A Life in Each Decade of the 20Th Century: Autobiography of Charles George Theleman

By Joan Theleman Sisson

As the 20th century approached the 1990s, Dad mentioned that if he could live that long he would have lived in each decade of the century. He often commented on the vast changes hed seen as they developed. He marveled at the first cars he saw about 1913. He experienced the progress of plowing, from teams to steam engine to tractors. He lived thru the Great Depression and two World Wars. He reveled in the development of power tools, from hand saw to chain saws, electric drills and such. He watched the advancement of airplanes, and witnessed the beginning of the space age and computers.
This is his story, recorded on audio tapes as family history. It is told in his sometimes-blunt language (R-rated), including difficulties, mistakes, joys and accomplishments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 26, 2008
• ISBN: 9781465327086

Joan Theleman Sisson

Growing up in California, with a father working in agriculture and the national parks, Joan lived “under the redwoods” in her early years. During school years in Kansas, she enjoyed riding her mare along country roads and hearing meadowlarks sing. Joan has contributed articles to Western Horseman and Country magazines, is a former parent-helper of the 4-H Horse program and was a docent at Sunol Regional Wilderness in California. She is the author of horse books for teens, Echo Valley and Dan; books for young children, Marigold and One Little Heifer. A book of short stories, Smiles, is due out in 2008. The author believes, teach beauty and brotherhood rather than horror and destruction. Joan and her husband, Dave, had two children, Mark and Rebecca. (Becky illustrated Green Eyes.) They now live in Montana near Becky’s ranch; Mark died in 2003.

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Copyright © 2008 by Joan Theleman Sisson.

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Contents

Preface

Tape One

1903-1914

Tape Two

1915-1918

Tape Three

1918-1922

Tape Four

1923-1924

Tape Five

1925-1929

Tape Six

1930-1935

Tape Seven

1934-1946

Tape Eight

1947-1960

Tape Nine

1961-1967

Tape Ten

1968-1984

Epilogue

Preface

Around 1983 my sister, Barbara, suggested to our dad that he record his life story on audio tapes. It was a good suggestion. Dad liked to talk, he had many adventures, and he didn’t know how to type. In the first half of 1984 he was able to sit outside his house (he loved the outdoors) and talk with a tape recorder going. He was able to use the recorder so well, that he and his sisters corresponded more by tapes than letters. These tapes are spoken to Barbara and her husband, Dave Lopez, tho Dad expected them to be shared with others.

As Dad’s life approached the 1990’s, he commented that if he could live until then, he would have lived in each decade of that century, having been born January 5, 1903. He succeeded; he died on November 25, 1995, six weeks before his 93rd birthday.

Dad’s schooling was sporadic as the reader will discover. His knowledge of grammar was therefore incomplete but I have endeavored to transcribe these tapes as he recorded them, colorful, blunt language and all. Before judging some of his early tactics, one is asked to remember that survival is primordial. He did not finish eighth grade, which was all that was expected with rural schools then (1916 for Dad). He did however, at some point, take a [completion?] test where he was the only one in Harvey County, Kansas, up until that time to receive a grade of 100%. He loved to read and learn.

Even tho Barbara and I had heard many of Dad’s adventures, often more than once, there were happenings in his life revealed in the tapes that we didn’t know. I wish I had known some of these before. He was genuinely pleased to have two girls; he didn’t want a boy to possibly endure what he had. As I heard of some of the risks he went thru on various jobs, I sometimes marvel even now that he lived long enough to have a family! . . . and then, to live in each decade of the 20th century!

Since Dad recorded most or all of this on his back patio, occasionally there would be noises of airplanes, motorcycles, barking dogs and such, that made hearing the tapes difficult. Dad must have been so intent on what he was saying that it didn’t occur to him to pause until the sound passed. I have transcribed these to the best of my understanding. Inserts in italics are mine; inserts in brackets only are for clarification. Some places or the spelling of some names might not be correct. Also, his knowledge of machinery far exceeded mine, so leeway must be given by the reader, for the names of brands and parts.

[Note: his surname is pronounced with the second e silent.]

—Joan (Theleman) Sisson

Life Story of Charles George Theleman

as related by him on audiotapes in 1984

[Transcribed by daughter Joan Carol Theleman Sisson.

