The Dust Bowl to Wwii: One Young Man’S Journey of Survival

By Captain Bob Norris

Americans, who sacrificed everything, including their sons and daughters, in an effort to save the world from Germany and Japan during World War II, will forever be known as the Greatest Generation. In this historical novel by veteran Captain Bob Norris, Robert Elliot emerges as an iconic representative of the generation that helped the United States win the war and begin an unrivaled period of prosperity. Fleeing the environmental and economic devastation of the Dust Bowl; Elliot's family moves to the Alaskan frontier to carve out a new life as homesteaders. As a young man, he discovers his two loves: flying airplanes and his eventual bride, Dee.

Everything changes for Elliot and for America, on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. As a fighter pilot in the Army Air Corps, he engages the enemy; shooting down Japanese planes when his plane is shot down near Borneo, Elliot begins his greatest battle, the fight to survive captivity and return home to Dee. He only thought life in the Dust Bowl and Alaskan frontier were challenging. Being a prisoner of war and his escape is a trial unlike any other.

An interesting and historically accurate account of life in the United States before and during WWII from the perspective of a kid growing up in the dust bowl to air combat in the Pacific. The young man then transitions to a fledgling airline business, while offering us a glimpse of what our parents endured in America when they were young. You feel like you were actually there during those earlier, difficult years! Well Done!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499046724

Captain Bob Norris

Author bio coming soon

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Captain Bob Norris.

Cover Illustration by Angel dela Peña

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 09/11/2014

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Preface

Chapter 1   The Kansas Dust Bowl

Chapter 2   First Flight

Chapter 3   Off to Alaska

Chapter 4   The Trap Line

Chapter 5   Alaska Flying

Chapter 6   December 7, 1941

Chapter 7   The Air War in the Pacific

Chapter 8   Our Missions

Chapter 9   Shot Down and Captured!

Chapter 10 Escape and Survival

Chapter 11 Life Among the Dyaks

Chapter 12 On our own

Chapter 13 Rescue

Chapter 14 Homeward Bound

Chapter 15 The Airline Career

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Captain H.E. Tat Tatman, a lover of women and airplanes; a gentleman who never passed up the opportunity to kiss the hand of lovely women, and he was my good friend. Tat was a WWII pilot who flew DC-3s and C-46s over the Himalayan Mountains nicknamed the Hump in China and India; to resupply the Chinese war effort of Chiang Kai-shek. Flying over the Himalayas was dangerous and difficult: no reliable charts, absence of radio navigation aids, lack of information about weather, and Japanese fighter aircraft. After WWII Tat joined United Airlines; and ended up his career as a flight test pilot, qualified in all three cockpit seats, in all of United’s aircraft. His favorite aircraft was the B-747. After retirement from United he became a civilian flight instructor and consultant test pilot. I was fortunate to fly with Tat on a number of occasions, and he instructed at our flight school, and assisted as a mechanic. He ordered his martini’s dry, shaken, very cold, and naked; and he drank anything that poured. His wife of twenty-five years, Robin, was our chief flight instructor and is currently flying the B-747 as a copilot for Delta Airlines. Tat passed away in January at the age of ninety-two. An exceptional pilot with a ferocious pursuit of excellence and integrity both in and out of the cockpit… he is missed!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My wife Dee, contributions made this book a reality. She is a talented writer and artist in her own right and, during my absences, she raised our three boys, of whom I am immensely proud. Therefore, she has my admiration, devotion and love. To my three boys, Dan, Bruce and Craig, their lovely and caring wives, Shelley, Cheri and Sue, and our grandchildren, Kim, Danielle, Brandy, Bryan, Stephanie, Melanie, Brenna and Elizabeth, you have added such richness to my life that I could never thank you all enough. Success in life is often due to those who encourage you, believe in you and behave decently toward you. In that sense I have been blessed.

