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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781477276969 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 10/23/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 2 MB |
Read an Excerpt
The Summer of 1934
By Wendy Varble
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Wendy VarbleAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-7698-3
Chapter One
Life on the Farm, Part 1
In the spring of 1934 the country was still in the grip of the dark days of the Great Depression. Johnny was six years old. One of his responsibilities every morning was to go out to the woodshed to collect enough kindling and wood for the wood stove so his mother, Emma, could prepare breakfast. Even at that young age he knew how to light the stove—assembling the kindling and wood and putting the lit match to a scrap of paper—newspaper, if available. During those years even buying a newspaper was a luxury.
Johnny's father, Truman, was a tenant farmer. He did not own the land that he farmed and he did not own the house where the small family lived. The house had never been painted and was situated in a canyon surrounded by oak and sycamore trees. The farmhouse had electricity but no indoor plumbing. There was an outhouse about 30 yards behind the house and a water well with a hand pump 20 yards from the front porch. About a quarter-mile north from the house was a dry creek bed. During torrential rains this dry creek became a raging river—at times spilling over and nearly flooding the house. The nearest neighbors, tenant farmers Miguel and Vera Ruiz, lived about a mile to the west.
Johnny loved living on the farm. It was paradise for a young boy. He could explore the canyon and all its wonders; wildlife of every description shared this canyon. He would frequently see bobcats, foxes, raccoons, opossum and mule deer as well as many species of birds. His favorites were the beautiful bright-yellow and black orioles that would make their nests every spring in the oak tree near the farmhouse. Jackrabbits and cottontail rabbits were also in abundance. It was eerily quiet at night, with nothing to be heard other than the howl of coyotes and the hooting of owls.
By 1934, Truman and Emma had three children. Johnny at age six was the middle child; his sister, Lorraine, was nine and little June only three. In the early morning, before breakfast and after lighting the wood stove, young Johnny would go out beyond the house to get the milk cow, having led her out the evening before to graze. He would find a nice grassy spot, attach a long rope to the cow's halter, drive a stake into the ground, and secure the rope to the stake to prevent the cow from wandering off during the night. In the morning Johnny would lead the cow back to the barn, tie her to a post, get his small stool and a bucket and milk the cow. When he was finished he would lug the heavy milk-filled pail back to the house. His mother would skim the cream off the top (to be used later for making butter), and they would have the milk with breakfast. Truman never drank the milk.
After breakfast Johnny and Lorraine would take turns pumping the hand lever of the water well and then carry buckets of water into the kitchen so their mother could wash the dishes. Each bedroom had a wash basin and pitcher. There was a tin bath tub kept out on the back porch. Truman would move the tub into the kitchen for bathing. Emma would heat large pots of water on the wood stove to fill the tub. She would assemble the kitchen chairs around the tub and then hang bed sheets on the chairs for privacy. Emma had a wringer clothes-washing machine, which was also kept out on the back porch. Since the farmhouse had no plumbing, the wash tub had to be filled by hand using pots of hot water. She would put the clothes through the hand-crank wringer and hang them outside on the clothesline to dry.
Chapter Two
Life on the Farm, Part 2
In mid-May of 1934, Johnny and Lorraine were carrying a bucket of water across the yard to the house. Suddenly the water began to slosh out of the bucket. Lorraine became annoyed and said, "Stop wobbling. You're spilling the water." Then they heard a low rumbling sound and felt the ground lurch violently. They put the bucket down, looked at each other and said, "Earthquake!"
The ground had stopped shaking by the time they reached the house. They couldn't find their mother anywhere. Then they heard her—she was in the basement. It was a mess. The dirt floor was littered with the jars of vegetables from the previous summers' canning. Most of the jars were intact but the lids had popped off of some of them—the contents leaking out and the liquid soaking into the dirt floor. They had to inspect each jar for any damage and check them to make sure the lids were still on tight, and then return the jars to the wooden shelves.
Johnny idolized his father and spent nearly every day with him. When Truman worked in the fields plowing or planting the barley or seed oats, Johnny would be with him all day long on the tractor, choking on dust but happy to be with his father. If they were near the house they would have lunch there with Emma and the girls. Otherwise his mother would pack sandwiches for them and they would eat on the ground in the shade of the tractor.
Johnny had not yet attended school. The Simi Valley elementary school did not have a kindergarten, so the local children started with the first grade. He looked forward to attending school with great anticipation, but knew that he would miss going out into the fields with his father every day.
Johnny was tall for his age—slim with long legs. He had chestnut hair and bright blue eyes like his father. He was impatient and wanted to grow faster. He longed to be big enough to be able to really work. It pained him to watch as his father loaded the 100-pound sacks of seed oats or barley seed into the truck in San Fernando and then, back at the farm in the valley, unload them alone. Johnny felt so helpless and small.
