Do you Lewis? Do you Dorothy? September 1, 1935

  

Seventy-six years ago, September 1, 1935 on a quiet Sunday evening in Amarillo, Texas, Dorothy Alice Beeman donned her new “three piece suit of London fog blue with grey lapin trim and grey accessories,” pinned on her lilies of the valley corsage. She took a deep breath and her father’s arm. They stepped into the living room of 2102 Fillmore where Lewis Nordyke, her college sweetheart, stood waiting along side her uncle Will Buchanan. Uncle Will, a Baptist minister, said the words, they made their vows and turned toon the world—husband and wife.

            The newspaper account reports that the young couple promptly headed for Dallas where Lewis worked for the Associated Press. That’s almost right. They didn’t head straight for Dallas. They headed straight for the Herring Hotel in downtown Amarillo. Probably not posh by today’s standard, but the poshest thing in Amarillo in 1935. Once there, Lewis excused himself to go downstairs for a Lucky while she changed.

            Years later she told her daughters how she put on her new white ‘nightie,’ hopped into bed and pulled the covers tight under her chin and waited, not quite sure, she told them what would happen next. (I questioned that then, and, having read some of the love letters, question that still.)

            She waited, and she waited, and then she waited some more. It was a good thing she’d packed a book in with the nightie, because she waited for over an hour. Turned out, Lewis had “bumped into some old boy, and they got to talking. He forgot all about coming back upstairs to me,” she told the girls.

            The younger daughter wondered how mad she got. She didn’t get mad, she explained, “That’s what it’s like to be married to a newspaper man.” 

Dottie

Lewis

In the garden, a home wedding

“Let’s get married at home,” Lewis dreamily wrote to Dottie sometime in 1934. Already he was planning. And they did. I grew up on stories of that home wedding in Amarillo.

            When time for my wedding came, both of them urged me to have a home wedding. “It’s our family’s tradition.” No problem for me. I loved those stories, and I loved our house.

            Dottie and Lewis spend that hot Amarillo summer working hard and successfully to convert the ‘backyard’ to a 'garden.' Just the day before the big day, Lewis and a friend borrowed a ladder and pulled the two swings and trapeze down from our Godzilla-proof swing set. (Dottie had friends who’s kids had over ended there Sears-variety swing set. No way, so she commissioned a three-or-so inch pipe frame and set it in concrete. Like I said, no way Nan and Trilla would go over.) As soon as the swings came down, the fellows from Freeman’s Flowers started decking the frame with ivy and mums. Instant alter.

            On the morning of August 30, 1958, Lewis came down the stairs of the home he and Dottie adored with his eighteen-year-old daughter, Trilla. Another home wedding for the Nordyke family.

Read more about this happy day at

http://trillap.blogspot.com/2011/08/once-upon-time.html, and watch here for more about Lewis and Dottie’s wedding right here on September 1, their big day.

Where have I been?

Here I have these fascinating letters, this chunk of history, and where have I been?

            Away from this blog, that’s for sure. Here’s some mental meandering about why I don’t seem to be doing much with my treasure. I can look at it from at least a couple of perspectives. First there’s the daughter, second there’s the amateur historian who was once a professional economist. These two have far different concerns, but both find them worthy of thought before moving on. (There’s the third a teacher/disciplinarian who drones “your paper is late! Get with it.”)

            First the daughter—it’s strange and disconcerting meeting this youngish man. I’ve stopped thinking of him as my dad. Now I call him Lewis even, occasionally, Lewie. I worry about him. He’s so concerned about those debts, will he get a better job, and will he ever, ever get a book published? I want to pour him another cup of coffee and tell him not to worry, everything will be okay. I read a letter dated on my birthday, but several years before I make the scene. “Boy, are you going to be surprised!” Then I catch my breath, he tells Dottie how they’ll grow old together, watch their grandchildren, read books. I’d never tell him that this wasn’t in the cards. He’d meet only one of his five grandchildren, and that one he had but six months. Not what you need to go through life knowing. I feel like the old gypsy lady with a crystal ball—I see all, but what would I tell?

            I remember a busy Daddy, sometimes brusque and a little temperamental. (Watch out when that fair face turns red!) Is he this tentative, gentle fellow writing the letters? I do recognize this—he always was a hard worker, too hard almost. When I was a little girl, we couldn’t make noise after supper—the minute the dishes came off the dining room table, the little red Royal typewriter went down and Daddy started “pecking out a story.” Most nights I went to sleep to that clicking lullaby.

            The young man I’m growing to love was just as hard a worker. He spent the day not only as editor of the paper, but reporter, and sometimes ad salesman. He managed to write to Dottie almost everyday two or three single-spaced pages, not all mushy love—there is some of course, as a daughter I can’t decide if I should avert my eyes or clap my hands—but comments on his town, his times, the new government (New Deal), and his ambitions, oh his ambitions. His resolution was to submit news releases (he was paid by the word) to the Associated Press, the Dallas Morning News, or the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram every single day. The money helped with what seemed staggering debts and gave him a little extra. That where the red Royal came from. It also gave him a name and a reputation with the big boys. He had a novel in and out, in and out, publisher after publisher, to no avail. (I hope it’s in my attic.) He spilled over with ideas for short stories. What energy, but what joy in doing what he loved and had dreamed of as a lad.

            So there are a few of my daughter feelings. They are brimming over. And what to do? As a minimum, get this together so the five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren have a legacy from Lewis and from Dottie. But I think there is more. What I’m pondering is what is that more?

