Meixner Family History #27 - Epilogue Part 10

                                      World War II and The 1940s

As I have worked on the last several blog posts, one thing has really struck me about the Meixner family and that is the number of difficulties they had to overcome.  After Harmon and Alice's marriage in 1905, they had to endure World War I, a severe drought, a flu pandemic, and the Great Depression, and that is only the first three decades!  Now comes the decade of the 1940s and another World War.

War officially started in Europe in 1939, by most accounts, when Germany invaded Poland.  Many countries were involved in two opposing military Alliances:  the Allies and the Axis powers.  World War II as it became known would evolve into the most widespread war in history with the vast majority of the worlds nations involved.  The Allies major countries would eventually end up as Great Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union.  The Axis powers consisted of Germany, Italy and Japan.  Entering into 1940 the Unites States was supplying material aid to Great Britain but had resisted entering the war.  Early on the morning of Dec 7, 1941 everything changed for the United States. (1)

Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii on Oct. 30, 1941.

Description:  Aerial view of the U.S. Naval Operating Base, Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii (USA), looking southwest on 30 October 1941. Ford Island Naval Air Station is in the center, with the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard just beyond it, across the channel. The airfield in the upper left-center is the U.S. Army's Hickam Field.
Date:  30 October 1941
Source:  Official U.S. Navy photograph 80-G-182874, now in the collections of the U.S. National Archives. Also U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation photo No. 1996.488.029.051
Author:  USN
Permission:  This file is a work of a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pearl_Harbor_looking_southwest-Oct41.jpg

In early December Japan moved a huge contingent of air craft carriers and war ships 3000 miles across the Pacific Ocean completely undetected.  They maneuvered into a position 230 miles from the Hawaiian Island of Oahu.  At 7:55 a.m. on Sunday, Dec 7, 1941 Japanese war planes completely surprised Pearl Harbor with a devastating attack. For almost two hours 350 Japanese planes pounded Pearl Harbor.  When the destruction ended the United States had lost more than 2,400 American lives, 21 ships were either sunk or damaged, and more than 188 US aircraft were destroyed.  Reaction in the United States was swift and determined.  War was declared by the United States against Japan the next day.  Little did Japan know what horrible devastation would be unleashed on two of it's cities just four years later.  An end result that was set in motion by this attack in 1941. (2)

A Berlin street on July 3, 1945.

Description:  Scene of destruction in a Berlin street just off the Unter den Linden
Date:  3 July 1945
Source:  This is photograph BU 8604 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 4700-30)
Author:  No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit, Wilkes A (Sergeant)
Permission:  This artistic work created by the United Kingdom Government is in the public domain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Destruction_in_a_Berlin_street.jpg

World War II continued into 1945 and would claim 40-50 million lives. (3)  The year of 1945 would turn out to be one of the most momentous years in history.  President Franklin Roosevelt, who had just been reelected to an unprecedented fourth term in office, died suddenly on April 12, 1945.  Vice President Harry S. Truman was sworn in as the 33rd president.

Harry S. Truman (1884–1972)

Description:  Harry S. Truman (1884 – 1972), 1945 – 1953 the thirty-third President of the United States
Date:  circa 1945
Source:  http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/view.php?id=2267
Author:  Frank Gatteri, United States Army Signal Corps
Permission:  This image is a work of a U.S. Army soldier or employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of theU.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harry-truman.jpg

Upon taking office, President Truman was given details of a project he had not been briefed on while Vice President.  This project had been authorized years earlier by President Roosevelt to try to develop an atomic bomb.  It would become known as the Manhattan Project.  Germany was finally forced to surrender on May 8, 1945.  A short time later President Truman would be informed that members of the Manhattan Project had finally been successful in coming up with the means for making the atomic bomb. President Truman authorized a test of the new technology that project members thought would create a tremendous explosion. As it turned out, the test proved it to be even more powerful than most had expected.

Photograph of the first nuclear test explosion known as the "Trinity" shot.

Description:  Famous color photograph of the "Trinity" shot, the first nuclear test explosion.
Date:  16 July 1945
Source:  This image comes from the Google-hosted LIFE Photo Archive where it is available under the filename 96ad5a9a5c94664e
Author:  Jack W. Aeby, July 16, 1945, as a member of the Special Engineering Detachment at Los Alamos laboratory, working under the aegis of the Manhattan Project.
Permission:  This image is a work of a United States Department of Energy (or predecessor organization) employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trinity_shot_color.jpg

After the surrender of Germany, Japan continued to wage war and continued to show their willingness to fight to the death.  They refused to surrender.  With the thought of having to invade Japan, and understanding the potential for the loss of thousand and thousands of US solders' lives, President Truman had a terrible choice to make.  He could continue with the conventional war with the resulting loss of US soldiers or he could choose to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, with the expected loss of many thousands of civilian lives. President Truman decided to go forward with dropping the atomic bomb.  On Aug 6, 1945 the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and on Aug 9, 1945 a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on Aug 14, 1945, and finally, World War II was over. (4)

Of course that is far from the end of the story.  Instead of leaving those areas they occupied after the war the Soviet Union stayed, and by dropping what Winston Churchill described as "An Iron Curtain" across huge parts of Europe, they were able to impose their communist government on the people of those countries. Then in 1949 it was learned that the Soviet Union had their own Atomic Bomb and the "Cold War" started in full force.

