Not Quite The Grapes of Wrath!

(Semi-autobiographical with some liberties taken to fill in blanks and name changes)

   I remember my dad telling me his stories of moving to California during the 1930's seeking the American dream. He told me these stories after we watched the 1940 movie "The Grapes of Wrath." Since my dad is gone now, I am trying to relate what he told me.

   John Steinbeck's character, Tom Joad, while somewhat like my dad, was a much more tragic figure. The great novel "The Grapes of Wrath" always touched my heart, because of the stories my dad told me about growing up in Oklahoma during the depression and moving to California, along with many other Okies, Arkies, and Texans, escaping the dreaded Dust Bowl of the 1930's. It also touched me because I grew up not far from the migrant workers' fields in Central California that John Steinbeck wrote about so expressively. In fact, I even picked tomatoes as a kid in some of those fields.

   While, Tom Joad was a more tragic figure, traveling the weary roads of depression era America, my dad made the move twice between Oklahoma and California--not an easy thing to do on the pre-Eisenhower road system.

   My dad, Bill, was a tall, handsome (I think so anyway), slender, brown-haired, brown-eyed man, much like Henry Fonda in the movie. My dad also dressed somewhat like Henry Fonda's Tom Joad character, with overalls, a flannel shirt and a hat. My dad was a farmer, cotton-picker and square-dance caller who lived a hard life.

   My dad was the third born of 11 children in Westville, Oklahoma. His dad, my grandpa Riley, died when my dad was 13. Since he was the oldest boy in the family, my dad had to quit school and tend to the farm, pick cotton and call square dances at night in saloons to earn money to support his mother, my grandma Jane, and his 10 siblings. He worked hard in the fields on the family farm, plowing the fields to plant crops, then he picked cotton at other farms to earn money, and called square dances in saloons at night for a small salary and tips, where it was illegal for him to be there at his age.

   One funny story he told me about calling square-dances was that, because he was underage to be in the saloon, the owner had someone watching out for the sheriff or his deputy. If the sheriff or deputy showed up, they would toss my dad out the window.

   After he supported his mother and siblings for many years, he decided to seek a life and family of his own. His siblings were older and working to help themselves and their mother and didn't need my dad's help as much.

   A big change in my dad's life came when President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal Administration introduced the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), to the country. My dad and his cousin, Millard, jumped at the chance to be in uniform and earn $30.00 a month. 

   The camp they were assigned to was Camp 1808 in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, and my dad and his cousin dug ditches, cleared land and planted trees. The CCC did a lot for improving the land and boosted the personal well-being of several hundred thousand men and their families. My dad joined the CCC in 1933 at age 25 and stayed until 1934/early1935, (I think).

   This is where my mother, Vivian, comes in. She was a sucker for a man in uniform--even though the uniform was basically Khaki's and a black jacket. Vivian was an attractive, reddish-brown haired, athletic teenager, who caught my dad's eye at a square dance. They talked, went on dates and decided to get married in March 1935. She was 18 and my dad was 26--an eight-year difference.

     By the time they married, things had economically and environmentally turned very dim, much like the skies in Oklahoma, due to the gigantic dust storms that even darkened the skies in the East Coast, including Washington DC, near where I currently live.

   In September1935, my oldest sister, Kathryn, was born. My dad used to always say how beautiful she was, with her glorious red hair and green eyes. I think the birth of Kathryn began the change to my family's desire to seek a better life, and was the impetus to the eventual trek to California.

   My dad and his cousin started hearing stories from town folk about the golden opportunities in California and people starting a new life. So in early March, 1936, he told my mom that he was going to California to get a job and would send for her and Kathryn when he got work and had enough money.

   My mom moved in with her parents, waiting for my dad to send for the two of them when he had the money.

   Packing up an old jalopy (possibly an early Model A or T Ford), my dad and his cousin, Millard, headed out in a southwest direction along Route 66 and through Texas and New Mexico, seeking their fortune or, at least, a living. Somewhere in New Mexico, the old jalopy broke down and they had to spend a night in the car until they could get a part to get it fixed. They also had several flat tires and an overheated radiator during their journey to California. Traveling the roads in America during that time was not like traveling the major highways of today. It was a difficult and, at times, a treacherous trip.

