Frankly Speaking ...: Of Texas in 1940 & One

By Charles Chupp

     Hugh Chupp and Thelma Brownlee tied the nuptial knot on May 30th, 1925 at De Leon in Comanche County Texas. Hugh was 26 years old, an eighth grade graduate, a bronc buster and a horse trainer. Thelma was 17, a junior at De Leon High School and had an ambition to be a glamorous flapper. That was the extent of their schooling, but the subsequent sixteen years would provide education.
     Rumors that their wedding was of the shotgun variety were proven baseless when their first son didn’t see daylight until November 22nd of 1929.
     The roaring twenties were in session, even in rural De Leon, and the good times rolled until Black Friday, October 25th, 1929 — and the arrival of Charles Elvin a month later. He did not cause the Great Depression, nor did the Great Depression cause him. Times got tough but Hugh and Thel were blessed with yet another son, March 15th, 1933, as they moved from one rundown shelter to another, usually when rent was due. Benny Wayne was born December 18th, 1939, and Hugh and Thel ceased production.
     Hugh haunted the corner on Texas Street where day labor was chancy and often non-existent. He watched as the Houston and Texas Central freight train rolled through town and envied the hobos who adorned the empty cars and went on down the tracks looking for the Promised Land. To his credit he resisted the urge to climb aboard and leave his troubles behind.
     Despite the hard times and the gloomy forecast for the future, the little family managed to stay together when it would have been easier to quit. As a matter of fact Hugh and Thel shared their shelter and food with Nancy Brownlee, Thel’s widowed mother. Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” was hanging tough in the eye of the hurricane.
     “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” is one version of an old adage and the Chupp family managed to weather the storm. Grit and good humor was a major contributor to their will to hang on, and when good times crept across America in the early days of 1941 they managed to move up a rung on the ladder of success. A stroke of good fortune elevated the Chupps from day labor to tenant farming.
     The story is an eyewitness account, recounted here for your amusement and edification by the eldest son of Hugh and Thel. And, the story may sound familiar—you may have lived it too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 2, 2008
• ISBN: 9781669809418

Charles Chupp

Charles Chupp is a retired Senior Right-of-Way agent, author, artist and hometown philosopher. He has authored five previous books and has written a weekly newspaper column for better than fifty years. He still composes his tales on a lined pad with a Scripto pencil. Information about his books, and hundreds of his “I Got NO REASON TO LIE” columns, are available at www.CharlesChupp.com. He called the area outside of De Leon, Texas, where he grew up, “Poverty Knob.” He now lives in-town—within the “Poverty Sink” addition. Recently windowed he brags on his daughter, Tracy, his son, Ace, three grandchildren, Audrey, Mercedes, Taylor Ann, and two great-grandchildren, Angel and Ilia.

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Copyright © 2008 by Charles Chupp.

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Rev. date: 01/27/2022

Xlibris

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www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Marking His Place

Dedicated to

John Franklin Chupp

FOREWORD

T H E SMALL CENTRAL Texas town of De Leon has added another master storyteller to the ranks of American literary greats, and his name is Charles Chupp. Charles has been amusing Texas newspaper readers for many years with his homespun, and often truthful, stories that always poke a little good humor at someone, many times himself.

In a previous book, The Nth Reader, in which Neglected Texas History is the theme, Chupp directed his humorous and irreverent spotlight upon the dusty pages of his beloved state’s past.

Now, in Frankly Speaking . . . , Chupp turns his considerable story telling skills to reminiscences of a year in his late childhood and early adolescence. Although much of the book is about Charles’s personal experiences, the real star of the book is, to my eyes at least, his younger brother, John Franklin, who was in his first and second years of public school at the time. Little John Franklin is determined to run away from home, join the Air Force and go shoot down Nazi warplanes in the skies over Europe.

The main characters of this book include Chupp’s parents, Hugh and Thel, his grandmother, Gogo, his baby brother, Benny Wayne, and a wide assortment of cousins, uncles and aunts, neighbors, church members and family friends. The timeline runs from December of 1940 through December of 1941. The residual effects of the Great Depression were still upon the land and, most certainly the Chupp family, when the story begins. Things improve, however, as good fortune, hard work and pre-war prosperity soon improved their lives and fortunes.

