fields of Development

Chapter 4

The Fields of Structure

Chapter 5

The Field of Partnership

Chapter 6

The Fields of Reality

Chapter 7

A Return to Old Fields

Chapter 8

The Field of No Return

Chapter 9

A Field of Uncertainty

Chapter 10

A Field of Rescue

Chapter 11

Fields of Confusion

Chapter 12

The Fields of Recovery

Chapter 13

The Fields of Expansion

Chapter 14

The Fields of Peace

Chapter 15

The Fields of Awakening

Chapter 16

Fields of Stability

Chapter 17

The Fields of Friendship

Chapter 18

The Field of Struggle

Chapter 19

The Fields of Emotional Involvement

Chapter 20

The Fields of Change

All Scripture references are from

The King James Version of the Bible

All quotes at the end of the chapters are from

The Pocket Book of Quotations

For Army Libraries—WW II.

Dedication

This book is dedicated, first to my wife, Geraldine (Jerry) Roberts Duncan and to our three children, Lea, Brian and Joel. Their patience and understanding through the years enabled me to keep focused on the demands of my work. They never complained about my involvement in the lives of other people even though it was depriving them of my presence and time. This book is also dedicated to the hundreds of people who called me Pastor and permitted me to serve them in that capacity.

Introduction

Someone has said that life is like entering a lengthy movie that has already started and then having to leave before it ends. That is a good analogy and somewhat disturbing as well. I will not even attempt to explore all the implications of it but there is one thing that is very apparent. It is possible to live your entire life and miss the point, like entering a movie after the plot has been set and walking out before the end. I don’t think I have missed the point in my life but I am sure that I have missed some sub-points along the way. That’s much easier to do than we realize and they are much easier to see in hindsight. I am beginning this story of my life on April 4, 2007, so I have many years of hindsight.

I am aware that I am a very small character in a far greater story. I find it quite humbling indeed to realize, that in the much larger story of humanity, God actually knows me as an individual and continues to have a purpose for my life. It is He who has kept me from completely missing the point. This does not mean that I have always clearly known exactly what to do nor does it mean that I have always made the best choices. It is evident that God is very patient and He has certainly demonstrated that with me.

I’m quite sure that I will depart this life before the movie is over but that is not a morbid thought. I have a very positive assurance that God has made it possible for me to contribute in some small way to the larger story of humanity and for that I am very thankful. I also have the positive assurance of eternal life that Jesus has promised, as recorded in John 3:15 That whoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

With those thoughts as an introduction it is time to retrace the steps of my life, or to use the previous analogy, go back to the day that I entered the movie. That was on November 9, 1929 in a small Arkansas town named Mansfield, in Sebastian County. The present population of Mansfield is about 1,100 and I think it was much less than that when I was born. My Mother was Bertha Gertrude Norris and my Father was Warren Wesley Duncan. My sister Nadine was born in 1923. Before I was born mom had the name Anna Joyce picked out for a girl but that didn’t fit me so they just called me A.J. It wasn’t until I was in the sixth grade that a teacher encouraged me to get a name so I discussed it with Mom and came up with Alfred John. Actually A.J. would have been just fine but I did not realize it at the time. It is also of interest that on my birth certificate my Dad’s name is spelled Worn. He probably was.

Mansfield was an active little town because of the coalmines, a brick plant, cotton farms and the timber business. Those activities made for a lot of railroad traffic and there was a very nice Depot there. In the mid 1920s and maybe even closer to my birth there were two or three hotels (more like rooming houses) in Mansfield as well as three grocery stores, two blacksmiths, a drug store, a grist mill and a cotton gin. Some of those things were set for decline because of the Great Depression that was coming.

Just eleven days before my birth the stock market crashed, banks failed and businesses closed. That happened on October 29, 1929 and the results were devastating across our country. One out of every four men lost their jobs and the average per capita income dropped from $700. per year to half that much. I don’t think we felt the impact of the Great Depression as many did because we were already living in a depression mode. You don’t miss what you’ve never had.

Herbert Hoover was President of the United States when I was born but Franklin D. Roosevelt took the office in March of 1933. He began some federal programs to put men to work and in 1935 the Social Security Act was established. In that same legislation provisions were made to give aid to families with dependent children. A federal food distribution program to the poor was also started. I remember those commodities that poor people could get, and I also remember that my Dad would have no part of it. The occasional hunk of cheese that I saw on our table came from some woman who shared with Mom.