I am most grateful to Danny Mortensen who critiqued the first draft. Mike Fuhrman undertook the task of editing. He had no idea what he volunteered for! Mike is a skilled wordsmith, aspiring author, long-time print journalist and teacher. Without his effort, this book never would have been released. Finally, to the designers, builders and mechanics that provided so many different airplanes to fly, I am deeply grateful to you. Bob O’Hara, a friend, fellow pilot and talented artist, provided the excellent line drawings included in this book. I offer my deepest gratitude for his artistry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I learned to fly before I learned to drive. As a child, my favorite nest was to be as high into the treetops as I could climb. My student days are a blur; I didn’t much care for school. The Air Force years helped me grow up, but presented other challenges. Working as a human factors engineer for ten years with Hughes Aircraft Company provided me with a solid technical background and the opportunity to pursue my dream of working in the commercial airline industry. I flew twenty-nine years with United Airlines as a captain, flight manager, instructor and check airman. I had the opportunity to fly the DC-6, DC-7, DC-8, DC-10, B-737, B-757 and B-767 and continue to find mountains around the world to climb. The desire to fly faster and climb higher was always balanced against the demands of raising a family. I have been blessed with a loving family and the opportunity to travel, write and be politically involved. I believe the following poem expresses my philosophy on life:

I would rather be ashes than dust!

I would rather my spark should burn out in a

brilliant blaze,

than it should be stifled by dry rot.

I would rather be a superb-meteor, every atom of me

In magnificent glow

Than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them

…I shall use my time.

Jack London

PREFACE

My interest in the Second World War comes from following the battle campaigns in Life magazine and listening to the radio broadcasts, holding the souvenirs that the returning veterans brought back and wishing I was older. As a child, I visualized being in the battlefields and often passed by the prison-of-war camp holding German prisoners in Massachusetts. I lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire near a submarine base and naval prison. My research of the Pacific battles and the aircraft that flew in them, the Japanese prisoners-of-war camp in Borneo, and the Sandakan death march generated an interest in writing a novel that would encompass a story about a young man off to war as an Army Air Force aviator; his air battles, capture and subsequent escape.

CHAPTER 1

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The Kansas Dust Bowl

We had left our farm in Bow, New Hampshire, in 1929, when I was eight, Shawn was six and Betsy four. Bow was a rural settlement, five miles from Concord, the capital of the state. Our forefathers had cleared and cultivated the land years before. My Pa always said that men from New Hampshire had granite in their will and hemlock in their soul’s fiber. I loved the beauty of the summer days and the cold magnificence of the winter months. Autumn was my favorite season, the heat of July and August had passed and the fog and freezing tears of winter were still in the future. The sight of the turning of the maple leaves from green to yellow streaked with red and orange as they gently floated to the ground and made a multicolored carpet on the grass is one of nature’s most colorful displays. We would rake up the leaves into huge mounds, burying ourselves and jumping from the porch onto the pile, scattering the leaves over the lawn area. In the early spring, while snow still lay on the ground, we would tap the maple trees for syrup, boil the liquid to a thick paste and can the rich sugary substance for use on our pancakes, occasionally taking heaping tablespoons as an after-dinner treat.

The farm enjoyed a picturesque setting and was nestled on a ridge. We could see the blue hills in the distance to the east. The hazy outline of Monadnock loomed to the southeast. Hemlock and pine trees surrounded us. Our farmhouse, one of several on Grandpa’s land, was a small square box with a sloping roof, generally reflecting the architecture of the area. The house had been constructed using wooden pegs rather than nails and rested on a foundation of stones gathered from the hillsides. It was a two-story affair with four bedrooms upstairs. A narrow staircase led to the upstairs. The entry parlor doors had glass windows that were leaded with cast panes of glass. The massive oak doors were triple-hinged and the floor surfaced with eight-to-ten-inch wide oak planks. A screened porch with a large canvas hammock and several rocking chairs adorned the south side of the house. A piano was located in front of the bay window with a large low chest that held the dishes and silverware. A Persian rug acquired by a relative during his duty in the First World War carpeted the hardwood floor. The kitchen area had a large wood stove which was placed a tin-cook enclosure used to bake pies. A Kerosene stove and a fireplace provided heat. Through louvers in the ceiling, heat rose to the upstairs rooms. During the winter months, Ma would heat large stones, wrap them in flannel and place them under the covers at the foot of our beds. At first you couldn’t touch them because they radiated so much heat, but slowly the bed would warm under the chicken and goose down blankets.