Although the war dominated the 1940s I want to point out several important things that were invented during this decade that are in use today.  Also, a couple of events that had an impact on our present lives.

     1941 - The JEEP was invented.
     1942 - The T-Shirt was first introduced.
     1944 - Ballpoint pens went on sale.
     1945 - First fully functional digital computer was built.
     1945 - The microwave oven was invented.
     1946 - The Bikini swim suit is introduced.
     1947 - The Polaroid Camera was invented.
     1948 - The "Big Bang Theory" was formulated.
     1949 - The first non-stop flight around the world was completed. (5)

In 1940 granddad was 61 years old and grandmother was 59.  The age of 61 is only a couple years younger than I am now.  I don't think I could go out and work a large farm like they did at their age and in fact they would continue to work it for many years to come.  (Of course I couldn't have done it in my prime either but that's another story.)

I would think granddad had a tractor by sometime in the forties and a vehicle to drive but I don't know for sure.  (My cousin, Dale, said his dad, Frank Meixner, bought his first tractor in 1948.)  Also, at some point I would guess they got running water and electricity but, again, I don't know when that took place.  I'm sure some of you reading this might know more about that.  If you do you can add a comment at the bottom or e-mail me.  My email is at the top of the page.

1940 US Census for Concho County listing Harmon, Alice, Robert Harmon, Alberta, Emma, and Victor.

Source Citation:  Year: 1940; Census Place:  , Concho, Texas; Roll: T627_4012; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 48-1.
Source Information:  Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
Original data:  United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627, 4,643 rolls.

As I mentioned last time, by the end of 1940 four of the children were married.  In the 1940 census shown above there are six people listed in the Meixner household.  My dad is listed with the family but it is noted he was away from home.

At the end of 1940 some of the married children were still fairly close by.  Frank and Naomi were farming just to the north of the home place and Mary and Joe were living in Paint Rock.  Others were farther away. Harmon and Avis were in Haskell where Harmon was teaching school.  Alynn and Ross were living in Dallas.

In May of 1941 Emma Meixner married Jim Bob Cox and moved to a farm in Concho County.  In 1946 Alberta (Peaches) Meixner married Vernon Neve and moved to a farm near Melvin in McCulloch County.

In 1945 the youngest son, Victor, enlisted in the military.  He would return home safely from service but I am sure that was a great worry for Harmon and Alice while he was away.  Once back from the service, Victor stayed at home and helped granddad farm.

By the end of the decade Alice and Harmon had seen six of their seven children leave home and marry. Also by the end of the 1940s they had 11 grandchildren.  So, as the decade was coming to an end, I wonder if granddad was looking forward to the new decade and hoping it would be better, with not so many challenges.  Every decade of granddads life had been filled with difficulties.  As it turns out, the decade of the 1950s would present the most difficult challenge he had ever had to face.

Next time the 1950s and 1960s.

References:
(1)  http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/648813/World-War-II
(2)  http://history1900s.about.com/od/worldwarii/a/Attack-Pearl-Harbor.htm  
(3)  http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/648813/World-War-II
(4)  McCullough, David, Truman, Simon & Schuster, New York, New York, 1992.
(5)  http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/1940timeline.htm

Meixner Family History #26 - Epilogue Part 9

                                         The Great Depression Years

Early in 1929 Herbert Hoover was inaugurated as the 31st President of the United States.  Everyone believed that Coolidge-Hoover prosperity, as some called it, would continue indefinitely.  Then came the stock market crash in October of 1929.

Herbert C. Hoover, 1928? 

Credit:  Library of Congress
Source:  http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/thumbnail339.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover

Fredrick Lewis Allen writes in his book, "Prosperity is more than an economic condition; it is a state of mind.  The Big Bull Market had been more than the climax of a business cycle; it had been the climax of a cycle in American mass thinking and mass emotion. There was hardly a man or woman in the country whose attitude toward life had not been affected by it in some degree and was not now affected by the sudden and brutal shattering of hope.  With the Big Bull Market gone and prosperity going, Americans were soon to find themselves living in an altered world which  called for new adjustments, new ideas, new habits of thought, and a new order of values.  The psychological climate was changing; the ever-shifting currents of American life were turning into new channels."