In the evenings after supper Emma and Lorraine would listen to the radio. Emma enjoyed listening to The Burns and Allen Show and Jack Benny. Sometimes Johnny would listen as well, especially if the show was the new 1934 program, The Lone Ranger. He also liked to listen to Dick Tracy. Most evenings however, Johnny sat next to Truman while he read. Truman was never without a book. The tiny town of Santa Susana had a small library that had been built in the late 1920s. He would also visit the library in San Fernando, which could only be reached by traveling east through the Santa Susana Mountains on a dangerous, winding, and steep pass road.
Johnny would never ask his father to read to him. Truman, however, realizing his son's interest, began reading aloud to him. These were not children's books. On the contrary, Johnny, at the age of six, listened with interest to books such as: Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises, E.M. Forster's A Passage to India, and Pearl Buck's The Good Earth.
Chapter Three
The Simi Valley
The Simi Valley is approximately nine miles long and six miles wide. In the 1930s the valley floor was devoted almost exclusively to farming, mainly barley and oats; however, beans, sugar beets, carrots and tomatoes were also cultivated. Near the southwestern portion of the valley there were increasingly more fruit orchards being planted—walnuts, figs, apricots and many varieties of citrus trees.
The valley floor is surrounded by hills, gently sloping at first and then becoming increasingly steep as one travels in almost any direction. The Santa Susana Mountains are on the north and east sides of the valley, with the Simi hills encompassing the valley from the south to the west. Some grain was farmed on the gentle slopes, but the hills were mainly cattle ranches. While standing in the valley you could look up into the hills in any direction and see thousands of cattle grazing on the rolling hillsides.
There were two small towns in the valley—the tiny town of Simi, and the slightly larger town of Santa Susana. "Santa Sue," as it was called then, was fairly typical of a small town in the 1930s. It proudly consisted of a grocery store, drug store, a gas station, elementary school, hardware store, train station, post office, library and of course, Hinkle's Saloon.
Its most elaborate building was the Methodist church, which seemed out of place in the tiny town. While most of the buildings were wood-frame construction, the church was a massive two story Greco-Roman structure with a huge basement. It had been constructed out of concrete blocks in 1924. The church had a dozen wide steps leading up to the front door, and there were two large concrete pillars on either side. The only other church in the valley at the time was the Catholic Church. It was a very small wooden building, but it boasted a tall steeple and had stained glass windows. In 1934 there were only a few Catholic families in the valley, and all the Mexican residents attended the Catholic Church. There were several Baptist families in the valley at the time—immigrants from the southern states. Since there was no Baptist church they usually attended Sunday services at the Methodist church. The Baptists were used to the "fire and brimstone" sermons of the Baptist preachers, and the sedate sermons of the Methodist ministers were puzzling and dull to them.
There had been a "Hobo" camp under the railroad trestle for many decades and there had always been men passing through the valley looking for seasonal work. But in the spring of 1934 the farmers and ranchers of the Simi Valley began to notice a change. The numbers of men looking for employment were increasing dramatically. As the freight trains passed slowly through the small valley, sometimes a dozen men at a time would hop off, carrying nothing except their meager belongings in their "bindle sacks." These men were desperately seeking work of any kind. They were from the states of the Great Plains gravely affected by the "Dust Bowl"; Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas.
In 1932 there were 14 dust storms in Oklahoma, increasing to 38 in 1933, and by 1934 there had been a total of 52. These storms literally blew away the topsoil leaving the land worthless for growing crops. The phenomenon was caused by severe drought and decades of extensive farming without crop rotation. At times the dust clouds blackened the sky, reaching all the way to the East Coast. Much of the topsoil ended up in the Atlantic Ocean. These huge dust storms were given names such as "black blizzards," or "black rollers," and often reduced visibility to a few feet. The Dust Bowl affected over 1,000,000 acres centered in the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas. Some residents of the plains, especially Oklahoma and Kansas, became ill and died of dust pneumonia and malnutrition. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes.
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history. Families were forced to pack up old jalopies with as many personal belongings as they could, and head west to search for work. Because so many came from Oklahoma, they came to be known collectively as the "Okies." By 1940 over 2 million people had moved out of the plains states; of those, 200,000 migrated to California. To their dismay, they found that economic conditions in California were little better than those they had left behind. Many became migrant workers, traveling from farm to farm, picking fruit and other crops in all the western states, often at starvation wages.
Many times a few of these men would show up at the Varble house, and would talk to Truman. He had no advice for them; there was little work to be found in the small valley. If she had it to spare, Emma would give the men a cold biscuit or a piece of cornbread. Johnny would stand at his father's side and listen—intrigued by the southern accents and fascinated by the heartbreaking stories of farms ruined and families left behind.