The huge barn foundation was built on a three-foot base of stone quarried locally with supporting timbers that were hewn from the trees on the property. The hay loft provided an escape. Along with the neighborhood kids, we would burrow deep connecting tunnels into the innermost and deepest areas of the loft. During the winter, we had a horse-drawn sleigh that flew on steel runners over the snow-covered dirt roads. The land had been cleared and fenced into fields and pastures. A small stream that had a variety of slugs, frogs and all kinds of creeping creatures coursed its way through the nearby woods. Beautiful white and purple lilac bushes, which bloomed so beautifully during the summer, covered the chicken coop. The fragrance was over-powering.

Most weekends we would feast on chicken. Pa would straddle his stone wheel, start pedaling and sharpen his axe. He would then wander out to the chicken coop and grab a pullet. With the bird squawking, Pa placed its neck on the chopping block and decapitated it. Often the pullet, after losing its head, would slip out of Pa’s hands and start running around the yard headless. That scene caused a few nightmares. When the chicken was dead, we would thrust it into a barrel of hot water to loosen the feathers and proceed to pluck the bird.

The extensive garden area required a lot of weeding, which my parents thought was a perfectly suitable job for an eight-year-old boy. A cake pan would be filled with kerosene and we would approach the tomato plants and scrap off the green caterpillars, munching under the leaves, into the pan, which would later be fired. We stored, in the deepest reaches of the stone cellar, bushels of potatoes dug up in the acre of potato plants. We would brush off the black dirt on the smaller ones and eat them raw.

Canning was a weeklong activity. We had to boil the mason jars and melt the wax to seal the fruit and jams. Fifty-pound sacks of sugar were required for cooking down the berries. We cut and stripped the rhubarb for pies that baked over a wood-fired stove. Each night, before bed, we tried unsuccessfully to avoid taking a tablespoon of cod liver oil to fend off colds. We chewed on tar as home remedies. Rubbing paregoric on your gums as new teeth came in provided a real high. The oatmeal cooking went on all night long on a double boiler. Farm life was daybreak to nightfall activity.

Each morning required a visit to the chicken coop to retrieve the eggs laid the night before. This was a terrifying experience as two black and gold roosters with shining black eyes protected the hens. The roosters had two-inch spurs on the inside of their legs that could and often did draw blood. I would open the coop door and the roosters would cock their heads and focus their beady eyes on me. They would start scratching the ground as I focused on the scales on their golden legs. Their necks would fluff up and the golden feathers on their head would glisten, warning of danger. The yellow beaks would open and close and I would be in a trance. They learned that if they separated and approach me from different directions one or the other could attack while I was distracted gathering eggs. They would fly at me, their wings beating, targeting my uncovered legs with their spurs. I often fell, kicking and screaming at them and breaking the eggs I had gathered. Pa tried to keep them in the pen outside the chicken coop; but they found more ways to enter than a fox trying to get into a chicken coop. I often returned to the farmhouse without any eggs but smeared with chicken shit and suffering from various scratches and nips to my legs. It was a really great farm activity!

Riding behind Pa on the tractor while he cut the hay in the autumn was a pure delight. We would flush out pheasants, partridges and field mice by the hundreds. Pa had a long-barrel, .22-caliber pistol and a .410 over-and-under rifle that he taught me to shoot.

Grandpa had the largest farmhouse on the property and I visited him and Grandma often. Grandpa had a stereoscope device. When you looked through it, there was a three-dimensional effect. It had a wooden frame set on a long wooden bar that you slid to focus the pictures. He had some exciting pictures from the Civil War, trains from the turn of the century, early cars and scenes from Yellowstone National Park. I spent hours viewing these pictures, imagining myself at the battlefields fighting alongside the Union forces. Grandpa had an easy chair where he sat, reading his paper and chewing tobacco, which he spit into his commode. He missed his target more times than he hit it. This nasty habit infuriated Grandma.