"The Post-war Decade had come to its close.  An era had ended."  (1)

Even the weather conspired to deepen the depression.  In 1931 an eight year drought started and temperatures were hotter than normal.  In the areas of southwest Kansas, the Oklahoma panhandle, the Texas panhandle, northeastern New Mexico, and southeastern Colorado the land was devastated during this decade by drought and soil erosion.  Years of poor soil conservation by the farmers in the region set the stage for the disaster.  Huge dust storms called "Black Blizzards" blotted out the sun, destroyed crops, and made the area unbearable for people living there.  Millions of people were forced to leave their homes and move west looking for jobs.  John Steinbeck wrote his classic novel "The Grapes of Wrath" about the plight of the migrants as they moved west from this area looking for work in a time of great depression in the country.  His book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940.  The horrible conditions in this area improved some after the passage of the Soil Conservation Act of 1935 and a concerted effort in the area towards soil conservation.  But their bleak situation was not alleviated until the rain came in 1939. (2)

Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas. 

Photo Date:  April 18, 1935
Credit:  NOAA George E. Marsh Album

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/historic/c&gs/theb1365.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dust-storm-Texas-1935.png  

T.H. Watkins wrote "It was the worst of times, a terrible, scarring experience that changed this country and its people forever."

"Consider fear.  Even if they did not lose their jobs or go hungry themselves, even if the terror of want passed over them without touching them, most Americans felt its passage like a cold, unforgettable wind." (3)

I know The Great Depression had a profound effect on my parents.  They were 12 and 19 when it started in 1929 so they lived through it during their formative years.  As I was growing up I realized the depression had made an indelible impression on their lives and the way they viewed the world.  Surviving The Great Depression was a part of who they were.

President Hoover struggled for four years to make a dent in the depression. Unemployment in 1932 stood at more than 24%. (4)  Fear and hopelessness gripped the nation.  So in 1932 the nation voted for a change in leadership and in 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd President of the United States.  He would go on to be the only person ever elected to more than two terms as president.  He would serve until his death in April of 1945, a few months after his inauguration for his 4th term.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933.

Photo Date:  27 December 1933
Author:  Elias Goldensky (1868-1943)
This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3c17121.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FDR_in_1933.jpg   

In President Roosevelt's campaign for the presidency he had promised "a New Deal for the American people". (5)  At his inauguration he gave his famous speech stating his "...firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." (6)  After his inauguration, he moved swiftly.  "During the first 100 days of his presidency, a never-ending stream of bills was passed, to relieve poverty, reduce unemployment, and speed economic recovery." (7)  Some of the most successful New Deal programs were the Civil Conservation Corp (CCC), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) but many more programs were enacted, some more successful than others.  Conditions improved and unemployment went down but still stood at an unacceptable high rate of 17.2% in 1939. (8)  Finally, after massive spending by the government for the war effort in the early 1940s, the depression came to an end.

Other interesting events of the decade included the completion and opening of the Empire State Building in May 1931 in New York City.  At the time it was the tallest building in the world. (9)

Amelia Earhart became famous in 1932 for being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.  Tragically she and her plane vanished over the Pacific in 1937 as she attempted to become the first woman to fly around the world. (10)  (I have read that researchers may have found clues to where she disappeared but no official announcements that I have seen as of this date.)

Amelia Earhart and Lockheed Electra 10E NR16020 c. 1937 

Source:  http://news.uns.purdue.edu/images/earhart.newdocs/earhart.electra.jpeg)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earhart_and_electra.jpeg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart

Also, in this decade, the United States corrected a situation that had existed since it's founding.  The country did not have an official national anthem.  On March 3, 1931, "The Star Spangled Banner" was made the official United States National anthem.  The song came from a poem by Francis Scott Key titled "The Defense of Fort McHenry" written in 1814, during the War of 1812.  At the time of the battle Key's ship was being detained by the British.  He had gone out to attempt to obtain the release of a friend being held by the British.  The British would not release his ship due to their impending attack on Fort McHenry.  Key was forced to witness the British bombardment of Fort McHenry.  On the morning of Sep. 14, 1814, after a bombardment that lasted an agonizing 25 hours with more than 1500 shells fired into the fort, Key saw the flag of the United States still flying proudly over the fort and was inspired to write his poem.  The flag that provided Francis Scott Key's inspiration is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution. (11)

Flag that floated over Fort McHenry in 1814.  The flag has been restored and is now in the Smithsonian Institution.

Date of Photo:  Published 1914
Source:  National Star-Spangled Banner Centennial, Baltimore, Maryland, September 6 to 13, 1914 (1914).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Spangled_Banner_Flag

In June of 1813 Major George Armistead arrived to take command of Fort McHenry.  One of the very first things he did was to order a flag for the fort.  He wanted the flag to be "...so large that the British will have no difficulty in seeing it from a distance." (12)  He ordered the flag to measure 30 feet by 42 feet.  When the British attacked the fort in September of 1814 this was the flag that was seen from a great distance by Francis Scott Key.  Major Armistead and his men held the fort, returning as many rounds of shells as they received.  After 25 hours of bombardment, the flag waved in victory and the British withdrew.  Armistead would be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel for his part in the heroic defense of Fort McHenry, and for the important role this defense played in winning the war. (13)

Yes, the last name of Armistead should be familiar to you.  Colonel Armistead is related to our family, although it is a distant relation.  But more on that topic at a later date.

