GROWING
UP IN WEST TEXAS
DURING WORLD WAR II
Some
people have asked what it was like growing up in the country in West Texas back
in the good ol’ days. I also wanted to write these things down for the kids and
grandkids. So, I thought I would start posting my memories.
I was
in elementary school in Kent County, TX, during World War II. To say we were
poor would be an understatement. As the old saying goes, you could have
thrown a cat through the cracks in the walls of our home. No one had money to
buy much of anything. We grew most of what we ate. We canned vegetables and
fruit and butchered animals. We wore clothing until they almost fell off.
Everything was handed down in the family, and then from family to family within
the community. We bought only necessities. Merchandise was rationed. We had
government issued ration stamps that gave us permission to buy a limited amount
of various products, including some foods, gasoline, tires, and so forth.
Everything went to the war effort. With so many men gone to war, the economy
was rough in the rural areas and paying jobs were scarce. The jobs were in the
cities.
Dad had
lost his leg to osteomyelitis, caused by a high-jumping accident during high
school when his pole broke and he fell on the pole bruising and injuring the
bone just below the knee. A very treatable injury today, but back then,
amputation was the only way to fight the resulting infection. Consequently, he
wasn’t able to go to war. He was elected as county treasurer, which left us
better off than some in our community during the war. But nobody had much
money.
There was
no electricity in Kent County because the Rural Electrification Administration
(REA), a government funded program to bring electricity to rural areas, had yet
to put up poles in our area. Basic living for us hadn’t changed much since the
1800s.
Well
water was scarce, there was no drilling equipment at that time and wells were
hand dug, so we had only cistern water. Water was put in the cistern using
guttering around the house to catch rainwater. During August when it was
so hot and dry, I drew buckets of water from the cistern and poured it through
cheesecloth to strain out the wiggle-tails and trash. Then the water went into
the house for cooking and drinking. We all bathed in a #2 washtub using the
same water and then it was carried out to put on the garden.
As we had
no indoor plumbing, we had an outhouse. Dad had a battery-powered radio with a
wire strung from the top of the house to the top of the outhouse as an antenna
to listen to the war reports at night. We used coal-oil lamps for lights and
Mom cooked on a kerosene stove. That was also the only heat in the house.
In
winter, Mom would put my twin brother and me to bed and cover us with so many
patchwork quilts that we were trapped there until morning, as we couldn’t get
up or turn over because of the weight.
We went
to a two-room schoolhouse. Of course, there was no water or electricity. Grades
1-7 were in one room and the upper grades in the other room. There was a big
round cast iron coal or wood burning stove in the middle of the room for heat.
Lighting came from windows on three sides of our room.
There
were two outhouses, one for girls and one for boys. There was no playground
equipment. The younger girls played hopscotch or jacks. The older boys went to
the corral to mess with the horses. The younger boys played mumbley-peg, tops,
or ante-over. We had an old rubber ball and the boys divided into two equal
groups and went to different sides of the building. The ball would be thrown
over the top of the school and the boy on the other side who caught it would
run around the building and try to hit a boy. If he was hit, he was out of the
game. That went on until there was only one left, the winner.
There were
no buses; kids came in riding in a buggy or wagon. But most rode horseback. My
brother and I rode an old gray mule. Mom was a schoolteacher. She taught the
older kids and was paid in scrip, as the school had no money. The grocery store
finally stopped taking it for payment for food, as the grocer couldn’t exchange
the scrip for money. I still have some of it.
We took
our lunch in a sack along with a jug of water. The boy who got the most gold
stars during the day for being good, got to take out the ashes from the stove
and bring in a bucket of coal as long as the coal lasted. After that, parents
or boys brought stumps in to burn. The best girl got to take the erasers out
and dust them on the porch. What a reward, but it worked.
One
afternoon, we heard screaming in the room for the older kids. We all ran to see
what had happened. Mom had opened a map that was in a roll and a rattler fell
out the end. He’d chosen that place to spend the winter. The boys killed it
with a rock they used to hold the door open on warm days.
Yeah,
this was the good ol’ days.
~~~
Credit Lake
Jayton, Texas
There is
a pond in Jayton, located between downtown and the public school. Strangers
hearing the locals talk about Credit Lake often ask how it got its name. Here’s
what we were told.
The
fifties in West Texas were, as the author, Elmer Kelton, said, “The time it
never rained.” Jayton’s banker lived on the other side of the pond and walked
to the bank every morning. He went by the pond again on the way home at night.
It is
said the farmers named the pond. They learned that the banker looked at the
pond every day and if it had water in it, they got a loan to farm that year. If
the pond was dry, no credit at the bank.
Thus, to
this day, the pond is called Credit Lake.
Almost
every boy in Jayton learned to swim in Credit Lake, as there were no swimming
pools. It was brown muddy water, but young boys don’t care.
In the
winter when Credit Lake froze, that was where the kids skated. Nobody had ice
skates, but if you ran and jumped on the ice, you could glide several feet,
that is, if you didn’t fall.
One
winter there was snow on the ground and ice on Credit Lake. One of the kids
found an old hood to a Plymouth car. He tied a rope on it, the boys piled on,
and he pulled it with his dad’s old car. When he got to the pond he would turn
sharply and release the rope, the hood of the car loaded with boys would go
spinning across the ice, usually dumping several. We considered that great fun.
Then the
boy decided the ice was thick enough and drove out on it in the car. He could
get up speed, turn the wheel, and do circles or slide sideways, that is, until
he stopped in the middle. There was a cracking sound and the boys that were in
the car jumped out, including the driver, and ran to safety. The boys who were
riding on the hood of the car were close behind. They stood on the bank and
watched in total dismay as the car started slowly sinking until only the top of
the car could be seen.
His daddy
pulled the car out of Credit Lake with a tractor as soon as the ice melted.
However, the next day at school, the boy grimaced every time he sat down, but
he learned a very valuable lesson, never drive on the ice of Credit Lake. In
fact, it was several months before he got to drive again.
There
have been improvements to Credit Lake now, making it a park area. It has been
stocked with fish and at times people bring fish in and turn them loose for the
kids to catch. One afternoon, I was driving by Credit Lake and saw a boy about
7 or 8 running down the street toward home. He had a huge fish clutched in his
arms holding it across his chest. His Zebco rod and reel were dragging along
behind and his dog was chasing the boy barking in excitement. The smile on the
kid’s face was a mile wide. I expect that family had fish for supper than night.
~~~
Mr. Robinson
One
afternoon, when I was nine or ten years old, three of my friends and I were
walking past the grocery store. The owner, Mr. Robinson, came out the front and
called us to come to the store. He had a Hershey bar, the first we had ever
seen. In those days, candy was hard to come by, and anything chocolate was a
rare treat. He broke off one of the little squares for each of us and told us
to put it on our tongues and let it melt slowly. That was the best tasting
candy I had ever eaten.
Every
afternoon after that, the four of us would just happen to go
by Mr. Robinson’s store and stand in front, hoping he would come out with the
candy. He did until the Hershey bar was gone. He told us that was all he had.
He’d received only one bar and he’d shared it with us. Sometimes, one little
act of kindness can make a person remember you for the rest of their life.
~~~
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