Whenever Dad refers to his older or younger sister, he means

the older or younger of the two. Dad was oldest in January,

1903, Rose in February, 1904, and Clara in December, 1905.]

Tape One

1903-1914

Hello, to whom this may concern; this is the life story of the good and bad and adventures of Charles G. Theleman. I will try and mark this down as best I know. My language, and I’m kinda slow at thinking, sometimes there will be a pause. The first thing I remember is looking thru a door hole. I learned years after that there was no lock on it, so I was looking thru that hole. I discovered Dad coming up a hill. It was very green and beautiful, and the house, it didn’t have no corner in one end of it, made out of limestones. That was back about 1904, I imagine; could have been ’05, but I think it was probably ’04. That would make me about a year and a half old as near as I can get it placed by different talks of relations, Uncle Herman [Theleman] and Uncle . . . . A two-room stone house without any ceiling in it, just a roof over it, and stones. Guess it probably had a ceiling in it at some time, from what I found out; but anyway, the stone was suppose to have been knocked out, the corner of the house knocked out with lightning, and rocks just hap-hazardly piled up enough to close the gap, and it didn’t do a good job at that.

The next I remember was a trip to Luray, Kansas. I don’t know how many miles, don’t have any idey, but it’s quite a little trip. I can remember roosters crowing and chickens cackling when they had the produce in crates in back of grocery stores; (so I found out later in life). And along the way where the pastures were they had stone posts made out of limestone rock. Well, all I can tell you is that they were made out of rock and behind the posts were cattle. My folks told me, especially my mother, told me, never get in the pasture where they are because they may be sort of mean if they get spooked, they might run over you. Hardly ever horned anyone so I understand, but they might run over you. There was a big bunch of them.

The next thing I remember, picking up cow chips. They call them cow chips but really they was cattle shit, just dried. Used for fuel, cooking or keeping warm, whatever needing a fire. That’s what they used, that’s the only thing there was in that part of the country, there were very few trees. There were some small trees, probably planted there by man that came in after settlement; but native trees were very scarce.

I remember Dad getting his head down on the railroad track; that’s the first time I seen a railroad track, and Mother explained to me what it was, suppose to have a locomotive or as they called it, steam engine in that time, hauling freight and passengers. Said one of these days we’d probably see a train. Anyway, Dad would listen on the rail because you could hear a train a-coming, pounding on the rail for quite a ways. He had to make a crossing across the rail [with a wagon] so he listened to that. That was explained to me but I didn’t get it very good; putting it together afterward, that was probably the reason. Near as I could find out, the railroad was the Kansas Pacific, which later on in history it became part of the Union Pacific System. So a person would find out a little bit about history, you could find out what railroad it is.

We came to a bridge probably across the Smoky Hill River, some of them call it the Saline River, I don’t know which it is or what it’s suppose to be. But we called it the Smokey Hill River, I remember that ’til I was a pretty-good size child. Mules on the lumber wagon, so it had high wheels, I remember that; high to me, anyway. The mules, starting on the bridge, they didn’t want to go on there. So Dad, with a lot of cussin’ and whippin’, finally got ’em started across there; they went across there leaning on each other like an A-frame, and they made quite a stompin’ and quite a fuss looking down at the water, shying away from the bannisters of the bridge. Or the parameters of the bridge, as they know them now.

image1.jpg

Theleman family, 1906

Charles Lewis, wife Clara Alma (Gilbert)

Charles George, Rose Bertha, Clara Elinor

Then we moved to Tipton, Kansas; that’s a little bit west and a bit north if I remember right, maybe considerably north and as much west. Anyway, Dad and Mother bargained for a hotel. I don’t know if they rented it or bought it, but anyway, they run a hotel. The hotel had a saloon in it. Dad was a barkeeper in the saloon, and all that time Kansas was suppose to be dry. But there wasn’t much law enforcement and people were pretty wild, so it probably was pretty lax. I know, found that out in later years. Anyway, there was lots of booze there; you could smell beer anywhere you went. There were probably several saloons in that little town. Mostly just rural, there was no industry around there I suppose, but there was ranches and farms. That was when the Homestead Act was in effect and some of the cattlemen were fighting the settlers. I found that out also afterwards.