A modern county map of Concho County showing the location of Harmon and Alice Meixner's "Old Home Place".

When I left off last time I had mentioned granddad bought more land in the year 1928 that would give him 640 acres or one section of land.  This is what made up the "old home place".  You can see the location in the map above.

The year 1928 was important for another reason.  Harmon and Alice raised 7 children and as children seem to do when they get older, they get married and leave home.  In September of 1928 their oldest daughter, Mary Lorena Meixner, married Joe Taylor Skipper.  In December of 1930 their eldest son, William Frank Meixner, married Naomi May Yarbrough.  Next to marry was Alice Alynn Meixner.  She married William Ross Bush in June of 1933.  My dad, Robert Harmon Meixner, left home in the fall of 1932 to go to college.  He went for a couple years then stayed out a few years to make enough money to return.  After he completed college in 1940, he married my mother Margaret Avis Galbreath in August of that same year.

Photograph of the Meixner family taken in the early 1930s:  Robert Harmon, Victor Rudolph, Alice Alynn, Alberta May (Peaches), William Frank, Emma Ruth, Mary Lorena, Alice, and Harmon.

1930 United States Census for Concho County listing the Meixner family.  Mary is the only one missing at the time because she married in 1928.

Source Citation: Year: 1930; Census Place: Precinct 1, Concho, Texas; Roll: 2311; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 1; Image: 416.0; FHL microfilm: 2342045.
Source Information:  Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002.
Original data:  United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930. T626, 2,667 rolls.

I would think that granddad and grandmother felt the labor drain that took place during the 1930s with so many children leaving home.  Of course they had less mouths to feed but they also had less hands to help around the farm.  My guess is that granddad used more hired help to handle all the demanding jobs of farming.

They worked very hard on the farm and a lot of that work went toward raising the food they ate.  As hard as they worked and as large as the family was it must have taken a lot of food to feed the family.  Dad talked about how they got the work day started, "We always had a good breakfast and it was during the breakfast time that we received our instructions for the day's work.  We had almost anything eatable for breakfast some time or the other.  Alternately we had biscuits, flapjacks, corn dodgers, light bread, bacon, eggs, ham, steak, fried beans, oatmeal, cream of wheat, back-bone (out of the hog), spareribs, syrup, butter and bread, and you name it... fried chicken, etc."

"We did not have much horseplay around the table.  Dad always required us to wash our faces and comb our hair before we came to the table.  We did carry on a lot of little pranks like slipping a bean or two into some other person's milk or coffee." (14)  Nice to know kids were still kids even back then when they worked so hard.

Dad listed in his book a few of the things that had to be done on a farm:  "There were dozens of jobs to do on the old farm."  You had to have "...expertise at using the ax, the hoe, milking the cows, feeding the hogs, feeding the horses, handling the horses and cows, plowing, harrowing, building fences, heading maize, pulling corn, riding a horse, building a surface tank, building a cistern."  You also had to be able to "...grub up a tree, to cut a tree down and cut it into stove wood lengths, to head maize, to shock different kinds of feed, to run a broad cast binder, to run a row binder, to sharpen different kinds of tools, to draw water from a well, or cistern and (know) how to treat the water that came off the roof into the cistern, to run a breaking plow and a cultivator, to run a planter, to harness and hook the teams to different implements and to the wagon, buggy or hack.  I learned something about building certain structures like a barn, a house, a chicken coop, a lot fence or corral, how to feed the animals, horses, mules, cows, sheep goats, turkeys, chickens, guineas, and even the dog and cat.  I learned how to butcher a hog, to cure the meat and smoke the meat.  Rendering the lard was generally my job.  I also helped my mother make lye soap.  Frank and I learned how to carry water from the old dug well or the bored well.  We carried water for the whole household for years.  I learned how to fix the wind mill.  It was my job to keep it greased.  We also pulled the pipe from the well to fix the suction rods or put in a new valve.  We patched the harness and the saddles on rainy or real cold days.  We learned how to place the bundles in the stack of hay, to place the bundles of hay on a bundle wagon, to sack oats coming off a spout from the threshing machine at the rate of five thousand bushels of oats per day. We learned how to clean out a dug well, we learned to bull dog a steer or a cow and how to milk a cow.  We learned how to pick cotton, to drive a load of cotton to the gin, we learned to clean a chicken or turkey, to build the fires in the living room heater and in the cook stove.  We learned to do the house work and the cooking.  We learned to dig a post hole and tamp the post in a straight line.  We learned to chop and hoe cotton and other field plants; we learned to sucker the corn and how to top the corn; we learned some of the work that is done in a blacksmith shop, and many other things."  In addition to all that I've mentioned before the fact that they built their own home, barns, fences, surface tanks, windmill, cistern, and made repairs on the house.  They also had a large garden to tend to and they canned the fruits and vegetables that they raised.