Chapter Four
The Okies
Johnny loved the family car, a 1923 Ford Model T. Whenever he went into town with his mother he would start it for her; the crank only required about one-half a turn and it would usually start. On the rare occasions when the "Tin Lizzy" wouldn't start, Johnny would help Truman repair it, and was so familiar with its motor that he felt he could take it apart and re-assemble it by himself. Johnny and Lorraine would often drive the car around the farm; Lorraine would sit in the driver's seat, with Johnny sitting on the floor working the pedals.
One day in early June Johnny started the car and went to town with his mother. Johnny noticed an old Ford truck heading west on Los Angeles Avenue—the main road through the valley. The truck was loaded with dilapidated furniture. A gaunt looking man of about thirty-five was driving the truck, a woman of approximately the same age sat next to him, and next to her was a girl of about sixteen. In the back of the truck, perched on various articles of furniture, were two younger children wearing ragged clothes, both of whom were very thin, hollow-eyed, and dirty. Johnny noticed the license plate as the truck slowly passed ... Oklahoma.
Johnny knew that his was a family of poor farmers, but the sight of these desperate people made him feel very fortunate indeed. The truck stopped in front of the Alvarez grocery store where Johnny's mother had been shopping. The man and woman got out of the truck, leaving the three children behind. They inquired in the store as to any work in the area. The woman looked longingly around the small shop, but they left without buying anything.
Emma always purchased what she needed at the store on credit, paying whatever they could afford once a month on the bill. On this summer day, Emma also noticed the family in the truck. Emma had finished with her shopping, and she and Johnny were loading the groceries into the Model T. Emma told Johnny to wait, saying that she had forgotten something, and she went back into the store. When she came out Johnny noticed that she had a five pound bag of cornmeal. He was curious, because he knew that she had already purchased cornmeal. Emma handed him the bag and told him to take it down the street to where the family in the old truck had parked under a large eucalyptus tree. She said to give the bag to the woman in the truck.
As Johnny approached the old truck he noticed that the thin man was standing along the road talking to Mr. Hartman. Johnny was well acquainted with Mr. Hartman. He was kindly and generous. He and his wife owned a farm in the valley and had walnut, apricot and citrus orchards.
Johnny heard Mr. Hartman suggest to the man that he might return during the walnut harvest in the fall. He could possibly find work then, either harvesting the nuts, or in the walnut processing house, where the nuts were hulled and cleaned, put into large burlap bags and then stacked and loaded onto trucks for shipment. Johnny approached the side of the truck and tapped on the window. The woman opened the door and he handed her the bag of cornmeal.
Johnny then looked toward the young girl seated in the truck. She was staring at him in a way that made him feel self-conscious and he could feel his cheeks start to burn. She was slim and pale, and was wearing a faded blue dress. Her hair was long and blonde; and her large eyes were a shimmering shade of pale green. Johnny just stood there not knowing what to say. Then without warning or saying a word, she held out her hand and placed it on his cheek. He wanted to run away, but the hand on his cheek felt nice and he just stared back at the lovely emerald eyes. The girl was beautiful and he imagined that angels must look like this.
His mother's voice broke the spell, and he ran back to the car. For the rest of that day, he thought of the girl with the bright green eyes.
Chapter Five
Dryland Farming
The conversation in the Varble household frequently revolved around the weather. It was the most important aspect of their lives and droughts were common. Without enough rain there would be no crop and very little income. If the rain came too late in the spring it would beat down the tall stalks of barley, making it impossible to harvest.
The huge fields of barley were a wondrous sight, like huge amber colored oceans glistening in the sun, the breeze causing a gentle ripple of golden waves. On a good year the barley was waist high to Truman. Johnny would walk along the fields and could barely see over the tops of the beards. It had a sweet earthy scent, like freshly baked bread.
Harvesting the barley had to be timed just right. The farmers checked it daily starting in the late spring. Once it had attained its golden color, they checked the heads, or grain, to be sure they were plump with the valuable seeds. Once the barley "headed out" with the ripe seeds, it was time to harvest. This had to be done quickly; if the barley became too ripe, the heads would pop open, and even a slight breeze would scatter the seeds to the wind. Some years, if the weather turned hot, the barley was ready late in May; other times, it might not be ready for harvesting until July.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Summer of 1934 by Wendy Varble Copyright © 2012 by Wendy Varble. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements....................xiPreface....................xiii
Prelude....................xv
Chapter I Life on the Farm, Part....................11
Chapter II Life on the Farm, Part....................25
Chapter III The Simi Valley....................9
Chapter IV The Okies....................15
Chapter V Dryland Farming....................19
Chapter VI Growing Pains....................23
Chapter VII Diversions....................25
Chapter VIII Drilling Rigs....................29
Chapter IX Belle....................37
Chapter X Andy....................43
Chapter XI The Hunt....................59
Chapter XII Eggs....................73
Chapter XIII Pioneer Days....................77
Chapter XIV Aftermath....................83
Chapter XV Darla....................89
Chapter XVI The Fever....................99
Chapter XVII Revelations....................103
About the Author....................111