Church was one of our few social diversions, other than hiking the hills. Practically all of our intellectual life centered on school, reading the Bible and the classics that Ma loved so much. I loved the New Hampshire countryside with the woods, rolling hills and running streams.

The southern part of New Hampshire was mostly devoted to farming with many small towns and villages scattered throughout the area. The Merrimack River flowed from the north through the middle of the southern part of the state and ended after passing along the border of Massachusetts and emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. The capital, Concord, was famous in the West as it manufactured the Concord stagecoaches. The first Concord stagecoach was built in 1827. It featured leather strap braces under the stagecoach, which was said to provide a good ride. Several were still in use. They were built so solid that they never broke down; they just wore out. My teacher said they were sold all over the world, including Africa, South America and even Australia. With four horses, they could travel four to seven miles an hour and cover 70 to 120 miles a day. Passengers crowded into coaches and caused conditions that prompted Wells Fargo to post these rules in each coach regulating passenger behavior:

• Abstinence from liquor is requested, but if you must drink share the bottle. To do otherwise makes you appear selfish and un-neighborly.

• If ladies are present, gentlemen are urged to forego smoking cigars and pipes as the odor of same is repugnant to the gentler sex. Chewing tobacco is permitted, but spit with the wind, not against it.

• Gentlemen must refrain from the use of rough language in the presence of ladies and children.

• Buffalo robes are provided for your comfort in cold weather. Hogging robes will not be tolerated and the offender will be made to ride with the driver.

• Don’t snore loudly while sleeping or use your fellow passenger’s shoulder for a pillow; he or she may not understand and friction may result.

• Firearms may be kept on your person for use in emergencies. Do not fire them for pleasure or shoot at wild animals as the sound riles the horses.

• In the event of runaway horses, remain calm. Leaping from the coach in panic will leave you injured, at the mercy of the elements, hostile Indians and hungry coyotes.

• Forbidden topics of conversation are: stagecoach robberies and Indian uprisings.

• Gents guilty of un-chivalrous behavior toward lady passengers will be put off the stage. It’s a long walk back. A word to the wise is sufficient.

Passengers for long overland coach journeys were given recommendations of equipment to be taken. For the earliest line that traveled through New Mexico Territory, Jackass Mail, a San Diego newspaper suggested one rifle and 100 rounds, a Colt revolver and two pounds of lead, a knife, a pair of thick wool pants, a half dozen pairs of thick socks, six undershirts, three overshirts, a wide-awake hat, a cheap sack coat, an overcoat, one pair of blankets in summer and two in winter, gauntlets, needles, pins, a sponge, hair brush, comb, soap, two pairs of thick drawers, and three or four towels.

Concord was located seventy-five miles north of Boston. Dartmouth College, at Hanover, was one of the best-known colleges in New England and was founded in 1769. There was little chance I would ever get an opportunity to go there. Phillips Academy, at Exeter, was the best known of the New England academies, and was founded in 1781. It was well-known that the people of New Hampshire believed in the four gospels: education, thrift, ingenuity, and righteousness. I guess you could say we were a hardy, robust, industrious, enterprising people with a great sense of independence.

Pa was the youngest of four boys and the land would not support all of our uncles and their families so we were to move west. My ancestors had been farming the land for 112 years. Several of my uncles had to work at the factories at the mill towns north of Concord to supplement their farm income, but Pa had soil in his veins as well as under his fingernails. If he couldn’t make it at the old homestead, he would go where land was cheap and the prairies reached to the horizons. Pa determined that Kansas had more land in farms than any other state.