The reader cannot help but break out in smiles, if not guffaws, as the pages of each chapter are turned. The fact that the characters in the book are real, and so are (most of?) the adventures, only adds to the authenticity and enjoyment. The author is so skilled in detailing the setting and the personalities, that before long you are back there with him, thoroughly engrossed in another time and world, and smiling all the way.

Please bear in mind, however, that Chupp’s regular newspaper column is aptly entitled, "I Got NO REASON TO LIE". Charles never needed a reason. But the story of his family presented in these pages is too good to lie about.

Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway, get ready to welcome another great American storyteller to your exclusive club.

Jerry Morgan, Publisher, De Leon Free Press

CHAPTER 1

J O HN FRANKLIN WAS born with a hard head. Hugh said John Franklin probably had the hardest head in Comanche County, and I’d heard him add more than once that, he takes after his momma.

Momma, or Thel, was Hugh’s lawfully wedded wife, and that unarguable fact established John Franklin as my younger brother. I had a lot more dealings with him than Hugh did, and always believed that Hugh had appraised his hard-headiness on the low side. I judged him to have the hardest head in Texas, and maybe in the whole wide world. It beat me as to how hair managed to grow there.

John Franklin couldn’t be faulted for hair trigger decisions. He gave considerable thought to potential ramifications before he made his final judgment in most matters. Once he made his mind up though, the best efforts of God or mortal were powerless to stay him from his mission. At eleven, I was three years his elder, but he seldom asked for my input on a planned dido.

He and I were sitting on our nail keys that frigid day in December of 1940, when he stirred restlessly, sighed and began to dig around in the bib pocket of his blue pinstripe overalls. The raised rim on nail kegs makes it an uncomfortable seat, and moving around a bit is about the only way you can put in a day under those conditions, so his repositioning was understandable. Sometimes blood circulation to my legs reached a point of restriction that put my feet to sleep.

I knew what was coming, and dreaded what was about to happen, but I was experienced enough to know that there was nothing I could do. I further knew that he was going to get caught in the act—he always got caught. And, once he was caught he always laid the blame on me.

That three-legged cast iron heater split the angle of the room corner, and stood atop a foot high lumber box pedestal with a four brick prop to compensate for the missing leg. Our kegs were situated in a vee-shaped space formed by the stove side and the bare board planking that turned some of the north wind. The walls were almighty cold, but the heater compensated with a blistering intensity to rival the hinges on the gates to hell as Hugh put it. The majority of our fuel was cedar fence posts, and cedar burns hot and for a long time. Aged cedar was almost as hard as John Franklins’ head.

Eventually, John Franklin fished a two-inch length of yellow crayola from his bib pocket and carefully peeled a fragment of paper banding from the crayon. A smile played across his cherubic little face as he held it for my viewing and admiration.

Don’t do it, I whispered.

Who’s going to stop me? He hissed.

Not me, I admitted.

Since my legs were longest I sat at the widest segment of our vee-shaped space, and my departure had to precede his, unless he opted to scurry across the top of the heater. I inspected the fastest escape route, taking into account the other three occupants of the room. There was going to be hell to pay when he got caught, but John Franklin was a gifted liar, and like I said he always managed to put the blame on me. He was my brother, not my kid, so I just sighed in disappointment and got ready to evacuate the area, so he wouldn’t climb across me and break my neck.

Thel was seated across the heater from us in our best cane bottom chair. Actually, it was a cane bottom chair once upon a time, before the split cane played out and was replaced with woven binder twine. It was still a trustworthy seat and was Thel’s choice for nursing the newest addition to our family.

Thel was rocking slowly from the front legs to the back as little Benny Wayne suckled drowsily at her breast. Her eyes were closed, but she was kept awake by her year old baby’s attachment and his clamping down every once in a while. The jarring produced by the straight back chair as first the back and then the front acted as the load bearing point and kept gas from building up in little Benny Wayne’s belly and cut down on the necessity for a paregoric chaser.