           

An additional thought: besides the daughter, the historian, and the mean disciplinarian, there’s a fourth—the fiction writer. I’ve promised my writing group that I’ll make a stab at turning the first letter in to an ‘on the road’ short story. I’ll post some of my efforts here.

Off to work he goes

Lewis went right to work. The folks back home in Cottonwood had to make do without the family car for a few days, because the new boss, Rufus Higgs, not only made the offer late in the afternoon, but he told Lewis that he needed to go to work—right that minute.

Today, it's the home of an art gallery;
in  1933, and for many years after, it was
home to the Empire-Tribune, where on
Tuesday, June 13, Lewis rolled up his
sleeves and went to work.

Not a problem for Lewis. He rolled up his sleeves and got started. He did, no surprise, find a few minutes to type a quick note to Dottie—ever on his mind.

            I went to work this afternoon, editing copy and writing heads. Gee, my vacation is going to be rather short. A more accurate way to say it is that my vacation consisted of three days hitch-hiking from Missouri and a day and a half at home, for my job has already started. How’s that for moving into action?

  

He goes on to tell her how the job makes him a correspondent for the Associated Press, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Dallas News. This was great. It would mean exposure in the state-wide press—important, because he knew from the get-go that this job was only for the year Higgs was president of the press association—and because this paid extra by the word. Not much, a cent or sometimes half a cent, but those cents add up to dollars for a man who wrote, wrote, wrote and wrote. (That’s what Lewis did.)

The Erath County, Texas Courthouse

His quick message sounded a note of triumph—

Sent you a couple of our papers this afternoon.

But almost 80 years after he wrote it, his last paragraph makes me pause:

Dottie, all this I’m telling you is, of course, just between the two of us. I’d not think of telling any other person so much of my business. I think you understand.

I’m sure she did. But what about that trust and intention now? Dottie didn’t destroy the letters, and like the letters, I began “just between the two of them.” It seems to me I have a right to read them, but am I betraying their trust when I share. Or am I preserving history?

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten,” wrote Rudyard Kipling. Lewis’s letters capture not only a young love but America entering the New Deal, the world of FDR, the sad world of the Great Depression all in a little town on the edge of west Texas. His details are graphic and excruciating—the need to be known. I think the two journalists understand.

The Envelope--Please

A mighty good letter.

Dottie knew before she opened the letter. Had to. Had to know the instant she pulled the long-awaited (really it had only been a couple of days, but it had to have felt like forever) envelope from the mail box at 2102 Fillmore in Amarillo. The return address told it all—

Stephenville Empire-Tribune. He had the job.

Her glance down at the address confirmed it. Typed! Oh, joy! Another writer’s dream come true. No more long handwritten letters or manuscripts, it might be borrowed, but he had a typewriter.

            Lewis cut right to the chase:

“I got the job. I know nothing about the amount and type of work yet, but Mr. Higgs just told me he wants me.”

Lewis didn’t have to think about it. The answer was “yes.”  Was he excited? “Guess I should have waited until after five to write you so I could have given you the details. But you know how I am about such things.”
            Later on the same day, he got the details. He couldn’t wait; he wrote another letter. For the next year, while his boss travelled the state as head of the Press Association, Lewis would just about single-handedly put out the paper—writing, editing, proofreading, sometimes hawking ads and selling office supplies over the counter. No he didn’t run a linotype or the press (wished he could), but he did sometimes spend the night at the Higgs house since Mrs. Higgs was afraid of being alone at night and serving as the boss’s driver on long trips. For this, he would get $15 a week with a vague promise of a raise if things ‘worked out.’ Loosely translated, that’s about $15, 000 a year in today’s dollars. Doesn’t sound like much, but in 1933 it sounded mighty good. And plenty of fellows were ready and willing.  When he offered the job, Mr. Higgs told him “. . . about thirty-five men had been after the job but that he’d been holding it for me.”

Lean times, low wages indeed, but Lewis was mighty happy, He had a job, a job, less than a week after he marched across the stage in Columbia, Missouri. A job in journalism where he would write for a living and maybe sell some pieces on the side to the Associated Press and the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. He had a job and he was one step closer to making his dreams come true. One step closer to being with Dottie.

"I got the job."

A mighty good day and a mighty good letter, indeed.

           

  

Waiting and Worrying

The Nordyke farm lay between
Admiral and Cottonwood, south
and east of Baird. It's the beginning
of the Texas hill country.

I’ve abandoned Lewis’s story for the last several entries. Let’s get back to that tired young man who is standing on a Central/West Texas farm about 130 west of Ft. Worth, not quite to Abilene. He’s standing there wondering, not knowing whether to be hopeful or scared.

            He’s got a brand-new, less than a week old, degree in journalism from the University of Missouri; he’s exhausted because he’s hitchhiked across Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas to get home; he’s in love with a girl hundreds of miles away; and, looming over all of this, he doesn’t have a job.

            Sounds like lots of new college graduates, except for the hitchhiking maybe, but wait, consider the times. It is hard times. Harder than 2010, harder than 2011, the heart of the hardest time this country has experienced. Franklin Roosevelt’s “First Hundred Days” are winding down, the country has hopes that the New Deal will mean a good deal, but meanwhile hungry people roam the streets, almost of quarter of the work force is unemployed, not just laborers and factory workers, but people across the spectrum, teachers, and doctors, business owners who have gone bust, sales clerks, college professors—and journalists.