We left from Boston’s South Station on the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. We arrived early and, after a three-hour wait, we boarded the train. I am convinced, to this day, that the railroad people purposely made the wood benches as uncomfortable as possible to discourage vagrants from sleeping on them. The train was called the Narragansett, which was a day train with coaches only. The trip to New York took seven hours. After arriving at Grand Central Station, we boarded the Erie Limited on the Erie Railroad. We traveled second class. The train had coaches as well as Pullman cars and was not air-conditioned. There was a dining car on the train, as well as a day lunch or snack car. We could not afford the dining car and got some sandwiches and Pa got his coffee. We sat up all night and arrived in Chicago the next morning at Dearborn Station. Pa said that at the height of the Great Depression, thousands and thousands of men and some women were living on the road in America; many crisscrossed the country by illegally hopping freight trains. Pa said that many were poor, homeless migrant workers or immigrants. They hopped trains to get from one place to another because they had little or no money. It was a free mode of transportation. The rest of the train hoppers, mostly hobos and tramps, were adventurers. While sitting on the benches outside of the train station waiting for the train out of Chicago, Pa noticed a hobo approaching from the parked train down the tracks. He offered him a sandwich and struck up a conversation. The man was reluctant to talk, but slowly he opened up to Pa. He was from Pittsburgh and had been laid off from his job in the steel mills. He had a family back home but was headed to the West Coast for work with the hope of bringing his family later.

He started talking about his experiences on the rails. You kept a quiet presence about yourself, non-threatening but confident. The railroad cops who were called ‘bulls’ were not reluctant to bash a few heads when they caught you in one of the open box cars. You planned to jump on board an open box car just as the train started to roll; not knowing till first daylight who else might be on board. A flash of a match as someone lit a cigarette would show a face. The smell of other men who hadn’t had a bath often permeated the car. Soggy straw and old newspapers often lay about. We were all alert when the train started to slow down to jump off before the train came to a stop. When the train stopped to take on water or coal, we would fill our water bottles, wash off the grime from our faces and take a piss. The constant challenge was to find food; locating a food store like A&P close to the railroad tracks would have us scrounging the trash barrels behind the store, walking quickly in front of a grocery store and snatching a few apples. In the bigger towns, you could find a Salvation Army location and for a few hours work to get free meals … work being sweeping and mopping the floors, cleaning up the bathrooms, or doing the dishes. Protecting yourself while you slept was a real challenge; if you looked like you might have some hidden money you might not wake up. On the train, you wedge yourself beneath the iron rods underneath a car, jumped into an open box car or climbed the ladder to the top of the box car. Word traveled up and down the rail line about what towns and cities were safe. Many towns had vagrancy laws. If caught, you could spend time in jail.

He stayed with us for over two hours until a freight train going in his direction came along. We wished him luck and a safe journey. There was a famous old hobo poem that was written by Harry K. McClintock that Pa had a copy of; he read me the first stanza and passed me the sheet of music to read on the train:

The Big Rock Candy Mountain

On a summer’s day, in the month of May, a burly bum went a-hiking,

Down a shady lane, through the sugar cane – he was lookin’ for his liking.

As he strolled along he sang a song, of a land of milk and honey

Where a bum can stay for many a day, and he won’t need any money.

At Dearborn Station, we transferred to the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad and boarded the train known as The Scout. It had coaches and Pullmans and was a low-cost secondary train. The conductor said the train was not nearly as fast as The Chief or the El Capitan. We couldn’t afford to eat in the Pullman dining cars. At stops, we would load up with bread, sliced sandwich meats and fruit. I loved the sound of the clickety-clack of the railcars as the wheels on one side would go over a joint and a couple of seconds later the other side wheels would pass over another. The noise was always one side and then the other, giving the car a slight side-to-side rocking motion. I loved the smell of the coal-fired engine and exhaust embers filtering through the cracks beside the windows. The different cars creaked against their couplings as we rounded curves. From a window seat I would watch the trees and bushes rush by, occasionally swapping seats with Shawn or Betsy. For fun, the three of us would wander up and down the aisles trying not to have to grab one of the seat backs for stability. A steam locomotive crew is protected from the elements by a cab. It takes a crew of two people to operate a steam locomotive. The engineer or driver is responsible for controlling the locomotive’s starting, stopping and speed, and the fireman or boiler man is responsible maintaining the fire, regulating steam pressure, and monitoring boiler and tender water levels. A conductor dressed in a blue uniform with a vest and a large pocket watch that he often viewed when a passenger would ask the time to the next station; collected our tickets.