Grandmother Brownlee, Thel’s mother was draped in her rocker inside a cocoon of patchwork quilt and was snoring softly directly in front of the open door of the heater. An open Bible lay in her lap as she dozed, but even in sleep she managed to give a little kick periodically to maintain her creaking, rocking momentum.

John Franklin made his move without warning. He touched his crayola to the stove, there was a little sputter and a yellow river ensued and ran down the side of the heater. It coursed around the raised, floral molded design, with lightning speed, and there’s no denying that it was a sight to behold. Our transfixed admiration was short lived however. Melted crayons emit a distinctive aroma, which is not all that unpleasant unless you are the one who bought the crayola and object to burning the house down. Thel was an experienced hand at identifying that odor, and she was on her feet in a heartbeat. It was easy to see that she was not happy. Little Benny Wayne lost his nipple and set up a terrible howl. Grandmother, or as she was called Gogo almost dumped her Bible on the floor, and she too came wide-awake.

I’ve told you kids a thousand times not to melt crayolas against that stove! Thel screamed as she dropped little Benny Wayne into Gogo’s lap, raised her slapping hand and tried her best to get a lick in as I raced for cover under the eating table. John Franklin was not as fortunate. Thel grabbed him by his suspenders and was working over his hind end until Gogo interceded in his behalf.

Don’t punish the little children for their trespasses Thelma, she chided. A seven-year-old child should not be held accountable for harmless mischief. You know what it says in the Bible.

I didn’t want to do it Mom, John Franklin’s little voice quavered and blended with his dry sobs. Chock made me do it!

I knew right off the John Franklin was telling a windy and I suspected despite, the many times that I’d heard what Gogo said, that she might be doing the same, since I’d never been able to discover the chapter and verse she referred to in either the Old or New Testament. It was definitely not printed in the red ink that was accorded to the word for direct quotes from God, but needless to say I didn’t doubt that it should be in there.

Thel glared at me, but I’d put Gogo’s rocker between us and her anger abated, as she lowered her slapping hand.

I didn’t make him melt that crayola! I said truthfully, and immediately followed with a less than truthful, I was sound asleep when he done it. He’d melt every crayola in the world if he could lay hands on ’em. I keep mine hid from him.

The crisis passed, Thel reclaimed little Benny Wayne from Gogo’s arms, and he stopped his warm up noises for a good bawl. He reconnected to his teat and Gogo rearranged her quilt, repositioned her Bible to its proper location and got her rocker to going again.

Beatingest thing I ever saw, Thel muttered. Brand new box of crayolas from Santa Claus, and you kids wasting them! How do you think you’re going to color your new books after you melt all your crayolas?

Mine’s done colored, John Franklin boasted. I finished it up on Christmas Day.

John Franklin didn’t take any pains to stay inside the lines when he rendered a coloring book. If I didn’t keep mine hid, along with my crayolas, he’d finish mine up too. Hugh said that buying coloring books for John Franklin made about as much sense as buying raincoats for ducks. John Franklin could do a sixty-four-page book while I was working on the first page. Speed was his main talent, and I really didn’t expect him to ever do any dramatic changing of his ways. He believed in getting the job done and having crayola left over to melt on the stove.

Hugh had walked the two miles to town in hopes of hiring out for the day. He and several other men hung out at The Corner Cafe and waited for somebody to come by who needed a hand and had a dollar in his pocket. He left before daylight every day excepting Sunday, and seldom got back much before dark. On a lucky day he might bring in a dollar, and sometimes as much as a dollar and a half. In the wintertime though, when farm work was hard to find, he’d drag back in from a water haul with empty pockets.

Once in a while on one of those slow days he’d come up the lane singing Jada. That was a dead give-away as to what he’d been up to, and Thel would be mighty disappointed and mighty mad. Her Brownlee heritage would manifest itself in loud and easily understood pronouncements. She’d light into Hugh as soon as he got in the house for his sinful transgression. John Franklin and I usually went into the frigid bedroom, but we stood close enough to the door so as not to miss out on Thel’s lecture.