            It’s been Lewis’s dream since childhood to write, that’s why he’s made the sacrifices, hard ones like a car and a good job, to get the journalism degree. And now? Where will he end up? Helping his dad on the farm, being a cowboy again, maybe teaching school like his sister Alda (who by the way gave up her studies at Texas Tech to help her younger brother pursue his dream) in Cross Plains or Baird? He could barely bear the thought, but the thought wouldn’t go away.

            A couple of rays of hope shine for him. One barely gleaming; he’s sent a novel to a New York publisher—maybe just maybe, but when will he know? The other gleams brighter. He’ll know tomorrow. When Lewis had worked in Stephenville after finishing John Tarleton’s two year program, he’d gone to work for the college, but he’d also done some work for the Empire-Tribune, the local weekly newspaper. Now he has a letter in his pocket from the publisher and editor, Rufus Higgs. Higgs is about to become president of the Texas Press Association. He’ll be travelling too much to get the paper out. He needs a man (always a man in 1933) to keep things going for a year. After that . . . who knows? And maybe, just maybe Lewis is that man. They need to talk.

          The next morning, Lewis will take his Dad’s car, head west to Stephenville, and see what happens.

            Lewis isn’t the only one worrying. He’s poured his fears and anxiety out in that first letter to Dottie:

“Dottie, I am anxious about the job in Stephenville . . . I’m going to Stephenville tomorrow. I’ll let you know what comes of the trip. I fell, tho, as if I’ve nearly got to get the job. I just don’t know what I’ll do if something knocks me out of getting that place. Guess I’ll make it somehow tho’.”  

One sleepless night ahead for Lewis, and a couple for Dottie who will have to wait for his Tuesday letter to know what happens to Lewis . . . and maybe to her.

An aside: A book that puts a human face on the Great Depression is "A Secret Gift" by Ted Gup. It tells of Canton, Ohio families hit hard by hard times. Their stories repeated across the country. I'll post a review here.

Fiddlin' Around A Father's Day Tribute

In honor of Father’s Day, here’s a tribute to a fine, fiddling, farming Texas Dad—my grandfather, Charles T. Nordyke, husband of Narrie (see my entry about Narrie on May  , Mother’s Day), and father of my dad, Lewis T. Nordyke. This entry is at both www.trillap.blogspot.com and www.touchthepast.blogspot.com. I don’t overlap often, but today, I do.

Fiddlin’ around

All of his life Charlie was fiddlin' for friend, family
and party-line pals.

Charlie couldn’t remember when he didn’t have a fiddle in his hand. Everyone in his family did, or a guitar, or banjo, maybe a mandolin. About the proudest day of his life was when he was 12. He got his own violin. No more borrowing or waiting his turn. His own violin! It was beat up and old when he got it but he treasured it and played for the next 75 years, but not every day, he’d promised his mother he’d never play on Sunday until he was 80. (I remember many joyous Sunday evenings listening to “Turkey in the Straw, “The Soldier’s Joy,” and, of course, “Listen to the Mockingbird” after that awaited birthday.) The violin was always Charlie’s proudest possession.

            Born in Missouri, Charlie and his family followed the bumper sticker dictum and got to Texas just as fast as they could. When he was only four, he rode a gray mare tied behind his family’s wagon as the wagon train wound its way to Texas. Once there Charlie’s branch of the family bid good bye to friends and some family in Callahan County and headed south to Limestone County, where Charlie grew up, hating farming and loving his fiddle.

Narrie and Charlie Nordyke
married December 24, 1899

            When he was a young man he determined to live by the fiddle and not the plow. He headed to Ft. Worth where he ended up in the red-light district. He could handle that, but not the requirement that he work on Sunday. He headed back to Limestone County. But he didn’t give up his quest. He decided to set off fo Alaska and the Klondike, but first a trip to Callahan to say good-bye to the Nordyke kin. That changed everything.

One of those dratted mules.

            Young Nancy Narcissus Coffey (Narrie) flat stole his heart. There went the Klondike, here came the wedding bells. On December 24, 1899 Charlie and Narrie married. For the next 50 years Charlie farmed by day, cussin’ mules, hauling cotton, hating it, but in the evenings—ah! Out came the fiddle, here came the neighbors. Right through seven children, Haley’s Comet, two world wars, the great depression, Charlie fiddled, thumped his foot and was happy.

            So were the neighbors who came from all over for their fiddle fix. Lewis, his middle child and my dad, speculated that the Nordyke family may have set up the country’s first network when they figured out that if Charlie fiddled into the telephone, all their party-line friends could join in.

The family gathered, probably for Narrie's sixtieth birthday
in April, 1934. Standing behind their parents
Alda, Clarence, Bessie, Lewis, Elsie, Noel, and Peaches. The
live-giving windmill towers over them.

       

 Lewis didn't grow up to be a fiddler; he grew up to be a writer, and, in 1960, he wrote a piece about his fiddlin’ father for the Saturday Evening Post.  You can read about it and download the article athttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2010/07/29/archives/retrospective/power-music-fiddler-hope-alive-1920s-texas.html. Perfect reading for Father’s Day afternoon 

Here’s to Charlie, Lewis and all the great dads celebrating their day.