There could be a lengthy debate about the wisdom of establishing the federal welfare programs during the Great Depression. Those programs grew and they helped create a welfare and entitlement mentality that has certainly impacted the economic and social structure of our nation. We will never know what the outcome would have been had they not be put in place. It is my understanding that President Roosevelt had full intention of stopping federal aid to the poor as soon as the nation got back on it’s feet. Stopping such things is not easy and he didn’t. Prior to the federal government’s involvement, the local governments, charities and churches cared for the poor. I can remember the County Poorhouse that was spoken of, and apparently the conditions there were so harsh that only the destitute people would even apply to enter. The expression, We may have to go to the poorhouse, was often spoken—mostly as something to say that expressed the hardships that most people were experiencing.

As a quick note let me say that I am glad that I was born when I was. Had I not made it on November 9, 1929 I might not have made it. Dad and Mom stopped having children—as did millions of other married couples. There was a substantial drop in the birth rate that started with the Great Depression and extended to a large degree until the end of WW II.

When I started this book I had in mind to share some details of my life for our three children and their six children. Of course I also had fleeting thoughts of other generations to come but did not dwell on that. Over the months I mentioned to different people that I was writing my life story and to my surprise several of them said they would like a copy, or that they wanted to read it. I sure hope they were serious! Because of those comments I have changed my approach considerably and put hundreds of more hours into writing it—in an effort to make it more interesting, and to give it a broader appeal. Whether or not I accomplished that will be up to you, but I sure hope I did. Another very significant factor that has caused this book to take on a great deal of labor was the decision to publish it. Originally I had intended to take it to a copy place and have a few copies run off and give them to selected people. The decision to publish it makes the book available to anyone who wants it, and I find that a bit intimidating. It has caused me to be very focused on what I write—as well as how it is written. Writing, like speaking, can be easily misunderstood and I wanted to avoid that as much as possible.

The Fields of Yesterday is a broad title that is brought into a more narrow focus in each chapter. By fields I mean my perspective of things as they were during that particular time period in my life. That perspective was determined by where I was at that time. Where I was, is not limited to a geographical location—even though that is a large factor—but it includes where I was spiritually, intellectually and socially. Maybe developmentally would be included in that as well.

I have written and re-written each chapter of this book several times. That is—portions of each chapter. I have also continued to add things that came to my mind. This book did not just flow out of me but it came in spurts and drips! I have been surprised at some of the things I have remembered from sixty and seventy years ago. This book will not hold a high level of interest for all people at all times. In those areas where your interest level drops I encourage you to turn the pages and move on to where your interest will be perked again.

I sincerely appreciate a good friend of the family, Mrs. Terry (Beth) Erwin for the many hours she spent in editing the manuscript. Her questions, suggestions and corrections have made this a much better book. Beth is a professional horticulturist and the Curator of the Kalorama Nature Preserve in Collinston, Louisiana. She has a sharp eye for detail and was ideal for proofing my writing. Any errors remaining are not her fault. They are things I overlooked when I went back through to make the corrections that she pointed out. Also, Beth did not get to read the final draft that included some things that were not in the other ones. She actually read two drafts, and I just didn’t have the heart to ask her to do it again. I take full credit for any mistakes that remain.

My thanks as well to our daughter, Lea Culp, for her work in scanning and arranging the photos that are included in the book.

Over a year has passed since I started writing this, so it’s time to lay it to rest and let it speak. I hope that my Fields of Yesterday will kindle good memories in your mind and be a blessing to your heart.

Alfred Duncan

Bastrop, Louisiana

May 20, 2008

Across the fields of yesterday,

He comes to me,

A little boy just back from play—

The lad I used to be.

-T.S. Jones, Jr. Sometimes

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.

