War and Drought
The second decade of the Twentieth Century started with William Howard Taft as president of the United States. He served until 1913. Woodrow Wilson became the 28th president in 1913 and served until 1921.
Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America. 1919 Harris & Ewing
This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3f06247.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Woodrow_Wilson,_Harris_%26_Ewing_bw_photo_portrait,_1919.jpg
This decade, known as "The Nineteen Teens", was a particularly deadly decade. In 1912 a ship dubbed "unsinkable", the RMS Titanic, hit an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912. The ship lasted only 2 hours and 40 minutes, after hitting the iceberg. Of the 2222 people on board, including the crew, 705 people survived but 1,517 lost their lives.
(1)
Titanic at the docks of Southampton.
http://students.umf.maine.edu/~hartwenr/webquest/teacherpage/titanic%20in%20dock.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic
In 1914 a seemingly innocent visit to Sarajevo by Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, turned deadly when he and his wife, Sophie, were assassinated by a Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip. The date was June 28, 1914.
Gabro Princip just arrested by police, after his successful attempt on the life of Prince Franz Ferdinand of Habsburg in Sarajevo. 28 June 1914
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gavrilo_Princip_captured_in_Sarajevo_1914.jpg
A month later Austria-Hungary declared war. Treaties and alliances that were in place between nations quickly helped escalate this into a world war. Early participants were the Allied Forces of France, United Kingdom, and Russia, who were aligned against the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Some of the participants would change over the years and the United States would be drawn into the war by 1917. The treaty of Versailles finally ended the war on June 28, 1919, but the seeds were also sown that would ultimately develop into another world war years later. The "Great War", or "The War to End All Wars", would later become known simply as World War I. An estimated 10 million people were killed and 20 million wounded as a result of the war.
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A ration party of the Royal Irish Rifles in a communication trench during the Battle of the Somme. The date is believed to be 1 July 1916, the first day on the Somme, and the unit is possibly the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles (25th Brigade, 8th Division).
This is photograph Q 1 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 1900-02)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Irish_Rifles_ration_party_Somme_July_1916.jpg
Death did not stop it's cold march with the end of the war, however. In March of 1918 several soldiers at Fort Riley, Kansas were detected as having the symptoms of flu. These cases of flu became the first recorded cases of the Spanish Flu. Eventually this flu would develop into a world wide pandemic. After the spread of this initial strain of the flu, it mutated into a strain that was unusually deadly and seemed to target the young and healthy. It was particularly deadly for those that were 20 to 35 years old. American soldiers spread the flu across training facilities in the U.S. and then across the ocean via the troop transport ships to Europe. From there it spread worldwide. Some estimates go as high as 50 million deaths worldwide from March 1918 to the spring of 1919.
(3)
Masked medical personnel giving treatment to an influenza patient. U.S. Naval Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana. (Circa autumn 1918)
Picture courtesy U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command.
http://history1900s.about.com/od/photographs/ig/1918-Spanish-Flu-Pictures/Giving-Treatment.htm
Other developments of this decade were of a more positive nature. Arizona was admitted as the 48th state to the United States in 1912. It was the last of the contiguous states to be admitted. On Dec 1, 1913 the Ford Motor Company introduced the First moving assembly line in the automotive industry. It would revolutionize the auto industry as well as other types of manufacturing around the world. This innovation allowed Ford to reduce workers hours and nearly double their pay. Workers were now able to buy the cars they were building. The next year, 1914, Ford Motor sold more cars than all the other car companies combined. The Panama Canal opened in 1914, and in 1917 the first Pulitzer prizes were awarded.
(4)
Ford assembly line, 1913.
http://www.gpschools.org/ci/depts/eng/k5/third/fordpic.htm
But then the decade ended with the passage and implementation of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor became illegal. This amendment created unintended consequences that resulted in the "growth of vast criminal organizations, including the modern American Mafia, and various other criminal cliques. Widespread disregard of the law also generated rampant corruption among politicians and within police forces."
(5) The passage of the Twenty-first Amendment on Dec 5, 1933, repealed the Eighteenth Amendment.
In Concho County the Meixner family was busy trying to make a living. In my last post I wrote about the first two places the family lived after Harmon & Alice married and about the children that were born. This new decade offered many challenges to the family. Sometime in 1916 they moved to a third home. My dad described it like this: "It was sometime during the year of 1916 that we moved to a new location. We called this the Caruther's (probably Crothers) place, since it was owned by a man by that name. This piece of land joined our old home place on the North. A hot top road divides these two places now and of course we do not own the old home place anymore."