Back at this hotel, there was a well there of considerable depth. I can remember that because it took quite a while to get water, they drawed it with a rope and pulley. They had a cover around it I suppose about three-four feet high; I don’t know just how high it was, but anyway they had a curb around it because otherwise people would walk into it. It had a pulley in the middle and they use to pull up water with a rope. Well, I thought it would be kinda fun to throw trash in there and I guess my older sister probably helped me do something, or some other children, I don’t remember just exactly what about, but I do remember throwing stuff in the well. Ka-thing! Ka-thing! And we thought that was a lot of fun. Well, finally Dad caught us at it and he sure busted our ass good. I mean he busted it. We couldn’t sit down for a week. And we never did forget that and we never got anywhere near that well afterwards. You can bet your ass on that.

We did not stay very long in Tipton, probably a year or so, from what I can find out from folks about the past. Then we moved on what Mother had, to the homestead. I’m for not sure where that was but I used to hear talk a lot about Clay County, so pretty sure it must have been in Clay County. And she had it proved up on, she didn’t get married until late in life, until 29 . . . I guess it was 31 years old . . . Dad was 29. Anyway, they went out on this place to try and make a go of it, and Dad build her some kind of a house. It looked like quite a house to me, as near as I can remember. I suppose anything that had a structure . . . an egg crate in those days was considered a pretty good house.

They could see the river from where the house was located. There was some kind of a shack on it for a barn, and I remember Indians used to come thru there looking for something to eat. They’d steal Mama dry for the eggs and help themselves to the milk from the milk house or the cow, either one. All she could do was just take it easy. We had a gun alright, but she didn’t know nothing about how to use it. I remember Dad going away with a gun a time or two, where to I don’t know; I suppose tho, he was hunting for something to eat. We didn’t have too damned much to eat, as near as I remember. Pretty much the same thing all the time; don’t remember what the same thing was, anymore; but I got tired of it.

Time I was getting old enough that I could remember things more and probably give a better description of it now. First before I go on I should have mentioned where I was born, so I’ll tell you about that. I was born in Russell County, Kansas; that was near Wilson, Kansas. Wilson is in Ellsworth County; where I was born was in Russell County. The road just west of Wilson was the County line. Just six, seven miles north of Wilson, I was born in a sod house. It had some sort of thatched roof made out of brush and stuff. I don’t remember that, all I remember is what Uncle Herman told me. When I was born he was out horseback riding not far from there; he told me, ‘I think I’ll go over and see Clara (my mother) and see how she’s getting along,’ because I knew she was pretty heavy with child. So he come over there and I was already born; January 5, 1903, about 7 o’clock in the morning. Mother used to tell me about it quite a bit. I was born without a doctor, without a midwife. Uncle Herman didn’t know what the situation was, but anyway Dad went off to Wilson and he didn’t intend to come back; suppose to go for a doctor. That’s what the statement was afterwards. He didn’t get a doctor, he just stayed there and got drunk. Uncle Herman figured that’s about where he’d be, so he asked Mother if she thought she was alright. She was alright because she had herself all cleaned up, the cord cut on me, she had it tied properly and there wasn’t nothing for him to worry about. Directly, at least. So he went to work to bring Dad back, but he had to hammer the hell out of him before he got him on the saddle and tied him on the saddle behind him and got up on the saddle in front of him. Dad couldn’t get off of there; said all he could do was spit, cuss, and spit tobacco juice. Anyway he got him home. Gave him tomato juice, coffee and like that, and got him sobered up. He said I didn’t intend to come home, I wanted them both to die. To hell with them. So that’s the kind of sonofabitch he was.

That’s enough on that.

I suppose I was in the neighborhood of about 5 years old when Dad took a notion tho, that I should have to speak in a schoolhouse. They had a commencement exercise, graduation exercise or holiday, I don’t know what it was. Anyway, they wanted me to speak the piece there and I wasn’t going to school. My mother coaxed me the piece and I thought I had it all right; but when I got up among a bunch of people who were strangers to me, why, I was scared to death, I couldn’t speak the piece very well, but I remembered some of the words when the birds and the beasts were there, the elephant sneezed and fell on his knees, and [had a last—?] to pull him up. That’s about all I remember of the piece I was suppose to speak. Anyway, I got a good trimmin’ because I didn’t speak it right. I didn’t want to speak it at all and he whipped me right in front of the whole audience. So I guess people had a pretty good opinion of him.

