Country Boy’s Journey

By Ray Bishop

This book has a twofold purpose. It provides future family members with a historical time line of the Bishop family while supplying references to the rural way of life. Persons wishing to learn about how life once was lived by “country folks” will find many facts about a lifestyle that has faded with time. Everyday life was filled with multiple activities long before multitasking was ever invented.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973630524

Ray Bishop

The reader is advised that this entire document is, the whole story of the author as life unfolded. I do have some observations to highlight for readers of all ages. With each passing birthday most of us reflect on how fast time goes by, and bemoan the, lack of achievement. We each have a shopping list of plans or goals we envision for our life. One day we look back, and wonder where time went, and question what we failed to achieve. In my early years I did no planning for the future. Looking back I am overwhelmed at what others accomplished while I went along for the ride. Just to reflect on some of the things that have occurred in my four score plus year’s highlights how fast life goes by: Transportation has gone from the model ‘A’ car, to infinity and beyond. Crank style wall phones have been replaced by the internet and satellites. Kerosene lamps and lanterns have fallen before electricity and LED lights. Tent revivals have been replaced by mega churches and jet setting evangelist. Medical procedures can now be performed by someone halfway around the world. The bible refers to Wars and rumors of wars. I have been exposed to World War II, Korean police action, and Vietnam just to hit the big ones. It seems that we have never had total freedom from conflict and strife in my memory. Conflict and chaos is found in any geographical location. Human body parts are swapped out like the old time spare tires Entertainment has moved from the stage to the living room. The list goes on, however: I close by reminding the reader that one truth has not changed in the past two thousand years. Thanks for traveling back through time with me.

Book preview

Country Boy’s

JOURNEY

Ray Bishop

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Copyright © 2018 Ray Bishop.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3051-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3053-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3052-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018906799

WestBow Press rev. date: 06/07/2018

Contents

1 The Journey Begins

2 Dawn of our Education

3 4 thru 6 grades

4 Grades 7 & 8

5 High School

6 The Adult World

7 Expanded Horizons

8 College

9 Career Years

10 Retirement

11 Evening Sun

About the Author

1

The Journey Begins

Long ago in the Land of Lincoln, there was a rural road. It went no place important yet in the passing of time witnessed many events and changes that, if it could tell, would mark the significant and not so significant events of a small family of country folks. It could share when the family came to reside on a modest plot of ground on its north side. But before it does, we need to provide a bit of history leading up to the move, and this will serve as a prelude to the rest of the story, as the commentators say. The road was present before the move and is active even today, holding tightly to a hoard of observations of lives lived along its length.

Perhaps now is a good time to introduce the family, since they will be the main characters (said with tongue in cheek) of this saga. The Bishop family was made up of Father (Henry), Mother (Rista Butler), Mamie (the eldest child), Hazel (second in line), Henry Elmo, and lastly me (Ray). All of these will drift in and out as we progress. As you can see, the pecking order is already established.

Henry started life in the area of Ranger, Texas, in July 1899 and from day 1, he knew only hard times. Disaster struck the family early on with the death of his father (Daniel) from an intestinal issue when my dad was a fourth grader. Grandmother Sarah married a second time to a man named Potter, who had two children. He had an accident while chopping wood and died of the resulting infection. This marked the end of Dad’s formal education, which plagued him throughout the remainder of his life. He went out into the workforce to help the family survive, and by age fourteen he was hauling pipe in the Texas oil fields with his own team and wagon. The sheet metal skillet dad carried in his chuck box resides in my memory collection today.

Mother’s family was typical of farmers of the era. They consisted of Grandmother Nancy, Grandfather Charles, his brother Robert (Bob), five living boys, and three girls shoehorned into a three-room farm house north of Dahlgren, Illinois. The Butler history can be found in a book entitled Sorghum and Quilts by Eva Elizabeth Monfort Ridenour, daughter of the youngest Butler girl.