Dad concluded by saying, "On the farm we learned by doing.  We did not learn it out of a book, we simply watched the other fellow do it and did likewise.  Father and mother both taught us." (15)

Dad gummit, I feel like such a wimp!!  It is amazing enough to read through this list, which I am certain does not cover everything they did, but to try to imagine actually doing all this work, every day, all day long.  This makes me appreciate my parents even more.

It is hard to imagine the amount of hard work they did back then.  Somehow Harmon and Alice made it through the decade of the 1930s, the time of "The Great Depression".  They had three children still at home by the end of the decade, they had the joy of a grandchild that was born along the way, they paid for land during the hardest times imaginable, and yet they just kept on going, ready to face more challenges.  And of course the challenges would come.  In 1939 war broke out in Europe and the United States was drawn into it with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Next time: the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

References:
(1)  Allen, Frederick Lewis, Only Yesterday, Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, N.Y. 1959, pg. 281.
(2)  http://history1900s.about.com/od/1930s/a/Dust-Bowl.htm
(3)  Watkins, T.H., The Great Depression, America in the 1930s, Blackside, Inc., 1993, pg. 12.
(4)  http://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/statistics.html
(5)  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/dustbowl-new-deal/
(6)  Ibid.
(7)  Ibid.
(8)  http://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/statistics.html
(9)  http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/1930timeline.htm  
(10)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart
(11)  Sheads, Scott Sumpter, Guardian of the Star-Spangled Banner, Lt. Colonel George Armistead and The Fort McHenry Flag, Toomey Press, Baltimore, MD.
(12)  Ibid., pg 33.
(13)  Ibid.
(14)  Meixner, Robert Harmon, Sr., Memoirs of Robert Harmon Meixner, Sr. July 10, 1910 – June 13, 1994.  Unpublished.  Compiled by Margaret Avis Meixner, pg. 22.
(15)  Meixner, Robert Harmon, Sr., Memoirs of Robert Harmon Meixner, Sr. July 10, 1910 – June 13, 1994.  Unpublished.  Compiled by Margaret Avis Meixner, pg. iii - v.

My Visit to The Meixner Family Home Place

                                              More Than An Old House

As I traveled the old gravel road and turned into an opening that led to what was once a parking area, I thought "Kay is not going to be happy with me".  I was driving into tall weeds and new mesquite growth that had thorns.  I was in Kay's car and I didn't want to scratch it.  As I drove through I could hear the scraping sound on the side of the car.  I pulled up in front of the old house and stopped the car.  It was getting on toward evening.  The day was gray and dreary.  A fine mist was in the air, and it was a little windy and cold.  I got out of the car and started walking toward the old house.  Weeds and grass that had grown up over time and unruly shrubs that had not felt the steel of a hedge trimmer in years were obstructing my path.  I pulled open a white picket gate and the picket I had grasped promptly fell off in my hand.  As I approached the house, I wondered to my self, "What can be left in a house, long since abandoned and left to crumble under it's own weight?  Wasps, rats and rattlesnakes most likely but is that all?"

A few weeks prior to the arrival at this old house I had planned a trip to Concho County with some other family members.  One item on the agenda was to visit the old home place where my dad lived when he was growing up.  I had not visited the house in over 50 years.  I wanted to hear what memories my brothers and sister had of our grandparents and of the old home place.  My brother got permission from the current owner to go by and visit the old house.  I thought it would be fun to compare those memories we each had and see how our memories might be different from each other.

Picture of the house located on the old home place.  My dad helped, along with the family, in building the house.  Built around 1920.

Looking at the house now, it looked sad, run down, empty,and robbed of it's previous glory as our grandparent's and my father's home.  As I stepped inside the house I saw many years of built up dirt blown in through many cracks and crevices, and also evidence that maybe some kind of critter used this house from time to time other than the wasps, rats and rattlesnakes.  A piece of carpet rolled up here, ceiling tiles that had fallen in due to a leak over there.  The house had been stripped of furniture and appliances.  The old wood burning stove was long gone.

Interestingly enough, it didn't seem to matter to us that all this stuff was missing.  My two brothers could still envision grandmother Alice standing in front of that old wood burning stove, the room stifling hot, and the stove hotter still.  It was too hot for them to get close to, but grandmother was busy cooking, taking it all in stride like it didn't bother her.  And of course she had done that same thing thousands of times before.

My sister and brothers remembered how granddad could reach into the remnants of a fire and pick up a hot coal with his bare hand.  His skin was so thick from callouses that it did not even burn him.

My sister remembered sitting on the screened in front porch with grandmother.  In her memory the porch was much bigger back then when she was sitting with grandmother.  She said grandmother showed her how to weave a basket and how to make flowers out of pieces of women's old stockings.  They were dyed colors and then they used them to cover wire that they had twisted into petals.  She said they did not get to finish the basket but she still kept it for years.  She said maybe that early experience with grandmother Meixner was why she loves to craft so much today.