I remember Aunt Eleanor. Her and her husband worked on a ranch also; I believe she did some cooking for the ranch hands on the Johnson Ranch. Aunt Eleanor, if I remember right, and her husband. I don’t remember the Uncle very well. Anyway, we were having a lot of fun one day in the chicken yard. They had a big chicken yard there and a big chicken house. There were a lot of chickens in the chicken house, so we got the idey, Clara and me, that it would be a lot of fun. I don’t know if Rose was with us or not, but Clara was pretty small, I remember that. That’s the reason I calculated my age about 5. Anyway, we got in there and started chasing them chickens holy mackerel, and it sure was a lot of fun doing it. Dad caught us doing that, too. He come in the back way. He heard the hens cacklin’ and calculated we were in to something; we were pretty close together, always was, and still are [he and Clara]. Anyway, he nabbed us and how he whipped is something pittiful. I remember Mother said that was terrible, he whipped you ’til you were black and blue. He lashed some of us across the back; he come in with a bunch of switches. I don’t know what the switches were, but they worked real good on our hides.

We moved to another place, I don’t know just where. I don’t have too much recollection on it. Anyway, we children use to go down along the creek. We liked to see the water run and it was the part of the year there were lots of flowers. Mother always warned us, perhaps there might be animals about us. Perhaps snakes were the biggest worry she had, the water moccasins along the creek. I don’t know, I don’t remember seeing any of them then, but later on I did, however. We were walking along down this creek there thru the brush and weeds and tried to pick a clear path, far as I know, pretty close to the creek bank where we could. In some places the weeds were pretty high and I was old enough to realize we could get lost. Mother told us to stay with the creek, don’t leave the creek so if we ever got lost they would find us along the creek someplace. Don’t go to far; well, we didn’t know what too far was.

We went thru a thicket where there was a grapevine with some grapes on them, and we got to swinging on the vines, find a vine we could pull around on and that we could swing about 15-20 feet, a good long grape vine clear out over the water. We was talking turn about swinging on that and we’d have a great time. Dad could hear us hooping and hollering down there; he wondered what the hell was going on (that’s the way he described it anyway). He went down there. He caught us swinging on this grapevine. Anyway, he paddled our butts and sent us home. He said get home as fast as you can. I want you to run all the way. I remember that very distinctly. So we ran home alright. He came home, got an ax, went down there and chopped down all the vines so they wouldn’t be there to swing on. That’s the only sensible thing up until that time that he ever done, that I remember.

My mother walked along with Dad in a pasture. They had their lunch along, I don’t know what the lunch looked like or what was in the lunch, anyway we had something to eat along. They made us kind of a shelter with corn fodder. My mother shucked the corn while Dad chopped it off with a knife. That’s the way he made a living in them days, I don’t know for who. I remember Mother shucked the corn, and she wasn’t very strong and she wore out. No matter how tired she’d get, Dad kept cussin’ her and wanting her to keep on working. Said it had to be done; but he always watched that he didn’t overwork himself, for sure.

One day Mother made up her mind she wanted to go over and see her neighbor. I don’t know whether the neighbor was ever over at our place or not, probably did. But anyway, she walked . . . was acquainted with them one way or another, so we had to walk over to the neighbor and that was quite a little walk. Anyway, we got there, and what makes it rememberable is, they had great gobs of something to eat. We had the best food up ’til that time that we’d ever tasted, I guess. That’s what made an impression on me in particular, I guess it did on my sisters, too.

Meantime, Dad made a [rendevous?] of a wagon and some canvas, hooks and stuff, and hid off back into the hills. It’s pretty rolling country, especially along the river and it was along the river someplace because I remember seeing the river. Anyway, he took Mother and us children along one day to a little shack there of some kind, I don’t know what it was, I suppose a line shack where some cattle were raised some time or other. Anyway, it was a good place to hide. Dad put the hooks on the wagon and made a covered wagon out of it and kept it hid. During the meantime he came home with a beautiful team of mules, but they were rather skiddish and hard to handle. He had something in mind.