"To the best of my memory this place had two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. The new location contained 480 acres. The house was located on a promontory. A little creek called the Duck Creek, lay to the west of the house and the house sat on an incline about two-hundred feet above the creek. A bluff ran along side the creek for two-hundred yards. The bluff sat a few feet from the creek and there were some huge overhanging rocks that stuck out toward the creek. There was a space under these overhanging rocks that made an ideal place for children to play. We children used this place a lot and enjoyed it. To the west of the creek and west of the house there was about ten acres of field. To the extreme west side of the place there lay some forty acres of cultivated land."
"We lived on this place for two years. (1916-1918) During this time World War I was being fought. It was also during this time that we suffered the worst drought in the history of West Texas. These two incidents preyed upon the minds and hearts of the people. They worked their havoc on the small community in which we lived. Most of the people placed their belongings in their old covered wagon and headed east. My Father and Mother, with a few more brave souls, chose to remain there and tough it out."
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I believe, according to Dad's description in relation to the old home place and to Duck Creek, that this is approximately where the Meixner Family lived from 1916 to 1918. W.D. Crothers (Dad had Caruthers) owned property to the north of the old Meixner home place. I believe this is who owned the land granddad rented in 1916.
In Texas the drought of 1917-1918 is considered by many as the worst on record. The drought in the 50's was the longest and our current drought may alter the rankings but the drought in 1917-1918 certainly is one of the worst. Various articles used the words "legendary" and "memorable" to describe it. One article said native grasses were severely damaged and as a result invasive species were able to permanently take over in many areas. It was so bad that 1400 box cars were sent to Texas by the Federal government to help evacuate starving cattle to other areas.
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My Dad describes one experience of the family like this: "In 1914 Dad had built up a sizable herd of cattle. A buyer came by and offered him eighty-five dollars for a cow and calf combination. He talked it over with my mother and she advised him to sell. Dad studied about it for a few days and then came up with the conclusion. He told Mother that if they were worth that much to the other fellow they were worth that much to him. By 1917 the great drought had arrived. Dad was forced to take cattle to Fort Worth and take a price of twelve dollars per head. Dad made a mistake that time, but who hasn't made a few mistakes."
(9) While my dad characterizes it as a "mistake" in the above quote, I would be inclined to call it a decision that didn't work out like he hoped. How could granddad have predicted he would face the worst drought in Texas history in a couple years? Granddad took his cattle to town, loaded them on the train, and accompanied them to Fort Worth, probably riding in the caboose. I find it interesting that I now live close to Fort Worth and not too far from the Fort Worth Stockyards where granddad would have taken his cattle in 1917.
Photographs of the Fort Worth Stockyards.
http://www.stockyardsmuseum.org/index_files/StockYardsHistory.htm
The official beginning of the Fort Worth Stockyards was in 1893. "The Fort Wort livestock market became the largest in Texas and the Southwest, the biggest market south of Kansas City, and ranked between third and fourth consistently among the nation's large terminal livestock markets for five decades, from about 1905 to the mid-1950s. The year 1917 set records that stood for nearly thirty years; more than a million cattle and a million hogs arrived, for a total of 3.5 million animals in all categories-cattle, calves, hogs, sheep, and horses and mules."
(10) I wonder if some of that record was due to the drought.
Another account of the drought went like this: "One of the things we endured was the sand storms. They came frequently and sometimes with great ferocity. Often they were so severe that we would awake in the morning with a layer of dirt on our beds and all over the house. The dust would collect in the ceiling and become so deep that it would gradually sift down on us at the least disturbance. Dad would have to crawl up through the vent into the ceiling with a corn scoop and rake and scoop the dirt down through the vent into a large wash tub. Then we would carry it out and dump it. These storms gradually blew the top of the soil taking the grass with it. Some of the grass hung on by its roots, but the little stump was really dead."
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And another event: "While we were living on the Caruther's place in 1918 we had a blizzard. The wind got up to sixty or seventy miles per hour. It looked like we might be getting a great snow. Where there was something for the snow to drift up on, it piled real high. On the north side of the barn and sheds, the snow piled up even higher than the eaves of the buildings. Out on the open spaces there was just a smattering of snow. The wind was blowing too hard for the snow to catch on small objects like grass and rocks. The snow went through the cracks in our house and gathered on our beds. It was an unwelcome mess."
"The temperature must have gotten much below zero. Someone had built a surface tank down at the foot of the hill on Duck Creek. The tank was some thirty or forty feet across and contained about three feet of water in depth. The morning after the storm we went down to this tank to cut the ice so that our horses could drink. Six or seven of our largest horses were out in the middle of the tank walking around on the ice. When we began to cut the ice, we found it was a foot in thickness. We cut the ice in slabs and pushed these slabs back under the main ice cap."