We napped on the train, which rolled across Illinois, Missouri, and the eastern half of Kansas. We got off in Dodge City. The trains we had been on were powered by steam engines. In Dodge City, we boarded a gas-electric, self-propelled rail car, noted on the timetable as a Motor Train. The conductor said the railroad employees called them Doodlebugs. They had the engine compartment at the front, then a baggage section, a Railway Post Office section and then the passenger compartment. The large things on the roof were the radiators and the exhaust mufflers. The engineer sat in the front by the open window. The Doodlebug had a crew of three and the Doodlebug was cheaper to run on the branch lines or places where the traffic was light. Pa talked to the conductor, who said that the crew was unhappy with the Doodlebug as the wages were less even though the company was saving money on fuel. After a three-hour trip, in which the Doodlebug stopped at many stations, we arrived at our destination, Satanta.

It took four days by train to reach Kansas. Our steamer trunks contained all of our personal possessions. Pa had contracted with a drayage company to truck our farm machinery and it was to be put in storage until we were settled.

We moved into a small apartment until we could find a homestead. Through contact with the local farmers co-operative, we were able to identify several possible farm properties. It took five weeks before we found a place that we could afford that met Pa’s and Ma’s expectations. We settled outside of Satanta, Kansas, in Haskell County, which had a population of 477 people and was on the AT&SF Rail line.

I went to the library in Bow before we left to learn about our new home. The town was named after Chief Satanta (White Bear) of the Kiowa Indian tribe. It was established in 1912. Chief Satanta was reportedly a tall, finely-formed man with a very erect bearing and a piercing stare. He was rebellious and brutal as a warrior and chief but was eloquent in speaking and represented his tribe in many meetings with government officials. He spoke five different languages, including four different Indian tongues and Spanish, fluently. (Newspapers reported that those who could not understand a word he said were fascinated by the rhythmic tone of his voice.) Government documents said, His manly boldness and directness, along with a keen sense of humor, made him a favorite with army officers in spite of his known hostility to the white man’s laws and civilization. He was known as The Orator of the Plains.

Chief Satanta was among the signers of the 1867 Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty. At the treaty, he said: I came to say that the Kiowa and Comanche have made with you a peace. The word shall last until the whites break their contract and invite the horrors of war. The white man once came to trade, now he comes to fight. He once came as a citizen, now he comes as a soldier. We thank the Great Spirit that all these wrongs are now to cease and the old days of peace and friendship are to come again — You have patiently heard our complaints. To you, they have seemed trifling; to us they are everything — For your sake, the green grass shall not be stained with the blood of the whites. Your people shall be our people, and peace shall be our mutual heritage.

Unfortunately, everyone did not live happily ever after. Soon the government withdrew many of its promises. For instance, instead of having all of the land south of the Arkansas River promised them for hunting, the Indians were soon forced to live and hunt only on a reservation near Fort Sill. That was one of the many agreements the government failed to fulfill. Discouraged by the white man’s broken promises, Chief Satanta’s people felt they had no choice but to seek revenge.

Because of his participation in continued raids in southwestern Kansas, southeastern Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, Chief Satanta was arrested and imprisoned on three separate occasions. On October 11, 1878, while serving a life sentence in a prison in Huntsville, Texas, he complained of an injury or that his heart was bad (there are conflicting accounts) to the prison physician. He was taken to the prison hospital on the prison’s second floor, but before treatment could be given the eerie chant of the Kiowa death song was heard as Chief Satanta plunged headfirst from the second-story balcony to the ground below, ending his long resistance to the white man’s injustice to his people. So we would be living in an area that once had belonged to the Indians.

A diverse array of crops is raised in our area, including wheat, corn, soybeans, sunflowers, alfalfa and cotton. Our community is situated in an extensive cattle feeding area. The earlier homesteaders, who were farmers, had to content with many cattle wandering onto their land and destroying their crops. The Cimarron River, which would provide us numerous swimming holes, was nearby.