While I was there I monkeyed around and I stepped on a nail thru the instep of my foot. My dad said to me, Why in the hell don’t you watch where the hell you’re going? Walk around like you’re blind. He said, You ain’t got no sense at all. He gave me a couple whopps up side the head. He said, I’m going to have to get something for that right away or you’re going to get blood poisoning. In them days around a place where there was lots of horse manure tetanus germ was very plentiful. That’s one time he was really scared, so he got in the wagon and drove his mules with canvas and all . . . I think he pulled the canvas off . . . and went home and got some turpentine. When he got back with the turpentine he had some kind of a straw or tube, I don’t know what it was. He poked that right in where he pulled the nail out and washed that out from the top down from the foot. Mother had to hold me down, with my sisters to help, I suppose my older sister helped, they all had to hold me. It hurt like the devil. He put that turpentine . . . as he put the turpentine in he pulled the straw out a little at a time and it got saturated. But the turpentine did the job. Mother pulled up her dress and tore off a piece of her underclothes . . . petticoat I guess it was . . . they wore two, three petticoats so I guess it didn’t hurt anything . . . (and they made sure they all had pants on). So anyway, they wrapped up my foot and I had to hobble along for quite a while.

Then he was making preparations to make a trip somewhere I could see that; I heard them talk. But where to, I could never remember that; maybe they never mentioned, wanted to keep it a secret. When the time came, we pulled out late at night. I remember we were going thru very quietly, he didn’t allow us to talk or make a squeak or anything, and finally we went to sleep. It was awful hard to go to sleep, because you just bounce around. In those days they didn’t have no roadbed, they had a trail. They didn’t have any such things as springs whatever. We had just a mattress of some kind, probably just made out of straw. I remember seeing the straw in mattresses, time after time.

All the time we was riding this wagon Dad and Mama was arguing, Dad when he couldn’t get Mother convinced of anything he’d start out swearing a blue streak. He’d swear until his lips would bleed. Mother couldn’t never do anything with him, he knew it all, never was any compromise at all. It was Dad’s way or no way at all. And I guess that’s the way most men were in those days. Mother was wanting to go someplace else and Dad was talking about Missouri. I didn’t know Missouri from a bullfoot in them days. But anyway, I didn’t know what direction we was going or anything else but riding on that [wagon]. If I asked any questions, Dad said none of your damn business. You’re too damned impudent, too damned nosey. Keep your mouth shut. You’re suppose to listen and keep your mouth shut. So I learned to keep that mouth shut or I’d get a bop right across the face.

I remember going thru town and the people would gawk at us, stop whatever they was doing and look at us. Some of them would wave and some of them wouldn’t, some of them thought us crazy I guess, I don’t know, but we had a good team of mules I remember that very well. They looked good anyway to me, and he said they were young mules, I heard him talk about that to Mother and he ought to have no trouble with his mules.

We came to Neosho Falls, Kansas, that’s the eastern part of Kansas, along the Neosho river I suppose is where it is. I don’t know just how far from Missouri but it isn’t very far as I can recollect, but it didn’t seem very long when we was in Missouri. I recall Dad saying, Now, when we cross the bridge . . . or a ford, I don’t remember which it was because we went across a good many streams and some of them had some kind of a bridge and some of them didn’t have no bridge at all, and you had to ford the river. I don’t remember if we went across a bridge, anyway we got across the river. Shortly after we got across this river, Dad said, well now, according to that sign, we’re in Missouri. I didn’t see the sign but I guess maybe he did. Even if I did see a sign I wouldn’t know how to read it because I hadn’t learned the ABCs yet at all. Dumb as they could make them as far as education is concerned.

Mother had a sister and her husband living there. I think the name was Gallatis [Giloses] or some such as that. They made us welcome, we said we was only going to stay there a day or two. Anyway, the first night we tied up the wagon in some kind of a lot somewhere not very far from the house, perhaps alongside of it. In those days they always had a pretty roomy place in places like that. But during the night one of the mules got wound up on a tree, he tied them to a tree. Anybody ought to know better than that, at that time even, to tie anything where they could walk around it. Anyway the mule walked around the tree, wound itself up so tight and it jerked and finally fell down. When it got down it broke its neck and choked to death. So he had a dead mule in the morning. He cried like a baby; I never remember hearing a man cry like he could because he lost that mule.