My cousin Claudia related several memories to me about our grandparents when I sent her an e-mail and asked her about her memories.  Her memory of grandmother when she was about 3 or 4 was as follows:  "I have one memory of Grandmother Meixner.  We were visiting on the home place and I had an accident in my underwear.  She put a diaper on me made out of a cup towel and washed my clothes and hung them on the fence to dry.  Instead of being embarrassed, I just proceeded to model my new 'outfit' for every one.  I can remember Granddaddy was sitting out on the screened in back porch of the house with all the men talking and mother about had a cow because I was prissing around in my cup towel diaper.  Granddaddy just laughed and laughed that big belly laugh I remember so well."

About granddad, Claudia remembers:  "My favorite memory of Granddaddy is the way he smelled.  He always smelled of tobacco and butter mints.  He kept both in his pocket and the butter mints in his dresser drawer.  Another one is when I was sitting in his lap as about a six year old and he asked me in German if I understood German.  He had a cigarette in his mouth at the time and I said I could understand him better if he would take that cigarette out of his mouth.  He laughed and laughed.  Of course, I had no idea what he was saying to me in German."

Wandering through the four rooms we wondered where everyone slept.  Two parents, 7 children, 4 room house.  After looking around, we exited through a door on the left or south side of the house.  At the corner of the house, just to the right of that door, was the old well or cistern.  That is one of the clear memories I had of the house.  Only it wasn't so clear after all.  I thought it was located in the right front of the house.  As it turns out we each had a different memory of where the old well had been located.  One memory it did bring back though was that looking down into that well always brought a scary feeling to me.  It was deep and dark and dangerous looking.  I probably formed that memory when I was very young.  I don't know why I was afraid of it.  Maybe my older siblings threatened to throw me in.  No, they wouldn't have done a thing like that, would they?  More likely my parents had admonished me not to be climbing on the ole well because they knew that would be very dangerous for me.  Unfortunately we were all so intent on looking at the well that none of us got a picture of it.

Further to the south side of the house was the old garage, the barn and even the out house.  We all had memories of the out house.  Probably not fond memories though.

Photographs of several pieces of equipment that I believe Dad and Granddad used in farming.

A little further away from the house I came across some old farm equipment.  My dad always talked about plowing with horses.  This equipment certainly looked like it was from that era.  I was very excited to see it because I believe it was the equipment Dad, Granddad, and my uncles used in farming.

I could have stayed and looked around for hours.  I loved being on this farm, feeling the presence of my Dad as he worked and played right where I was standing.  He spent nearly 20 years, on and off, living and farming on this place.  He went off to college at 22 but came back periodically to make money so he could return to school.  He continued to do this until he finished and left home for good at the age of 30.  Pulling back from my thoughts of the past and slowly coming back to the present, I realized the light was fading fast and it was getting colder.

My brothers, Jack and Harmon, me, and my sister Oneta.

We all gathered again out in front of the house.  We talked for a while before we hugged and moved toward our vehicles to leave.

Granddad Harmon Meixner standing in front of the Meixner home sometime around 1960.

As I looked back at the old house one last time, something was different.  The tin roof was bright and shiny, the paint glistened white.  A peach tree bloomed on one side of the house, and the yard was neat and green.  Laughing children could be heard from the front porch and the loud commands to an old plow horse were drifting in from the field.  Is that my grandmother I see on the porch waving?

As I had first approached the house I had asked myself "What can be left in a house, long since abandoned and left to crumble under it's own weight?"  The answer is simple:  Memories!  An old house might crumble and fall but the memories remain forever.

Meixner Family History #25 - Epilogue Part 8

                                             Granddad Buys His Own Farm

Finally the "Great War" was over and American soldiers were returning home.  After a year of death, the Spanish Flu Pandemic finally subsided.  People were ready to forget about the past misery and get on with their lives.  Many wanted to return to "normal".  But for many that would not be possible.  Young men that left the farms and factories of the United States had  changed after experiencing the horrors of war and found it hard to assimilate back to where they were when they left.  Back home women had entered the job market to help with the war effort.  In Aug of 1920 the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified and became law.  For the first time women had the right to vote. (1)

"Federal Suffrage Amendment Is Ratified Today headline.". 1920. Newspaper. From the Taunton Daily Gazette, Taunton, MA.

http://mitchellarchives.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/suffrage-amendment-hf.jpg. .(accessed July 31, 2012)

By 1923 the Charleston was all the rage and by 1925 "flapper" dresses were in style as was the "Flapper" way of life.  "Even more than a style the word Flapper came to symbolize the new woman emerging in the decade that is known as 'The Roaring Twenties'."  "...a new woman was born.  She smoked, drank, danced, and voted." (2)  She also cut her long hair that had been the style for years into the new "bob" haircut.  America found that the young men and women did not want to return to the "old normal".