Wearing the Mortar Boards

Taite Pando, Albemarle High, 2011

 We’re home from an excellent weekend, but one that also evoked lots of memories of Lewis. Yes, he wore a motar board and proudly marched--only he was over twenty-one and grown man. Now how did that happen. I tell the tale a little further on.
 First, here's what evoke that bittersweet memory. We, along with our 10 year-old-grandson, hopped on a plane last Thursday morning headed for Charlottesville, Virginia and grandson Taite’s graduation from Albemarle High. It’s the third Albemarle graduation we’ve hit in the last four years, so we’re getting good at it! And it’s the last one until Hunter marches in about seven years.

Chef Forrest Pando and
some really fresh eggs.
What a breakfast!

Happy chickens and happy rooster of
Rooster Hill Inn near
Crozet, Virginia

            Great fun. The 3 Virginia guys' dad (son Patrick) was in from London; their Aunt Katy came from Atlanta. We took over the Rooster Inn B&B and had a real reunion.

(Rooster Inn is great. We could gather our own eggs, and if we didn’t, the owners delivered some every evening. I could get used to this.)

The Pandos in Virginia
Patrick, Trilla, Hunter, Bob, Forrest--in front
Taite, Katy, Jack--in back

            In the midst of all of the fun, I had some serious and wishful thoughts. I wished Lewis were there to see all the pomp and circumstance.  ‘Course he’d be proud. What great grandpa wouldn’t? But there’s more.

What was Lewis doing being 28 or 29 and newly out of college? (His age always was a sore point.) Soon, I’m going to offer some background on Lewis and his family, but here’s a nutshell on high school in honor of Taite and in honor of Lewis.

            From his earliest memory, Lewis used to tell me, he dreamed of being a writer. But it didn’t happen. He finished eighth grade at the little Turkey Creek one-room school, and that was that. No more school for two reasons. First, the high school in the county seat Baird might as well have been on the other side of the world. It was too far for a daily horseback commute. A student had to board or have relatives in town. The family had no money for boarding and no kinfolks in town. Second, the family needed money. The family needed Lewis to work and bring in some cash while they waited for the crop. So the fourteen-year-old lad saddled up his best friend, Peggy Joyce (more about her later) and went to work as a cowboy at the Cross Bar Ranch.

            Lewis may have roped and galloped rounding up dogies all day, but while he was doing it he dreamed about writing and he dreamed about owning a car. He got to keep some of his wages and he tucked those dollars back until he could buy two things: a Model A Ford and a suit of dress clothes. Cowboy by day, dude in the evening, and at night, he wrote. And wrote. And wrote.

            As he gained confidence, he even began to send some of his pieces off. One day, the mailman brought a letter—not a returned manuscript—a letter. He’d written a story about a truck driver named ‘Lew’ and his adventures on the road, and then he’d waited, and waited and waited. He didn’t open the letter in front of the family; instead, he took it up to the top of ‘Big Hill’ to his favorite tree and sat down and ripped it open. A check for $10 slid out. $10! But there was a letter telling him that while they liked his story very much, for them to publish more he would need to improve his grammar and, by the way, they preferred submissions to be typewritten.

            The cold facts washed over him. He might be twenty-one, way too old, but he was going to have to finish high school and go to college. No option because there was no choice in his life: he was going to be a writer.

            In short order (Ouch!) he sold the car, put Peggy Joyce in his father’s care and headed to Stephenville where John Tarleton (now Tarleton A&M) served as a four-year school. For rural youth like Lewis, two years of high school, and then the first two years of college. Were the students mostly fresh off the farm? You decide. The football team was the ‘Plowboys.’ Today, they are the Texans.

            Good student Lewis knocked off the high school classes in a year. He enrolled in the college classes, wrote a column for the student newspaper and began to follow his star.

No wonder our family loves the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance"!

Sudden memories

Grandmother and Grandfather Nordyke on
the farm in Callahan County, Texas. The
grey Chevy is parked in front under the
cottonwood tree.

Have you ever been reading a book and suddenly swept up by it, you land right in the middle of your own memories? That’s what happened when I read the first chapter of The Sound of Windmills by Jackie Woolley. She so described life on a hard scrabble Texas farm in the 1940s that all of a sudden I was back in the grey Chevy going to visit my grandparents on that on-the-edge farm where my Lewis grew up.

Here’s the review I wrote of this book for Story Circle Book Reviews. ( You can read my review at http://storycirclebookreviews.org/reviews/windmills.shtml.

The Sound of Windmills

Jackie Woolley

The trip to see Grandmother and Grandfather on their family farm on the semi-arid, windy, and lonely edge of west Texas delighted this little girl. As we drove up the dirt road in our old gray Chevrolet, I bounced all over my side of the back seat knowing I was going to have so much fun--gathering eggs, watching Grandmother milk the cow, walking down to Greenbriar Creek to gather dewberries, not to mention gobbling up the dewberry cobbler that came out of the woodstove just a little later. All of this played out  to the background serenade of the whirring windmill. It was lots of fun for a city girl, but not so much for the couple who wrestled their living from these 287 acres for most of their adult lives. It remains a memory I treasure: not only for the fun but, now, for the character and good natures of these two strong people.

            All these memories and many more, came rushing back as I read Jackie Woolley's multigenerational saga of the Taylor family. Myra and Joel Taylor live with their daughters, Marilyn and Rugene on a working farm, much like my grandparents', near the fictional town of Langor, Texas. It's a hard life, and Woolley has an excellent eye and ear for it. I do not know exactly how much of this story is autobiographical; I suspect, quite a bit.