North of the Butler family home ran a creek bearing the name Auxier. History tells us there was an Abraham Auxier living in the area in the early 1800s. I’m not sure if there is a connection, but there are some Auxiers buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery. For the Butler family Auxier Creek was a source of food and relaxation. In those days, it provided fish, squirrels, and rabbits. In addition to food, it had a deep hole called the Rock Bluff because a sandstone outcrop was found about four feet above creek level it provided a nice launch area for jumping into the creek. This creek had been the water source for an Indian encampment on a hill just south. The encampment was real because Uncle Bob had a shoe box full of stone arrow-heads, axe-heads, and miscellaneous tools, such as scrapers, that he collected from walking in the camp location. After a hard rain, new objects would often surface. He shared his collection with the younger Butler descendants. As often happens, Auxier Creek lost its recreational status when the bureaucrats decided to cut a large drainage trench that sent it’s runoff into the creek along with all kind of debris.

All of the early Butler family photos show Grandma and the girls with tightly braided hair coiled about their head, very much like pictures of European women of the day. To have braided hair was not wrong but was just the way things were in the early 1900’s. Grandma Butler came from a linage of Germans, so they tell me. Later pictures show the two younger girls moving on to more modern hairstyles while Mom clung to her braided hair. When she was asked why she didn’t change it, her answer always was Henry wouldn’t like it. It took a few more years before her children persuaded her that it was really all right to change if she wanted to. Can you imagine having to braid your waist length hair before your first cup of coffee?

Sarah Griffin (age eighteen) and Grandfather Daniel Bishop (age forty one) met when he was visiting relatives in Illinois. They married, and he took her back to Texas, where they raised a family of three boys and two girls. Perry, the oldest boy, and the girls remained in Texas when Sarah, Dad, and James moved back to Illinois after Mr. Potter’s death. Sarah’s extended family still lived in Wayne County. Sarah (Potter) is buried in the old section of the cemetery just east of Arcola, Illinois.

Our parents were like many young folks who met at the local church, and events moved on from there. As with many families after the Depression, life was not a box of chocolates. It was a continual struggle to make ends meet and have food on the table. It was desirable to live within walking distance, if possible, of any employment opportunity for Dad. Those were the days of the single-income breadwinner. If a family had a car at all, it was used sparingly, especially since gasoline had skyrocketed to eighteen cents per gallon. When one was earning seventy five cents per hour, one would have to work over two hours for eight gallons of gas. Today, one could buy eight gallons for ten minutes of limited high-stress work. Speaking of the Depression days, Mother remembered meeting the welfare truck to receive a bag of flour, which evolved into biscuits and gravy meals.

Consistent with these conditions, our rural family rented an old, two-story farmhouse south of Mount Vernon, Illinois on State Highway 142, heated by a stove and furnished with such amenities, as a well, an outhouse, and a garden plot. This place was drafty but within our budget. Three events worthy of honorable mention occurred, including a flood of the creek near the house, a chicken hawk visit, and a hatchet encounter.

Our area experienced the great flood of 1937, or 1938. Since reading had not yet been achieved and time was not yet linked to a calendar, as it is today, the exact year is not firm beyond it being prior to my entrance to the first grade. It is clearly remembered that Mom and I walked down to the creek north of our house and looked at the water spread out over the neighbor’s farm. An unusual amount of rain had fallen that year and caused the creek to overflow its banks. When you are that age, you are easily impressed by the scene. In later years, while traveling through that area when it was at flood, it somehow just didn’t seem as awesome as it did as a child.

The chicken hawk story barely deserves honorable mention, except for the fact that chickens were dietary staple. We had a new hatch of baby chicks who were merrily searching for a snack when out of the sky a chicken hawk dive-bombed the little brood, swept a chick in its talons (I thought they were claws), and flew away. It shortly returned for a second serving. Dad unlimbered the old double-barreled, twelve-gage shotgun and made some drastic promises to Mr. Hawk. Care was taken, and the surviving chickens were protected for a later date with a skillet. For you weapons aficionados, this shotgun was of the old wire-wound Damascus style with double hammer. It was so old it probably was unsafe but was still used to hunt rabbits and birds until Dad passed away. It now resides in a family member’s collection.