Pa found a farm to his liking. The previous owners had no sons to carry on the family business and could no longer care for the farm. Grandpa had given Pa $2,878. Pa had saved $1,013, and secured a loan from the bank for $723. We acquired the title to our new homestead for $4,614 dollars. We kids knew we would probably never see our uncles, aunts or cousins ever again, and I think Pa and Ma knew it as well. We had 315 acres, an old farmhouse with a barn, storage shed, implement shed and a number of other out-buildings. The buildings were placed around a rectangular service court. We had a storm cellar for retreat during tornadoes. The farmhouse had a large kitchen, a work-service room, liberal space for storing supplies and food, and three bedrooms. Shawn and I shared a bedroom.

The barn was constructed of heavy timber and had twelve stalls, a root cellar and a large hay loft. It had facilities for dairy cows and beef cattle as well as feed bins and hay storage. It had double-pin units for the sows and litters until weaning time. Ear corn would be stored in slatted cribs that were best for drying out the corn. The farm was not electrified. The farmers owned grain elevators collectively.

After we were settled on the farm, we enrolled in the small local schoolhouse; we were the newest kids in town. Shawn, Betsy and I walked the three miles to school each day. The first day of school I ended up in a fistfight as the bullies tried to establish control over any new kids. Every kid who ever stepped onto a schoolyard knew the meaning of a fair fight. We were dressed differently that the other kids with our Eastern clothes and they called us weirdo’s, block heads, foreigners, sissies and started to push us around. A group of kids gathered around and started to yell Beef! Beef! Beef! Some kid knelt behind me and another kid pushed me over him, I fell to the ground and came up swinging. I blooded the nose of the kid who pushed me and jumped on the kid who I had tripped over and started hitting him. A couple of older kids broke up the fight. The other kids started to wander away. One girl approached me and said Sam was always pushing the kids around, and she was happy I blooded his nose and hoped I had broken it! The school grounds had a ball field, a few swings and a wooden storage shed. There was one large classroom. Age groups divided the students, corresponding to the number of years they had attended school. The teacher had a small room off the large classroom. As you entered the classroom, there was a row of hooks where you hung your coat and cap. There were thirty-one students. We sat at desks that were a combined hard seat and slanted desk where we could raise the lid to store our textbooks, lunch and assorted school supplies.

There was a wood-burning potbelly stove in the center of the room that would heat the room adequately in the wintertime. The windows were twelve-feet high and opened at the bottom by sliding upwards. The windows had no shades, enabling the sun to beat into the room with a burning glare. There were wooden shutters on the outside of the windows that closed during storms or during the occasional tornado. A root cellar with a wooden trap door was located close to the schoolhouse if a tornado was really threatening. A chipped white porcelain sink with brass faucets was in the corner of the room. When opened, the pipes would screech and the water would start flowing dark brown before it eventually cleared up. During the winter time we found the biggest kids seemed to command the desks closest to the stove. If you were seated close to the door or windows there was always a cold draft.

The teacher’s desk was a solid square wooden affair that was positioned in the front of the room. The teacher was stern and tolerated no nonsense and was quick to punish the offender with a ruler on the outstretched hand. She was the spinster daughter of the town clerk. We thought she was ancient, although she was probably only in her forties. She started each class with a roll call, prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. The favorite form of mischief was using spitballs to zap someone in front of you, hiding classmates’ homework assignments, teasing the girls, talking out loud and pushing the smaller kids around.

The textbooks were worn and tattered and the chalkboards were chipped and cracked. Much of what we learned had to be committed to memory. The few sheets of paper we used were course and smudged easily if you attempted to erase a mistake. The walls were decorated with a few maps that the teacher rolled down for study, charts showing the multiplication tables and posters containing facts about history. In each age group, the girls seemed to be the smartest and paid the most attention. School started at 8 a.m. and we had forty-five minutes for lunch. We studied math, reading and writing, social studies and science, which seemed to cover everything we needed to know about our local farming community. Mid-morning we had a PE break in which the boys were divided into teams for a quick game of baseball or track events. The girls played hopscotch or tag or broke up into small groups to giggle about who knows what. We each carried our own lunch and drank water from the school well. The afternoons were a drag, with no break until school let out. Homework was mostly reading. We were graded twice a year. School didn’t quite capture my full attention and my grades reflected that fact. Once in a while, a merchant from town, a banker or the sheriff would visit us to discuss their vocation. At the end of the school day, 2 p.m., we delayed as long as possible before returning home to do our chores.