            The hardness of farm life is made even harder for the Taylor family because as the story opens, Joel, a polio victim, is dying. Myra, who has done most of the farming and managing for years, expects to carry on with the help of her daughters and a trusted hand, but after Joel's death, their long-time landlord (they are sharecroppers) mercilessly tosses them out within days. Stricken, Myra lands on her feet, and begins to form a new life for the three. This is the true beginning of the long story.

            The focus is primarily on the younger daughter Rugene, a strong spirit and sometimes lonely bookworm. She is determined to go the college and find a life for herself but not in Langor. At the same time she is determined that "I'll be back someday. I'm going back to buy the old farm.” Rugene manages to live much of her dream. Meanwhile, Marilyn and Myra also struggle with their own lives and as well as with holding the three of them together as a family.

            Because the novel spans several decades, it might have been confusing to a reader. What is happening to whom and when?  Woolley handles this problem skillfully by working historic happenings into her story without being obtrusive. The book is no one-night read. It is a rather daunting 545 pages, and is full of twists and turns; however, the main story moves nicely along holding the reader's interest. By the time it comes to a close most of its issues are resolved and three strong women are at peace with themselves and with each other.

Nancy Narcissus Coffey Nordyke--Happy Mother's Day!

In honor of Mother’s Day a few words about Lewis’s mother, Narrie Coffey Nordyke.

I was always a little in awe of Grandmother, not just because she could wring a chicken’s neck without ruffling her starchy newly ironed apron, but because she had been a pioneer.         

            Narrie (Nancy Narcissus Coffey) was born in 1874 in Dalton, Georgia to Molly (Mary Catherine—Katy, my Catherine is partly named for her) Ferrington and E.N. Coffey, a Confederate veteran of  the Battle of  Chickamauga. When Narrie was small the Coffeys pulled up their Georgia stakes—land was scarce and mostly farmed out—and headed for Texas. As a kid I envisioned the covered wagon, the campfires, the winding road, until one day I asked Grandmother, “What was it like to be on a covered wagon?”

            “I have no idea!” She pulled herself up to her full six feet and said with her usual dignity, “We came on the train.” My vision changed. White gloves were Grandmother’s thing. She wore them to the beauty shop in Baird, to the café downtown; almost anything was worth putting on her good suit and white gloves. Now I saw a parlor car with a little girl in white gloves and a Sunday dress walking down the aisle. Later, I learned they came on an immigrant train sharing a boxcar with their livestock, household goods, and several other families. I can only guess that they wished for the open trail and a campfire.

            I think about Molly, getting onto the train with her youngsters knowing full well that while there would be many letters (wish I could find them) sent with love, likely she would never see her family again. Far as I can tell, she didn’t.

            Narrie grew up in Callahan County, Texas surrounded by Georgia family and friends. But when it came time to fall in love, she picked a sort-of Yankee fiddler from Limestone County who’d come to visit relatives before heading for fiddling jobs in the saloons of Alaska.

Nancy Narcissus Coffey and Charles T. Nordyke
Married in Callahan County, Texas, December 24, 1899.

            On December 24, 1899 Narrie and Charlie Nordyke married. After a brief stint in Limestone County, and, yes, this time they did go in a covered wagon, they lived and farmed in Callahan County the rest of their long lives. Lewis was the middle child and middle boy in the family of seven.

On the farm, probably in the late 1920s.

At the 50th wedding anniversary celebration.
I'm the imp in the jumper planning mischief with
my cousin Charles Reid. (Can't you tell?)
Poor little Paul Gene--the likely victim--is in the middle.

            They retired from the farm (Lewis bought it.) and moved to Baird, the county seat, after 50 years of marriage.

Funny thing I noticed in my paltry collection of photographs. I have several of Charlie alone, but he is in every picture of Narrie. Soon as I get Photoshop up and running, I’ll take care of that! 

What a nice young man. . .

Dottie, the people I rode with (all but the old man) were wonderful to me, and I can’t see why they should have showed so much interest in me. What is harder to understand is why so many of them went out of their way to help me. I told no hard luck stories, and I tried not to look like a subject of charity. I took extra clothes along and changed in Oklahoma City. It has me puzzled. The man in Oklahoma City requested that I write him as soon as I reached home.

This is probably Lewis's graduation picture.
I'd stop and pick him up too

So Lewis mused toward the end of this first letter. I suspect he knew some of the answers, I certainly do, and Dottie surely did as well.

           

            Imagine the side of the busy highways of 1933 in the teeth of the Depression. Hitchhikers everywhere. Even if a kind-hearted driver wanted to give a ride, how to decide? How about a nicely dressed young man, white shirt, probably no tie, but I’ll bet one was in his pocket, a straw fedora shading his squinting eyes, his suit jacket tucked under one arm, carrying a beat-up suitcase and striding briskly toward his destination. (I’m partly imaging this and partly drawing on family lore.) Compared to the guys sitting on their suitcases and more than a little in need of a bath, whom would you chose to spend a couple of hours with?

Daddy never picked up a hitchhiker when Mother, my sister and I traveled with him. I suspect he did when he drove alone across the state, which was often. He did, however, often remark about them.

            “That fellow ought to get moving, nobody wants to pick up a lazy fellow,” he’d say as we passed a man sitting on his suitcase. Or, “Looks like he’d know he can get a shower at the YMCA.” Not only was he remembering his own journey; he knew what worked.