Lastly, we come to one of my many educational experiences. Dad had just sharpened the hatchet used for splitting kindling for the stoves and left it on the back porch unguarded, beyond admonishing a curious young boy, Don’t touch the hatchet. It is very sharp. Now can you think of a better invitation than being told, Don’t touch? The natural progression of things followed. Since no wood was in sight, it was necessary to improvise by subjecting a dry corn cob to a couple of whacks. That wily cob kept ducking until finally in desperation it was anchored between thumb and forefinger of the left hand and followed by swinging the hatchet with determination culminating in a howl of pain. It became obvious that a basic engineering principle had been overlooked in that a finger on each side of the cob would receive the same treatment as the cob. Mom rushed out and administered first aid plus a scolding. We did not go to the doctor for something as minor as a finger cut to the bone.

For the record, I only have to look at my left hand to have instant recall of this childhood memory.

Children are a peculiar breed who have no doubt boggled the mind of psychologist down through the ages. My sisters were gifted with new slacks from the Monkey Ward (Montgomery Ward) catalog and were ecstatic. It was apparent that the boys had been overlooked on these special items. Total disappointment appeared and could not be appeased until Mamie took me aside and explained that long pants and slacks were the same, Duh!

With the advent of World War II and family members joining the various military services it was a traumatic time for Mother as three brothers left the home place in Dahlgren and other places where they worked and lived to serve the country. One went into the U.S. Navy’s Seabees and two went into the army. The one in the Seabees was assigned as a bulldozer driver based on the qualification that he had worked in the office of the Caterpillar tractor plant.

In those days families might disagree among themselves, but they hung together through thick and thin. What affected one affected the entire family unit. Visits to our family by one of the military persons was an occasion which warranted killing the fatted chicken (we didn’t have a calf).

My first military recollection was when one of the Butler boys (I believe it was Minor) visited us all dressed up in his uniform. About then war took on some meaning to a child. I did not know who we were fighting or why, but the family unit was in danger. Television had not arrived and news was via radio or news reels at the movies. These news clips were in black and white, and were about six weeks old by the time they were viewed between the movie and the cartoons. Think about today we watch missile strikes in the middle-East or the 911 attacks on the twin towers in real time on TV.

Not all was glum during his visit, because the little church down the road was having an ice cream social on the grounds. We walked down to the flat where they had set up boards on barrels to serve as tables and proceeded to indulge in home-made ice cream and orange soda pop. Mom decided that I had reached my limit long before I did and proceeded to cut me off. Then ‘Uncle’ intervened on my behalf and talked mom into letting him buy me one more round at the great investment of a quarter. To a kid with zero money that was an extravagant gift not to be forgotten.

When one is traveling south past the Garrison house location today (the house no longer stands) on state route 142, the road which leads to Dahlgren, as you cross over I-64,only recently built, there is a single lane road that goes straight ahead while the highway curves away to the left. This junction is or was known as Mill’s Curve in the olden days. If you look straight South on Mill’s road to the tree line then let your eyes travel to the West a short distance memory can still picture the Hebron school building that is no longer there.

Mamie, Hazel, and Elmo had to walk to school rain or shine. Kindergarten did not exist and the school year was eight months long. Since this was an agricultural area the kids were needed to work the farms during the growing season. Most kids had two or three years of hard labor before they were old enough to get a driver’s license and leave the farm. Several memorable events took place at this school. It was small by today’s standards with the old black board, wooden desks, and a pot-bellied stove. All eight grades met in the common room and were overseen by one teacher, Mrs. Sledge.

Instruction rotating through all grade levels was applied to the approximately twenty plus or minus pupils. The first Grade class was on the left, and the grades progressed upwards through the eighth grade on the right. Absolute silence was enforced while the teacher was teaching another group. Clearly no one student received a lot of personal time or special treatment. On occasion there may have been only one student in a particular grade. My brother Elmo was taught the fifth grade subjects before he received the fourth grade curriculum, because there was only one student in each of these classes. Just to provide perspective, the Bishop kids made up 20% of the total school attendance. This lady earned every dime she got as I was to realize in years to come.

Hebron was very typical of the country schools of the day serving remote communities. It was many years later before schools were finally combined for economy and efficiency. Hebron was small with no running water, and a WPA style toilet out back. On a cold day you did not linger to reflect on the trials of the world. It fell to the older boys (thirteen and fourteen years old) to carry in