Photograph of the Flappers of the Roaring Twenties.

http://www.1920s-fashion-and-music.com/Flapper-fashion.html

This post war decade of the 1920s or "Roaring Twenties" was a time of change, a time of optimism, and hope as people looked to the future.

A new president was inaugurated in 1921.  Warren G. Harding, the 29th President, was only in office 2 1/2 years when he died suddenly in August of 1923.  Vice President Calvin Coolidge assumed the office of president and served until 1929. (3)

Warren G. Harding, by Harris & Ewing. circa 1920

http://www.old-picture.com/american-legacy/003/President-Harding-Warren.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Warren_G_Harding-Harris_%26_Ewing.jpg

Calvin Coolidge.  1923

Photo by John Garo (1875–1939)
http://historical.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=658&Lot_No=25542&src=pr
This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Calvin_Coolidge-Garo.jpg

In 1927 audiences were amazed as they watched the first talking movie "The Jazz Singer".  That same year Charles Lindbergh thrilled the world with his sensational solo flight across the Atlantic in his airplane "Spirit of St Louis".  The next year, 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered life saving penicillin. (4)

Top Photograph:  Charles Lindbergh, with Spirit of St. Louis in background.  31 May 1927

This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3a23920.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LindberghStLouis.jpg

Bottom Photograph:  Alexander Fleming, who is credited with discovering penicillin in 1928. 

Alexander_Fleming.jpg ‎(512 × 385 pixels, file size: 31 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
Transferred from en.wikibooks; transferred to Commons by User:Adrignola using CommonsHelper.

By 1929 many people across the country were experiencing the prosperity of the 1920s.  Many had gotten "rich" as they watched stocks they owned soar in value on the New York Stock Exchange.  People from all levels of society flocked to buy stocks.  The economy was booming with no end in sight.  By Sep 3, 1929 the Big Bear Market was pushing stock prices ever higher.  The Dow-Jones average reached it's highest point for the year.  Individual stocks had shot up 2,3 or even 4 times higher than what the prices were in March of that same year.  "...on that day (Sep 3) few people imagined that the peak had actually been reached.  The enormous majority fully expected the Big Bull Market to go on and on. " (5)

This 1920 Concho County census record shows the Meixner Family except for Victor, who was not born until 1923.

Source Citation: Year: 1920; Census Place: Justice Precinct 1, Concho, Texas; Roll: T625_1786; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 87; Image: 297.
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).

As the year 1919 was a turning point for the country so it seems that it must have been the same for Harmon Meixner and Family back in Concho county.  A new beginning with optimism for the future.  Some of the fear and trepidation of the previous few years were swept way with the end of the war, end of the drought, and end of the pandemic.  Granddad's optimism is reflected in what my dad wrote:  "In the fall of 1918, Dad rented 160 acres from a man by the name of Kirby (Millard).  He had lived in the community and was a leading citizen of the community.  He was a Sunday School superintendent for a period of time.  Mother and Dad thought that he and his wife were the very best of people.  He also leased, or rented, 160 acres to the south of this particular place.  All of this forms the east side of the old home place."

"My Dad started plowing the land in the fall as usual. (1918)  He had been through a drought with his animals and naturally they were very poor and weak.  He would hook the teams up in the morning and drive them for about fifteen minutes and they would give out.  They would start swaying from one side to the other.  He would stop them and let them rest for a few minutes.  After the horses had rested, they would go a little further.  That was the key to the way he finally got his land put up for planting the following spring.  I know that it took infinite patience.  How he took it, I do not know."

"The following year (1919) it began to rain and we had one of the most seasonable years that I have witnessed in my life.  The cotton got higher than my head.  It produced abundantly.  My Dad got fifty bales of cotton.  It sold for forty to fifty cents per pound.  I remember Dad sending us kids up to head the federita (grain sorghum) and it was some ten feet tall.  We had to bend the stalks in half to cut off the heads.  Some of the watermelons weighed eighty pounds.  The cantaloupe were a foot and a half long.  We picked all of the cotton.  I remember that we were still picking cotton in March when we should have been in school.  Everyone in the family who was strong enough picked cotton.  Dad did all of the hauling of the cotton to the gin in Paint Rock.  The gin was always crowded.  There were times when Dad would have to stay all night to get his cotton ginned.  He brought the cotton seed back home and threw them in a little shed close to the cow-pen.  It made a good place for us kids to play provided we found time for that kind of luxury."

"Dad made real good on this crop and saved enough money to make a sizable payment on this 160 acres, which he bought from Mr. Kirby.  I can remember how proud he and Mother were.  Of course we kids were proud in our way." (6)

The deed, dated 22nd of Nov 1919, shows M.F. and Elsie R. Kerby sold 160 acres to granddad for $3750, to be paid as follows:  $500 cash paid up front, $1250 due on Feb 15, 1920, and 7 payments due annually for $286 each.