-Psalm 19:14

Chapter 1

The Fields of Beginning

This Field of Yesterday marks the beginning of my existence and the memories that have been stored away all these years, just waiting to be stirred up and brought to the surface. It is strange how one thought has lead to another and then to another as I started writing this account of my life. Then, as I have gone back and re-read what I have written even more memories have surfaced. This chapter covers the years 1929-1940

* * *

Several years ago, in the early 1980s, I asked Dad to go with me for a drive back to the Mansfield, Arkansas area to see all the places where we had lived when I was a child. That tour, along with Dad’s comments brought back some memories as well as informed me of things that I did not know. On the day we did that I thought we visited all the places where I had lived but we didn’t. I guess Dad forgot because I found out later there were at least two other houses that I lived in between birth and four years of age. It appears that I must have lived in at least seven different houses during the first nine years of my life.

In our drive back through the places of my early childhood I discovered that the house where I was born is no longer there. In that place is a parking lot for the First Baptist Church of Mansfield. Back over the years I had seen the house a few times and it was typical of the small rent houses of that day. We drove by the church parking lot but then went on to see the five houses where Dad and Mom had lived in my early years. I guess the reason for their moving so much was that they considered it some improvement and possibly they could afford it. The rent on the houses we lived in usually ranged from $3.00 to $5.00 a month.

Most of my early memories are connected to where we lived so I will go through this first chapter house by house and tell the memories associated with them. However, there is somewhat of a blur in some of these memories, especially related to house number one. I am quite sure that some of the things I write under house number one may well be memories from other times of childhood.

House Number One

The first house I remember well was about four miles south of Mansfield sitting all alone near the foot of the Poteau mountain range. Dad had to walk to Mansfield every day to work in the brickyard so that was a four-mile walk each way. He also tried to make money on the side by making soap and selling it. He made the soap in a cast iron kettle over an open fire. It was the same kettle that Mom did her washing in. I think the odor of the lye in the soap may well be what I remember. After mixing the ingredients and cooking it, he poured it out in a pan and then cut it into bars. The soap was for laundry so the bars were about three inches by five inches in size. Women rubbed the soap over the clothes on the rub board and then scrubbed them clean by rubbing them up and down on the rub board. I don’t remember what Dad got for a bar of soap but it was probably a nickel or a dime if he managed to sell any. I guess Mom used most of what he made. Dad did the extra work in an effort to get out of debt to the bank. Prior to my birth he had a failed farm experience near Abbott, Arkansas and had lost everything. His farm failure was the result of good crops and no one to help him harvest them. He had at least eleven bales of cotton in the field as well as a good corn crop. He and Mom picked one bale of cotton and gave up. Dad sold the farm, the crops in the fields and the farming equipment—all at a loss. He had borrowed money from the bank to get the farm, the equipment and to plant the crops, but he did not get enough money from the sale to pay off that debt.

Those early houses were just planks of wood nailed vertically to a sill at the bottom and a plate at the top. There were no studs or double walls. The boards always shrunk so there were gaps between them. Sometimes those gaps were covered by battens on the outside but sometimes not. The inside walls were either left bare or covered with various kinds of heavy paper that was most always stained and circled by rain water that had come through the cracks. The ceilings of the houses were also wood. The wood floor was single and the joints had opened up so it had cracks in it. The houses were built on piers so it was open under the floor and that became a place for chickens, dogs and cats. The first house did not have windows in every room. It was four rooms and one of them had an opening in the wall but nothing in the opening. In other words, there was a window opening but no window in it. The rent was free at this house because Dad was going to try to grow some strawberries for the man who owned the place. Our light source was a coal oil lamp. Mom had a coal oil (kerosene) stove to cook on and we had a hand dug well. Mom had some chickens so we had eggs. If there was a way possible Mom always had chickens. She usually had a "sett’n hen" that hatched the eggs but as times became more prosperous (after we lived in Fort Smith) she ordered the little chicks and kept them in the house under a light until they got big enough to go outside. Some time later (also in Fort Smith) she had an incubator and hatched the eggs in it. It was interesting to watch a little chick burst the shell, and come out into the world.

At the first house the rooster played havoc with the centipedes and kept them under control. I can still see him picking up a centipede in his bill, and shaking it to death. We had a cow to milk so butter was on the table at meal times. The dug well had an outcropping of rock or something that served as a shelf or else we had a springhouse where Mom kept the milk and cream. She had a cream separator, a mechanical devise that separated the cream from the milk. It had a large metal bowl and a crank that turned something inside and the force of the spinning action separated the cream from the milk. I think the cream ran out a small spout and the milk was left behind. We called the milk without the cream, Blue John. It did have a bluish cast and had little taste. In today’s terms it would be called zero percent fat. When she got more cream than she could use we walked to Mansfield and sold it at the creamery. She churned butter for years and I wanted to help but she didn’t let me do it much. Something about the way I churned just didn’t get the job done.