I’ve never picked up a hitchhiker, and given my ripe years, probably I won’t. My daughter confided (hope I’ve got this right, Katy) that she did once when she was driving back to college. She then spent the entire ride listening to a lecture on why she shouldn’t pick up strangers.

            Although  I’ve never picked up a hitchhiker, I’m convinced that I should return the favor to the “man from Oklahoma City” and the rest of those good souls who helped Lewis get home and start his life (and, of course, mine). It’s not the same, but here’s what I do—partly for Lewis and partly because I’m flat tenderhearted. I keep dollar bills in the outside pocket of my purse and in the console of the Jeep. We live in Houston, where times are hard and lots of folks are down-and-out. If I see, and I often see, a fellow or gal on a corner or perched on the sidewalk by a store looking hungry—don’t lecture me—I give them a couple of bucks.  I don’t need to know why their luck is out, I simply know that even the best of folks can hit hard times and need a helping hand.

            

Back Home Again in Cottonwood

Lewis must have hoped for no more excitement after the T Model Ford pickup and the old man. His wish came true. He even had a little fun.

            It felt good to be within a few miles of Texas. No sooner did he get back to the highway, than a Dodge roadster pulled up and threw the door open. The car was pretty full. A couple sat in the front seat with their son. Lewis perched on a jump seat behind. The rest of the back of the car was full—full of home brewed beer. The family was generous. Not only did they share their sandwiches, but they also absolutely insisted that he have a beer. He complied, wanting “to be congenial.”

The end of a journey--Texas State Line to the farm near Cottonwood

            Must not have been too much beer drinking going on, because they reached Ft. Worth at 10:50. Now Lewis faced another dilemma. Where, with almost no money, would he spend the night? At the bus station he learned that for $2.25 he could ride the overnight bus to Putnam where his brother Clarence lived. He figured that was better for paying for a hotel and meals the next day, so on he hopped reaching Putnam at 5 AM on Sunday.

            [An aside about Clarence—then someday I’ll do a whole entry on him. Like Lewis following his heart to be a writer, Clarence yearned to be in law enforcement, and like Lewis, he got his dream. He was Sheriff of Callahan County (where Cottonwood is) and then a Texas Ranger.]

            Once in Putnam he was almost home. On Sunday afternoon, Clarence, whom Lewis always called “my bud,” and Lewis drove to the farm outside Cottonwood where he embraced his parents, met the new family pets, a young apparently nameless dog and two cats, J. Wellington Wimpy and Snowball. After supper (always supper on the farm) he finally got to go to bed, but he was up early the next morning to grab a pen (well, he probably helped with some farm chores first) and write this long first letter to Dottie. Then he could worry about tomorrow.

Lonely Methodist Church of Cottonwood

            Would he get the job in Stephenville? If he didn’t, what would he do?

On the road again

Something like this? I'd miss lunch too!

Not too bad. On Thursday morning, Lewis had looked down a road that wound 700 miles from Columbia, Missouri to Cottonwood, Texas. Now, a mere 48 hours later, he woke in a clean bed freshly bathed and shaved from the night before, his tummy still full from last night's steak dinner. He always would relish the memory of the ride across Oklahoma in his new (and to us nameless) friend's swanky Reo. At six o'clock his host called him down to a breakfast so good that Lewis lists the menu: "grape-fruit, toast, coffee, fruit." And not just breakfast, but the offer of a loan. Lewis must have made a good impression--I can vouch that the conversation had been fascinating; Lewis didn't have any other kind.

West to Amarillo

South to Cottonwood

Now he had a mere 250 miles to knock off before he arrived to home and family in Cottonwood.  Dapper in his second shirt, he hopped on a streetcar and the journey began again. I wonder now if he didn't give a passing thought on taking a streetcar over to Route 66 and heading straight west to Amarillo and Dottie. Only a few miles further, she should be there by now, and . . .
If he did entertain such thoughts, he put them straight away and headed out for Norman where he mailed Dottie a card. Then, he says, bad luck hit again. When he finally caught a ride, he bounced along in a truck loaded with "ten tons of gasoline and oil." Not so bad until they crossed the Canadian River on a half-mile long bridge that began to "snap and groan. The driver turned pale and told me he was afraid we were going thru." They made it. They stopped for lunch and the driver paid. Lewis didn't understand why. I think I do.
After a quick ride to Ardmore, Lewis was stuck with a long wait. Naturally, he grabbed the first ride that came along, and launched onto the biggest adventure of the trip.

"Finally a T Model Ford truck stopped. It was full of people, but an old man (who seemed to be boss) in the back of the truck told me they were going all the way to the Red River (eight miles from Gainesville). So in I crawled, and we bounced down the road at about thirty per.

It's no Reo, and wasn't as clean or as empty

      The old man in back was nutty, and I hinted to him that I was "Pretty boy" Floyd. When we got within four miles of the river, we came face to face with a detour sign. The old man decided he would follow the pavement, despite the fact that the sign indicated the other road. So he told the driver to shove [? Maybe move?] it down the closed road.

      'I'll get off here,' I sez. But the car started.

      'You can ride on to th' river,' sez the old man.

      'But I want to stay on the highway.' I answered. 'Stop him.'

      'Oh, the devil,'sez the old man, a young buck like you 'orghtn' to mind a little walk. It's good for you.'

      'Stop him,' sez I, picking up a tire tool, or I'll knock you in the head.'

      He blinked.

'Stop him,' I said.

He did.

I got out.

'Think you're smart don't you?' sez the old man.