  
Deed for 160 acres as recorded in Concho County.  (Copy given to me by Claudia Brown)

1920 Runnels County Census listing the Millard Kerby family.  By 1920 the Kerby family had moved from Concho County north into Runnels County.

Source Citation: Year: 1920; Census Place: Justice Precinct 2, Runnels,Texas; Roll: T625_1841; Page: 3B; Enumeration District: 216; Image: 878.
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).

My dad wrote about the new farm and how the entire family contributed.  "Mary, Frank, and I had our first little plot of land to work when I was nine years of age.  Papa allotted us three acres between us for our part for helping on the farm.  We reaped three bales of cotton off of this three acre patch.  Papa later persuaded us to give him the money that we got out of the three bales of cotton to help build the old home that we lived in for years.  I am sure that it was a very good investment.  The three bales of cotton was valued at about $1500 at the time.  I am glad we did it, voluntarily or not, I would not say."

"We built our own home, barns, fences, surface tanks, windmill, cistern, and (made) repairs on the house.  We cultivated the fields with horse and mule power.  My Dad had a section of land.  We had two-hundred and fifty acres in cultivation and three-hundred and ninety acres in grass land." (7)

To pay for the land and feed the family the Meixners had to have multiple sources of income.  As my dad put it:  "We kept a conglomeration of things all the time.  We raised mules, horses, cattle, at times we kept sheep, hogs, chickens, turkey and guineas.  Mother always had a flock of turkey.  They brought a good amount of money in the fall of the year.  She also kept a hundred or two of laying hens.  We took eggs to town every time that we went for groceries.  They helped to pay the grocery bill.  Sometimes Pa made pretty good on the mohair and sometimes the wool was selling good.  We always managed to have something to sell that would help out.  One of the main things that enabled us to pay the land out was that we did all of our work ourselves." (8)

Photograph of members of the Meixner and Armistead Families in late 1924 above.  The names of individuals in the picture are listed below the picture.
I based the date of the picture on two things.  I know when each of the babies in the photograph were born.  I then estimated their age at the time of the photograph and came up with late 1924.  This picture was given to me by my cousin Willie B (Armistead) Slaughter who is seated by my father in the front row of the photograph.

"We soon paid this little piece of land off and in 1928 Pa decided to purchase the four eighty which composed all of the land in the home place. " (9)  This purchase brought the total acreage to 640 acres or one section of land.  This was all of the original land comprised in the T. & N.O. R.R. Co. Survey No. 151, Abstract No. 903.  The deed shows the sale of the land from John and Maggie West, dated 4th day of September, 1928. The price was $8880 to be paid as follows: "$1500 cash paid up front, and $7380 evidenced by five (5) certain promissory notes of even date... Note 1 being in the sum of $1500 and due on or before four months after date; Note No. 2 being in the sum of $3400 and due on or before six months after date; and Note No. 3, being in the sum of $826.66 and Notes Nos. 4 and 5 each being in the sum of $826.67, said last three notes coming due on or before one, two and three years after date,..."

Deed for 480 acres as recorded in Concho County.  (copy given to me by Claudia Brown)

1920 Concho County Census listing the John West Family.


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).

Granddad must have been feeling somewhat prosperous in September of 1928 to have paid off his 160 acres of land and purchased another 480 acres.  Just the same way that the country as a whole was feeling prosperous in September of 1929.  But then the unthinkable started to happen in September and October of 1929.  Stock prices started to slip on the New York Stock Exchange.  Then they started to slide, then drop, and finally the Stock Market Crashed!  The Great Depression would soon hit the country with a vengeance.

Regarding the land purchase in 1928 my dad wrote that granddad "...bought this land cheap, but hard times set in and we had to pay for it during the great depression.  It was a very tight tussle.  I have never figured out how we finally got it all paid for but we did.  I am sure that it was because my Dad was a good manager." (10)

Next time I'll write a little more about the depression, changes within the family, and the decade of the Thirties.

References:
(1)  http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/1920timeline.htm
(2)  http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/qt/flappers.htm
(3)  http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/1920timeline.htm
(4)  http://history1900s.about.com/od/timelines/tp/1920timeline.htm
(5)  Allen, Federick Lewis, Only Yesterday, Harper & Row, New York, 1931, pg 264.
(6)  Meixner, Robert Harmon, Sr., Memoirs of Robert Harmon Meixner, Sr. July 10, 1910 – June 13, 1994.  Unpublished.  Compiled by Margaret Avis Meixner, pg 162-164.
(7)  Ibid., pg iii, 25, 165.
(8)  Ibid., pg 165.
(9)  Ibid., pg 164.
(10)  Ibid.

Meixner Family History #24 - Epilogue Part 7

                                                         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.  (2)

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."  (6)

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.  (7) (8)

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." (11)

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." (12)

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." (13)

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."  (14)

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."  (15)

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.