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One more experience that must have been particularly hard for granddad was explained by my dad like this: "I remember one time during the great drought we had run completely out of food, as we did from time to time. Dad had run out of money. He got in the old wagon and went to town to try and borrow some money to live on. He went to the bank and they told him that they were not loaning anybody any money under any circumstances. He went to the grocery stores and they turned him down. They would not let him have credit. I remember that there was one grocery store left in town. This store was owned by a man by the name of Mr. Barbee. Dad went to Mr. Barbee and told him his story. Mr. Barbee said, 'Harmon, you just bring your wagon and team around here to the back of the store, back the wagon up to the back door and load all of the groceries you want on the wagon.' He said, 'When you make a crop you can pay me for the groceries.' My Dad was completely overcome by Mr. Barbee's kindness. It is needless to say who we bought our groceries from for many years following."
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The 1920 US Census for Concho County lists an Ezekiel N. Barbee as Manager of a Grocery Store.
Source Citation: Year: 1920; Census Place: Justice Precinct 1, Concho,Texas; Roll: T625_1786; Page: 11B; Enumeration District: 87; Image: 316.
Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.
Original data: Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. (NARA microfilm publication T625, 2076 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. For details on the contents of the film numbers, visit the following NARA web page: NARA. Note: Enumeration Districts 819-839 are on roll 323 (Chicago City).
When the United States entered World War I in 1917 even more stress was added to the Meixner family. Here is what my dad said about that: "During the years that we lived on the Caruthers place, the Great War was raging (World War I). This was a time of great apprehension and tension. Everyone felt insecure and there was never a time that one felt comfortable. All men up to a certain age were signed up to fight in the war and many of them were being drafted into the service. My Dad had signed up and was always uneasy thinking that he might be drafted at any time. I know that he and my mother spent many an anxious hour. They never knew what moment Dad might be called into service."
"We were in the midst of the most drastic droughts in the history of West Texas so my Dad had more than enough to harrow and to harass him. Times were exceedingly hard from the standpoint of the weather as well as the economy. One could not borrow a dime anywhere. The fact that there were no jobs to be had. Most of the people had furnished their covered wagons and left the country. Mother had two brothers who were either drafted or volunteered for the service."
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It is very hard to read but this is a copy of granddad's Draft Registration Card for World War I.
Source Citation: Registration State: Texas; Registration County: Concho; Roll: 1952491.
Source Information: Ancestry.com. U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.
Original data: United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls. Imaged from Family History Library microfilm.
"During World War I, Herbert Hoover was the Food Administrator. He declared meatless, wheatless, and sugarless days. He prescribed certain days when people could not eat these products. For instance, if it was a wheatless day, people could not eat anything that was made of wheat. We were rationed to one level teaspoon of sugar per day. That much sugar just gave the food enough sugar to make one want something sweet. The wheatless days did not bother us much, since we either could not get flour or there was none to get. The government recommended that we eat shorts, which was a product that was meant to be fed to the hogs. It had a texture somewhat like flour, but it tasted like the devil."
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And we think we have gone through difficult times. At least by the end of 1918 the war had ended and so had the drought. Granddad rented 160 acres of land from a man by the name of Millard F. Kerby in 1918. In 1919 he purchased the land from Mr. Kerby and his crops were beautiful. Things were looking up. I will go more into the details of the land purchase and the decade of the 1920s in my next post.
References:
(1) http://history1900s.about.com/od/1910s/p/titanic.htm
(2) http://history1900s.about.com/od/worldwari/p/World-War-I.htm
(3) http://history1900s.about.com/od/1910s/p/spanishflu.htm
(4) http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/1910timeline.htm
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States
(6) Meixner, Robert Harmon, Sr., Memoirs of Robert Harmon Meixner, Sr. July 10, 1910 – June 13, 1994. Unpublished. Compiled by Margaret Avis Meixner, pg 48-49.
(7) http://texashurricane.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/how-bad-is-this-drought/
(8) http://www.gilmermirror.com/view/full_story/10032438/article-Texas-facing-another-drought
(9) Meixner, pg 25-26.
(10) Nell L. Pate, "FORT WORTH STOCKYARDS," Handbook of Texas Online(http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/dif04), accessed January 14, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
(11) Meixner, pg 58-59.
(12) Ibid, pg 52.
(13) Ibid, pg 60.
(14) Ibid, pg 171.
(15) Ibid, pg 51.