Hugh usually quit singing by the time he climbed the steps to the porch and he didn’t have much to say once he hung his hat on the nail. Gogo always acted like she was sound asleep and deaf as a post. The racket didn’t bother little Benny Wayne, whether he was taking in breast milk or bundled up in his bushel basket.

Anytime Hugh started singing Jada Thel knew he’d spent the day, hadn’t found work, and had managed to strike a crony who owned a bottle or a jug filled with home made skull cracker. Hugh had low tolerance for high-octane liquor, could get lit on two swigs, and immediately the world seemed like a more cheerful place to live. He might have gotten by with his rare connections with strong drink if he’d not broken out in song but Jada sent his spirits soaring, and like an old hen who lays square eggs he could not curb his song of sweet relief. He knew that for a fact when he was sober, but he clean forgot after a snort.

With Hugh off looking for work, it was my job to keep the home fire burning. I was not a gifted wood chopper, but Hugh didn’t trust John Franklin and me with his ax anyway, so we burned cedar fence posts, side dressed with corn cobs. Fortunately, we were never able to discover where he kept that ax hidden.

We lived, rent free, in Oscar Howard’s old house just outside the city limits on the dirt road to Hog Town, and that was a fair price for the place. The will of God, in defiance to the law of gravity, kept that old house standing. There was no other logical explanation. We manifested our gratitude to Mr. Howard by pulling posts from his fence and feeding them into our cast-iron heater.

Pull every second one, Hugh had instructed, that way the fence won’t fall down. Open the front door of the heater and keep them pushed in as they burn off. Don’t let them fall out in the floor or you’ll burn the damn house down.

It was a long hard winter, and the fence posts had been spaced eight feet apart to begin with. If spring didn’t come early Mr., Howard wouldn’t have a post every thirty-two feet, but that didn’t trouble Hugh. We didn’t have any livestock—and neither did Mr. Howard. Besides, most of the staples had turned loose years before and all four strands of barbwire were on the ground.

Me and John Franklin had better go pull a couple more posts before dark, I said as I pushed the tail end into the coals and pushed the door shut with a corncob. We don’t want to run out of wood during the night.

You don’t need John Franklin to help you bring in wood, Thel said. He might get hurt or catch pneumonia out in this weather.

I want to go help Chock, Mom, John Franklin said. I’ll wear my coat and my toboggan, and Gogo can hold my crayolas until we get back.

We bundled up in our warmest, and only, coats, covered our ears and went out into the teeth of that biting norther. John Franklin crawled under the porch and emerged with our Diamond Match Box of cigarette snipes. Our old dog Sooner followed him out, from his semi-warm place directly beneath the heater location. His cockle burr matted tail was awag and he was overjoyed to see us.

I need a smoke, John Franklin stated. Get back under that house Sooner, he scolded. Sooner promptly put his tail carefully between his legs, and it was plain to see that his feelings were hurt.

Aw, let him come, too, I said. He’s been under that house all day, and is probably as tired of doing nothing as we are. Besides, he can keep a lookout for us while we smoke. I hit John Franklin a good lick to his shoulder for lying and getting me in trouble. He didn’t cry or say anything, but I figured he’d tell on me when we went back into the house. He rubbed his arm a moment and told Sooner to come along with us.

When I get big, John Franklin said, I’m gonna melt a box of crayolas every day, and there won’t be anybody big enough to stop me.

We made our way to the chained and locked chicken house and circled around to the backside, which could not be seen from the house. I pulled aside a one by twelve slat with no nails at the bottom and we edged inside with Sooner leading the way.

CHAPTER 2

T H E CORNUCOPIA WAS in full operation in 1940, according to a line drawing of the apparatus in the De Leon Free Press . John Franklin and I found a copy of the Thanksgiving week edition on one of our frequent patrols of the bar ditches around De Leon. We collected bottles and cigarette snipes on those safaris, but we studied that drawing with hungry eyes. The ad had been placed by the local bank and that horn was discharging cooked turkeys, fruit, vegetables, clothing and automobiles