Anyway he had to stay there an extra day until he could trade the wagon off on an open wagon, was what we had. We didn’t have no top from then on, just a spring wagon, a light running gear wagon. It had two seats on it so we sat in the back seat as kids, and he and Mama in the front seat. There was one mule and one horse. I don’t know what he done about it. He had a different harness, I guess he traded off the wagon for a horse and got the spring wagon.

Anyway we had trouble keeping tires on it after we had it a day or two. He wrapped it up with wire, even stole barbed wire along the way to wrap the tire on it; and he tried to stop some place at night where he could take the wheels off and throw them in the creek, in the water anyway. Sometimes a horse trough if I remember right. He took advantage of anything he could in order to get the old spring wagon to go.

We finally came to a place in Howell County, Missouri, that’s in the southern part of the state, about midway. I looked it up several times on a map, that’s about where it is. The road in Missouri and Howell County in particular, all the way near as I remember is nothing but one rock on top of a rock. Bounce around up and down, just a trail where somebody probably chipped them off so they were passable. It wasn’t any more than passable so it was quite a ride.

Anyway we finally got to the place where we were suppose to go; still rocks there. Lots of hickory nut trees, the hickory was everywhere. Several places I heard them talk about where they made ax handles and different handles of different kinds. We got to this farm or ranch, whatever you want to call it, with people they knew who influenced them to come there. Anyway we stayed overnight, we had good eats and a good place to sleep. It was so nice and warm. It was terribly cold while we were traveling the last part of the trip, but not cold enough to freeze of course. I don’t know what time of year it was.

We located a place, just a two-room shack, nothin’ but just a shell. There were no windows in it, but Dad got some windows somehow from some other shack somewhere, or borrowed them, I don’t know which. Anyway we stayed there for quite a little while and went to school. All three of us went to school; Clara was just a little too young to go to school, and the first time she went to school she pissed her pants and the teacher told me to take her home. She didn’t go to school no more, and Dad just whaled the hell out of her because she pissed her pants. I felt terribly sorry for her. Clara was close to me anyway. We loved to raise hell with somethin’ or get in devilment all the time. Nothing serious, but something Dad didn’t like or somebody else didn’t like.

On the way, we was getting short on money and short on food, too, we never did have enough to eat. I remember that, I was always hungry, looking to eat anything that come along. Anyway, Dad bought a bunch of canned beans and we thought we’d have something to eat; but when he opened them up they was about half rocks and Dad really snorted about that. Buying beans and getting rocks. He said if it’s this kind of a goddamed state he didn’t want to be in it. Selling people rocks for beans. He made an awful ado about it.

The hickory nuts were everywhere; wherever you go you’d get plenty of hickory nuts; but they were terribly hard shells and didn’t have too much meat in them. There was some kind of pick to pick the meat out of them; good eating anyway. But it was too darned hard for us kids to break them. Mash your fingers or mash the rock, not the nuts.

It didn’t take Dad long to decide he didn’t want to stay in Missouri. By that time spring was coming there and he decided he’d go back to Kansas. I don’t remember how we got to a railroad station, but we got to a railroad station alright. This neighbor he was acquainted with probably took him to town with horse and wagon or horse and buggy or surry of some kind. I imagine it was a wagon because it was too damn rocky; a buggy would fall apart.

Anyway we got on the train, and I think the train was the ’Frisco they use to call it, the San Francisco and Pacific Railroad. We had to make a change on it somewhere along the line, I don’t know where. That’s the train—the San Francisco—that run into Wichita so I know we were going that way at least. I remember changing trains but where I can’t tell you. I imagine it was Springfield, Missouri according to a map I looked over.

While I was on that train I got motion-sick. Traveling on the train I got terribly sick, I puked and then I’d bawl awhile and puke, and Dad would cuss awhile. So we took turn abouts.

Me and my sisters never did know where we were going. [There was] no calling on the train to know where until we got there. We stopped in Wichita, Kansas, where I was pretty well over my sick spell but I was awful gaunt and weak. The first thing they had to do was take me to a doctor because I was too weak to get around and was getting weaker all the time. The doctor said I had to have something to eat because I’d vomited up everything I had in my stomach. Somehow or other they got something to eat, I don’t know how; I think it was donated, some welfare took me in hand and put me in the hospital and fed me. I was there just a day or two and I was alright and got better.