One Saturday morning Pa gave us a special treat by driving the family to Garden City, thirty-one miles from Satanta, to see a picture show, King Kong. We parked in the theater parking lot and anxiously hurried inside. The theater had a large marquee billboard showing a large gorilla, King Kong. Tickets cost 15 cents for Shawn, Betsy and I and 25 cents each for Ma and Pa. We bought a jumbo bag of popcorn that we all could share. We found seats in the balcony that were covered with velvet upholstery that had been worn smooth and coil springs you could feel when you shifted your butt. The main attraction was preceded by several serials, a news reel that showed pictures of the dust storms throughout the West. We didn’t need to see them as we were living them! There was a cowboy serial with Gene Autry. The episode was designed with a heart-stopping conclusion to bring us back every week. There was also a cartoon staring Laurel and Hardy, Me and My Pal, that had us in stitches with laughter.

King Kong was really exciting. Betsy often buried her head in Ma’s lap. In the film, a director recruits a young girl named Ann to accompany him to a remote island where a large gorilla lives. The girl is offered by the natives to the gorilla as a ritual sacrifice. Kong carries off the girl into the dense jungle. She is rescued and Kong is captured and brought back to New York, subdued and shackled. He breaks free and rampages through the streets of New York destroying a train. He sees Ann and carries her to the top of the Empire State Building. Airplanes appear and Kong is wounded by gunfire and falls to his death. Throughout the movie, the audience gasped and some women screamed. After the movie we went to the town park and had sandwiches for lunch before returning home.

Our weekly visit to the grocery store in town provided a welcome relief from the rigors of school and farming. Mr. Oxford, the grocer, was from Ireland and had a heavy brogue. The merchandise seemed to be randomly placed. As you entered the store, the dry goods occupied one side of the store. Meat was in a display case in the back and the proliferation of groceries was everywhere. In the center of the store was a pot-bellied stove surrounded by old wooden chairs. A flat box of ashes was used as a spittoon. The old men played checkers, swapped stories and spit. The strong odor of apples, potatoes, burning coal from the stove mingled and the smell of the new coveralls permeated the air. Dust covered everything. A loaf of bread cost 9 cents, a pound of hamburger meat was 13 cents, Liptons Noodle soup was 10 cents and a blanket cost $5.

We attended the local Baptist Church, where Rev. Sampson tended to give very long sermons. I believe that the Baptists are among the most diverse denominations; they don’t always agree about the gospel or details about the church’s founding. Our Sunday school teachers taught us the Bible stories and some common beliefs that the Baptists hold dear: we are each responsible for our own decisions and God alone will judge us. Each church was independent and didn’t need a strong central authority. You had to confess a belief in Christ and had to be baptized by immersion in water. After Sunday school, we attended the church service. By that time, most of the kids were drowsy and would tend to nod off to sleep only to be awakened by a tap on the shoulder or a nudge by our parents. We enjoyed having visitors and often would stop on the way home to visit a neighbor.

Farming is hard work and is a dawn-to-dusk activity. To provide some additional spending money, I took up beekeeping. I built seven boxes to house the bees. The boxes were two-by-three-by-three feet in size. I notched the bottom of the boxes for the bees to enter and placed the boxes on an elevated platform with a shelf in front of the notches where the bees landed. The top was removable and held in place with a few rocks. I placed another board on top that was slanted so the rain would run off and not leak into the beehive. I drilled six holes through the side of the box and ran wooden dowels from one side to the other. These dowels were for the bees to hang their brood combs. The bees used the top of the box for honey storage.

After completing the boxes, it was necessary to acquire some bees. We noticed that some bees had set up home in several trees down by the river. So one early spring morning, Pa and I set out to fell the tree. We used our crosscut saw to fell the tree. Our goal was for the tree to land with the hole used by the bees to enter facing up. It goes without saying the bees became very agitated. We used lots of smoke from burning leaves, rags and the bark of adjoining trees to smoke and settle down the bees. We cut into the tree two feet above and below the hole and lifted out a