   After the mechanical problems and flat tires were fixed, they continued their journey to southern California, ending up at the LeHuce Fields in Imperial Valley. I know from past conversations with my dad that they picked fruit and were worn down from the hard working hours and poor sleeping conditions. My dad and his cousin worked through the steaming hot summer until a fateful day in August, when my dad's brother-in-law, my Uncle Ray, sent him a telegram telling him to "Get your rear-end up here to Westwood. We have lots of work in a lumber mill and need men. STOP!"

   That day changed my dad's and my family's lives forever!

   It was a hot day in August 1936 when my dad and his cousin started driving North on Highway 99, and they could feel their lives changing for the better.

   Both of them got jobs in a lumber mill in Westwood and started earning, what they considered, big money. After a month's hard work, my dad sent a telegram for my mom and Kathryn to, come to California.

“Vivian, bring Kathryn and catch the train to Reno. Money being sent. Will meet you in Reno. Love, Bill. STOP!”

   My Mom, not yet 20 years old, packed what she could and, along with Kathryn, made the two day train ride from Oklahoma to Reno, Nevada, where my dad picked them up. They had been separated for 6 months.

   My dad and mom settled into a small house in McCloud, which was not too far from the lumber mill in Westwood. McCloud became the birth home of my brother, Victor, who was born in November 1937. He had the coloring and looks of my dad, but with real chubby cheeks, according to my mom. She also told me that Victor was a colicky baby, and was a very slow walker and talker.

   After a little over a year-and-a-half of being in California, my Mom was very homesick and convinced my dad to pack up and move back to Oklahoma. This meant loading up my mom, Kathryn, and Victor in the jalopy and heading half-way across the country, back to Westville, Oklahoma, where they stayed with my grandma, Jane, and my dad's mentally disabled brother, Harry.

   Things were rough in Oklahoma!

   My Dad, tried farming, picking cotton and anything he could do to earn money to support the family. While struggling to earn money and support the family my other sister, Jean, was born in July 1939. Jean had the coloring of my Dad and brother. but with lighter, curly brown hair. Based on the pictures of Jean that I remember seeing, she was adorable

   My dad continued struggling to earn money and he was working 10 and 12 hours a day at anything he could do. One day in early 1940, he told my Mom that he couldn't make it there in Oklahoma and wanted to go back to Northern California to start a new life as a lumberman. My mother, while not anxious to move, reluctantly agreed and back the family went to California and settled in McCloud, where I was born in August 1941. I was a redhead, with big ears and a great smile--a happy baby.

   When I was about six and my mom told me about the family moving and the births of my sisters and brother, I told her I didn't want to move anymore because I wanted to be the baby of the family. I still am.

   My Dad got a job running a planer in a lumber mill in Mt. Shasta and started earning a decent living. However, after many struggles with jobs at different lumber mills and moves with relatives to Chico, Visalia, and back to Chico, the family, finally in April 1944, settled permanently in Stockton, California, in the very fertile, San Joaquin Valley. It's where I grew up.

   My dad got a job at the Stockton Box Company running a planer, which he did for the next 37 years before he retired. My Mom, worked as a homemaker until I was 6 and in school, then she got a job working in a factory, where they sorted cedar planks into bundles, which were sent to plants that made pencils. She stayed at that job until after I graduated and left home.

   While, my parents came from humble beginnings, struggling for years to earn money to support the family, they wound up with the California dream of owning a home, having a decent car and raising four pretty good children, who all graduated from high school, which neither my dad or mom were able to do.

   Victor was the only one to graduate from college. My sisters and I got married, again Victor was the odd one out. Kathryn married a man named Bob and they had a daughter, and then divorced. Jean married a wonderful man named Larry, and they had three children. Unfortunately, Larry died of a brain aneurism at age 55. Jean loved him dearly and never re-married.

   I, of course, married the love of my life and we have three sons. She has put up with me for 61 years. 

   I loved my California family and now there is only Jean and myself left to tell the stories of our "Grapes of Wrath" beginnings. Sort of.

 The End