We were living out of a store for a while, finally moved to a house. The house if I remember right was on Third Street, runs east and west. I don’t know what the number was but it was right across the street from the old [Hicks? Pitts?] Gas Plant. They made gas out of coal. We use to go in that old plant and walk around on the walkways and the bannisters and climb the beams. Where the old float tank use to be, 30 or 40 feet deep. They could tell how much gas [was] in it by that thing coming up and going down and charge it again with gas. Anyway, a guy come along with an interest in children being where they shouldn’t be, found out where we lived and took us over across the street and told our mother about it. We didn’t realize that place was anything dangerous, just thought it was a big building and we had a talk with Mother, and Mother kept us out of there after that. It’s a wonder we didn’t get killed in that place, because it was an awful looking place.

After we lived in that place for a while, a boy went by with a cow tied to his waist. He had a rope, was suppose to lead the cow to the pasture someplace, we don’t know where. Never did find out. The cow came a-dragging the boy by, he was all tore up, I didn’t get to see him but Mother did and went to a neighbor’s somewhere, where somebody had a telephone and called up to run the cow down. Nobody could keep up with the cow. In them days it was mostly horse and buggy. The fire department—somebody with the fire department came by with a horse to run her down, got ahold of the cow. By that time the boy’s entrails were dragged out of him so he was tore up pretty bad. I never did know who the boy was but they did have an ad in the paper and a picture of it; but I didn’t have enough education that I could read. It was an awful mess and they didn’t want me to read it anyway. So that was one of the bad things I heard and seen.

After that, Mother gave birth to another baby. I think her name was Isabell, but I can’t be sure. [Joan: Aunt Rose recorded the name as Kathryn Marie.] Anyway, she didn’t live very long and we buried her in Wellington Cemetery at the time. I think that was also east of town. Dad didn’t have anything to mark it on, he had something on a watch fob. He took that off and nailed it onto a stake of some kind and I never seen the place since. It’s a sad story to think that a poor little baby had to be buried under such circumstances, to me.

After the baby sister passed away, a few months or a few weeks, I don’t know what it was but time passed, a person loses track of it, we started school several times but never did make any success of it. Always somethin’ come up and we had to stay home. A flood came up, flooded the district there and the street was full of water and run down the creek going by us. We had to stay in the house because the water was too deep and swift to go by. But our house was built up on stilts about four feet high, we had to go up stairsteps. It washed the stairsteps away but we were alright in the house. It filled up all the cisterns in that low place and polluted the water so we had a water problem for a while. We had city water but it washed out the lines. The sewer system wasn’t much in them days; we didn’t have no sewer there. All we had was one of them outhouses; a two-holer. Wind come in everywhere. That went out on us, too.

Dad got a job working for the Santa Fe Railroad, out where they coaled locomotives. Made up his mind he didn’t want that kind of work so he studied to be a steam engineer on the railroad. He followed that for a while very diligently then all at once he just quit. I don’t know, he never could stay with anything no matter what it was. So then we moved to 1010 Tenth Street, that’s on the west side of Wellington, Kansas. Dad worked where they coaled up locomotives, in them days they burned nothing but coal and they had to be pushed in the firebox with a shovel. While we were there after the flood, one of the elevators over close to the roundhouse, burned down, setting kinda on top of a hill and we could watch it burn. I got inquisitive and wanted to get up closer to the fire but the cop wouldn’t let me go any farther and told me to go home. So I thought I’d be smart and go around him, but he spied me and caught me and gave me a good shaking and said, I told you to go home or I’m going to have to take you home. So I went home.

It was only a few days after that, Dad quit his job and we moved to 1010 Tenth Street in Wellington. It wasn’t a very good house, either, but it was sitting on kind of a knoll and it was more comfortable and it did have an inside toilet in it. It was only a straight pipe with a seat on it and it stunk to high heaven.

The house was alongside a church, but there was no church at that time in the church, it was abandoned and the house I guess must have been where the preacher must have lived. Anyway, we stayed in that house I don’t know how long, good many months, anyway. I don’t know what Dad worked at; he did have a job. I don’t think it paid very much. It wasn’t very far to the dump, it wasn’t far to the railroad, it wasn’t very far to anything that was filthy. Flies by the hundreds of millions. Flies were so thick, when you stirred them up you could hear them buzz.

My sister Clara and me, we had a good time over at the dump, dragging junk out of it that