If at all possible Dad had a smoke house because we had "hog killings in the late fall of the year. Other people always came to help and they shared in the meat. The usual procedure for hog killing began with a shot between the hog’s eyes with a .22 rifle. That immediately killed the hog and a man was waiting to quickly cut the jugular vein to drain the blood. A steel barrel was fixed on an angle, filled with water, and a fire built under it. The hog was placed in the barrel of scalding water and that enabled the men to scrape the hog’s hair off. Once the hog was cleaned of hair it was secured by the back feet and hoisted up in the air by a rope over a tree limb. The hog was then gutted, and after that they cut the hog up into the various cuts they preferred. To keep the kids happy someone would blow up the hog’s bladder and it was used for a ball to play with. Processing the meat was time consuming because it included curing the hams and bacon as well as making sausage. Much of the meat processing took place in the smoke house. The smoke house itself was a small barn-like building with a dirt floor and a table like counter made of planks of wood. The meat was cut up in there and then cured" with either salt or brown sugar and possibly a combination of those. The hams, shoulders and bacon were hung from the rafters. Fresh meat and sausage was also canned and it would keep a long time.

I must make a detour here because of the mention of a smokehouse. Back during the Civil War my great-grandfather, Isaac Duncan, went to the woods and hid out to avoid going off to war and to avoid some of the things that followed after the war. I have no idea how he lived but he probably had a gun to kill game with. He left his wife, Susan, and four young boys, one of them being my grandfather—to fend for them selves. They ate rabbits and rats and about anything they could find. The old farmhouse was out in the country and they had no neighbors around them. Carpetbaggers came by their place and took nearly everything they had—including their milk cow—leaving them destitute. The Carpetbaggers also cut open the feather beds and pillows to see if money was hidden in them. Carpetbaggers were people from the north who were moving south during the reconstruction period following the Civil War, generally speaking from 1865-1877. In order to get salt for the little food she could find or grow, my great-grandmother dug up the dirt floor of the smoke house and boiled it in a cast iron wash pot. The salt that had accumulated in the dirt over the years would be dissolved, and the water would get salty. She would let it all settle and then dip out the water to use for her cooking. I think she was a very creative and hard-working woman. I’m not so sure about her husband.

Another neighbor activity that brought people together to help each other was syrup making. I only recall one of these events but it was quite fascinating. A mule or a horse was hitched to a long pole that was secured to a cane grinder that pressed the juice out of the cane. The horse walked in a circle and that turned the grinder. Men took the freshly cut sugar cane from the wagons and fed it into the grinder and out came the juice. The liquid from the sugar cane was caught in a long metal cooking pan that had a fire under it. The cooking pan had partitions in it and the syrup was moved with wooden paddles from one section of the pan to another as it thickened and changed in color. One or two people stood along side the pan and skimmed off any pieces of cane and the foam that came from the boiling so the syrup was clean and clear. When it got to the thickness and color that was wanted it was dipped out into metal buckets that had lids. The sugar cane was good to chew on so the children got a piece of it to keep us occupied and out of the way. The farmers grew the sugar cane and a man who owned the mill hired out to them at harvest time and brought his mill to their farm for the syrup making. In the early 1980s Jerry (my wife) and I went to Ecuador and high in the Andes Mountains we came across some Indians making syrup exactly the same way it had been done in Arkansas many years before.

The yard around the house was dirt and I spent countless hours playing in it. There were no neighbors. I guess this was in 1932-1933 that we lived in this house and times were hard. It is strange but I do not remember my sister Nadine at all in those early years until I was about five or six. She was six years older than me. Neither do I have any recollection of attending church but I think on occasion we did walk to Mansfield to attend church or someone may have come after us.

Mom shared a memory with me from this time in my life that frightened her considerably. One day I passed part of some kind of a parasite. She extracted the entire thing and it was about two feet long. Not knowing what to do she carried it way out in a field and walked back to the house. She said it was so white she could see it lying out there glistening in the sun. When she looked toward it—it made her tremble with fear. I have no idea what it was but I have heard of parasites called tape worms, so maybe that was what it was.