'Shut up,' sez I, turning toward the highway."
 

And on that cliff hanging note—to be continued!

  

700 Miles and a Thumb

700 Miles and One Thumb

Cottonwood is so small it doesn't make the map!

So there was Lewis, he'd just not kissed his sweetheart goodbye at the train station, he'd waved goodbye to his friend Dunn, who was headed for high adventure in New York City, standing by the side of a lonely highway ready to thumb his way to Texas. He was not off to a good beginning. He waited over five hours to catch his first ride, and then, it was only for eight miles. Not a good start.
Not a good start at all. I looked it up on Google Maps. By today’s 78-years-later highways the same route Lewis took, it’s about 740 miles and an estimated twelve or so driving hours. But on bad roads at eight mile stretches, not a good start at all. But things got better. 

  "At that time it seemed I could not continue toward Texas, and I was too far out to walk back to Columbia.     But I waited, then walked along. Pretty soon a Chevy came along and brought me about fifty miles to the junction of Highways 40 and 65."

 [Lewis was very much a typical young man--of then and now. He reports on the rides he catches, not so much (with a couple of exceptions) with the characteristics of the driver but of the kind of car he's driving. Don't believe he mentions a single woman driver, and, best I recall only one specific woman passenger. There is one truck "full of people" sex not specified. I'm guessing that then, like now, most women were disinclined to pick up riders.]
He got one good ride, and then things turned down again. So he did what apparently was for him the obvious. He started a card to Dottie. About then, a University friend appeared in the "biggest Chrysler." It was off for Springfield, and quickly. Lewis doesn't say where he spent the night [I'm betting not in a hotel.] Up early the next morning he grabbed a quick breakfast and hit the road at six. The first ride was "with a medicine show man . . . (Make me think to tell you more about him when we are in Ft. Worth)." [I hope it comes out in a letter.] Then he encountered in close order "a Chevy," "some sort of big car," and "a new Ford."
The Ford got him to Veneta, Oklahoma and let him off at a "roadside lunch room for a bite to eat." Instead he got a bit of adventure and got very hungry. [No, question. It was worth it.]
"Then is when I saw a keen looking Reo rolling down the road. I waited for it, and the driver stopped and asked me to ride. I did.
I soon learned that he was going to Oklahoma City more than 200 miles. Gee! I was hungry, but I did not tell him. I wanted to ride. We did.
When we were about half way to Tulsa, he invited me to lodge with him that night. I consented."
It worked out. It worked out more than well. The fellow--he never gets a name--explained his wife and son were in Chicago, and so they were on their own. They went to the store for steaks and the fixings. Had a lovely meal. Then "a bath and a shave and a bed that contributed much to a night of comfort." The next morning after a big breakfast, the fellow offer to loan him some money (declined) and drove him to the highway. Lewis was off on the next leg of his adventure.

The first letter

TO BE CONTINUED.

The first letter

Sometime during the week of June 4, 1933, Lewis Thaddeus Nordyke of Cottonwood, Texas (really, a farm nearby) and Dorothy Alice Beeman of 2202 Fillmore, Amarillo, Texas received their Bachelor of Journalism degrees from the School of Journalism, The University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri.

The next task, getting back to Texas. Easy enough for Dottie. Her dad worked for the Santa Fe; that meant railroad passes for the family. (This explains Dottie's multiple coming and goings later in the story.) Her mom, the inappropriately named Fred Brown Beeman, had made a quick journey up when they discovered Dottie would indeed graduate and not have to take a summer correspondence course. (More about this later as the tale unfolds in the letters.) Easy enough then, Fred and Dottie hopped on a westward heading Santa Fe, probably on Wednesday, June 6.

Things weren't going to be that easy for Lewis. He had no money. Family legend has it that he went to the station to tell Dottie goodbye. He explained in this letter that he didn't kiss her because of the "kids" who were there. I think it was more likely that it was Fred who was there. Nevertheless, when they touched hands for a final good-bye, Dottie slipped Lewis the $5 bill that was her spending money for the trip home. I told this story at her funeral, and not one of her four brothers disputed me. One of them thanked me for telling it.

Lewis then headed out in the car of his friend Dunn (apparently first nameless for purposes of this story) to the highway home, wished Dunn good luck on his adventures, and

 "walked up the highway a short distance and started the business of thumbing (not my nose)at people. It was eight o'clock. I stood there until one-thirty in the afternoon before a car even slowed or showed signs of stopping. Finally one stopped and I rode in it eight miles."

It was the launch of a hard trip. He says he almost turned back convinced that he'd never make it to Texas, but he caught another ride and was on his way. Sunday, he arrived home.  He had a reunion with his family. And, to his delight, found a letter from Dottie waiting for him. [Aside--wish I could find her half of this correspondence--dare I go look in the attic?. Scary thought.]

This had to be a huge reunion. I'm guessing here, and unless it comes out in the letters , I will never know, but, probably, he had not been home in almost two years. Lewis had no money, and his family had less. They were hard scrabble central Texas farmers in the middle of a drought in the middle of the depression. Their energies all focused on keeping the farm, not helping out a son in his late twenties who was going to school instead of working. Likely from the time he head to the University probably in fall of 1931 until this Sunday morning he had not seen a kinfolk.

He reported that it was a long day.

“Getting home and seeing all the folks was grand; with your swell letter added, yesterday was one great day for me. Why, I didn't even go to bed until nine-thirty last night, and it had been just exactly thirty nine hours since I had closed an eye.”