When we walked to Mansfield we passed by some much nicer houses as we neared town. I had a cousin that lived in one of them and his Mom had a washing machine powered by a gasoline engine. When I was about seven or eight we visited there and my cousin, maybe two years older then me, showed me how he sniffed gasoline fumes. Gasoline for the washing machine was kept in a one gallon galvanized can with a snout for pouring. The snout was just the right size to fit up a nostril. He sniffed it all the time and told me how good it made it him feel but he never convinced me to try it. But for the grace of God, even at that age! My cousin died at age nineteen in an alcohol related automobile accident in California.

There was a gristmill in Mansfield where Mom bought flour and meal. The wheels gears and belts that ran the mill to grind the wheat and corn always fascinated me. I also liked the smell of ground grain that was always present.

House Number Two

While Dad was still working at the brickyard he took another job as a sharecropper at a farm owned by Mr. Ira Taylor. Along with the job came a house to live in—on the farm. We did not live there all that long but it opened new vistas for me. One was regular attendance at a church that was about a mile away. The church was Coop Prairie Cumberland Presbyterian and it is still located on U. S. Highway 71 just east of Mansfield. I remember singing with the children and the card classes in Sunday School. We always got a card about the size of a playing card that had a Bible picture of some kind and the scripture lesson for the day. The church was a one-room structure with a heating stove for winter warmth. Everyone met behind curtains in different areas in that room for Sunday School. The curtains were opened up for worship. There was always a break between the two services so people could visit the outhouses. There is a cemetery at Coop Prairie and all of my family members are buried there. U.S. Highway 71 runs through the middle of the cemetery—the only place in the United States where a federal highway does that.

The Taylors’ were nice people. I would walk over to their big house and she would give me a biscuit with molasses. I punched a hole in the edge of the biscuit with my finger and then filled the hole with molasses. That made for some good eating. Beyond the Taylors’ a half-mile or so lived another family with no children. They had a strange last name and I think they were not from those parts. They must have been Scandinavian or Eastern European people that settled in that area. Land could be obtained with very little money. Anyway, I walked across the prairie to their house and she would give me a dish of smearcase. It was years later that I learned it was cottage cheese. She made it for their use and may have sold it as well. It was nice of her to share some with me.

We spent one Christmas in the sharecropper’s house and it made a deep impression on me. On Christmas Eve, Mr. Taylor slipped over to the house after dark, maybe in a wagon or on a horse but he rang a cow’s bell real loud and after a couple of minutes Dad took me to the front door and out on the porch there sat a red wagon! I think it was a Radio Flyer and no one could have convinced me that Santa didn’t bring it.

As to farming, I remember that dad was good at blowing out stumps. Clearing land for farming was hard work in those days. It was not unusual at all to see stumps in the fields where crops were planted. The farmer just had to go around them in his plowing, planting, and harvesting. The expression I hit a stump comes from those years. People use that expression to mean they ran into some difficulty that stopped or slowed them down in what they were doing. Dad could get rid of the stumps with dynamite. He knew how to place just enough of it to lift a stump completely out of the ground. In those days anyone could buy dynamite and it was not unusual to have some on hand. It came in real neat wooden boxes.

My actual farm experience was limited to riding in the farm wagon during corn harvest. Mr. Taylor drove the wagon while Dad and other men pulled the ears off the corn and threw them into the wagon. There were times when I went to the fields when dad was plowing. I always did like to watch the turning plow roll the soil over so neatly. The fragrance of turned soil was pleasant and it felt good on bare feet. I guess in my mind during that time was—how could life be any better?

Elementary School Years

House Number Three

This house was on U.S. Highway 71 and not far from downtown Mansfield. During our stay here in 1935 and 1936 the highway was upgraded from gravel to concrete. This was part of President Roosevelt’s plan to put men to work. The federal highway project stretched from Fort Smith to Texarkana and probably beyond those points as well.

I could sit on the front porch and watch the construction as it passed the house. I was in school at this time and walked the mile or two to get there. I can’t remember much about school in Mansfield. I do remember we got a big tablet