Now, on  Monday, rested up and forward-looking he took pen in hand, lamenting the lack of a typewriter and started off on eight pages of cramped handwriting recounting the details of the trip--some good times, a couple of funny ones, one scary encounter. Life on the road is an adventure.

Dottie had apparently asked if he got hungry on the trip.

"No, dear, I didn't get hungry but once on the entire trip. . .See I was getting so many good rides I didn't get a chance to eat anything from six in the morning to six-thirty in the evening; that that was the day I rode with the [new] friend who gave me food, drink and lodging."

I'll share some of his adventures in the next entry--maybe.

Now he was home, and about to leave again. He had a job interview Tuesday with Rufus Higgs, the publisher of the Stephenville weekly newspaper. Lewis had worked on the paper when he moved to Stephenville several years before to attend John Tarleton, then a two years school, and then to teach there while he accumulated the money for Missouri.

The Texas Press Association had elected Higgs president; he was going to need help with the paper since he'd be traveling a great deal. But there were lots of applicants and one very nervous young man on the farm near Cottonwood.

“I'll let you know what comes of the trip. I feel, tho, as if I've nearly got to get the job. I just don't know what I'll do if something knocks me out of getting that place. Guess I'll make it somehow tho.”

He closes (they were after all in love) with tender words and hope for an early reunion.

In an early entry here, I'll share some of Lewis's on-the-road experiences, and then I am going to back up, give some details of the early lives of Lewis and Dottie, and share some of my own feelings and thoughts about these letters. Oh, how I could reach out and embrace this young man. Tell him not to worry so much. But there are other things I would not tell him.

Harder than I thought

This is harder than I thought. Or, maybe more precisely, I’m making this harder than I have to. I’m trying not to work on this. I work on other things. I finished one assignment—a social history of Houston in 750 words—almost impossible! I did the proofs on article for Houston History making it a much bigger job than necessary. I’m going to the Organization of American Historians annual meeting later this week. Monday, I’ll hop on another assignment from Houston History. I’ve done gardening at “the house without a yard.” (See my other blog  http://trillap.blogspot.com/ for more about that.)Do I sound busy? I should sound like I’m stalling since that is exactly what I’m doing.

            I have the letters sorted by year; I have 1933 by month; June by date. I read the first one. It is the only long handwritten one—and is it ever long! I transcribed it—the paper is too frail to stand handling. It’s almost 3000 words written by hand in one afternoon. I'll share some of the details.

            Now that’s something to look forward to.

            Next time.

More about Lewis

What a treat. I’ve decided that before I decide what to do about this trove, I need to read the letters. So, slowly, I’m starting. And as I said—what a treat.

            For lots of reasons. First, Lewis, as I’m beginning to think of him more and more, was an excellent writer. The letters are fun to read.

            But, for me, of course, there is more. Lewis died when I was 19 as I’ve mentioned. I’m getting to know him, and my mother as well, for the young woman who is the recipient of the letters and clearly the object of so much love springs alive from the pages as well.

            As I’m reading, I don’t have a great deal to blog about—although I may tell some good stories as I uncover them.  I have two I’m thinking about. But meanwhile here’s a bit more about the man I’m getting to know.

            He grew up on a farm in rocky, dry Texas not far from Abilene. He wrote a book about his boyhood there—Nubbin Ridge. It was published the month after he died in 1960.

            And here’s one story about one of my sons. He knew his father’s father—Grampa—who was a reticent though loving man. One day Patrick said to me, “I feel like I know Granddaddy (Lewis) so much better than I know Grampa, because I knew Granddaddy when he was a boy.” He’d been reading Nubbin Ridge.

             Meanwhile, meet Lewis as a dapper young man. Isn't he dashing?

     

And here's more about Lewis--       

http://www.cowboydirectory.com/N/n-or.html

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fno04

I like the Cowboy Directory, but it does have the year of college graduation wrong. It was 1933. I’ll contact them and get it right.

Quick Count

First year counted. Between June and December, 1933, (They graduated from the University of Missouri in late May or early June) between 150 and 160--hard to tell exactly since some envelopes are empty and some letters aren't in envelopes. Most are typed, single-spaced and two pages.

The Bag--finally--is empty

The bag--finally--is empty, as of this morning.

And

I’m back with the blog; so is the story. A couple of reasons for the absence. The one I’ll readily give is that I got busy, busy in a writing project and this fell by the wayside. That’s a reason, but the real reason is that I got overwhelmed.

So much! So many memories. More than just the letters, letters, letters. But notes and clipping from Mother’s high school days, my sister’s baby book, mine too, but come on! second child, not much stuff, and then suddenly a “young wife” letter from me, my family’s WWII ration books, a letter from my uncle away at war. What to do? How to sort?

            Mostly though, it was the youngish man who wrote those hundreds of letters full of hope and dreams. I feel like a peeping tom, and worse. I know what is going to happen. I fill with sadness that his life would be so short—barely 25 years left to live those dreams. I know. He doesn’t.

            I touch a letter written on my birthday—five years before the day I was born, and another sadness fills me. I, the grown-up me, never really knew this man. When he died, I was 19, just nibbling on the edges of being grown. I was always the little girl and he was Daddy, in charge. We never got to be friends. I didn’t know until my own children grew up and I watched them become friends and pals with their dad that I realized the gap in my life.

            These letters bring it back. I ached. I walked away.

           

            Now I’m back. But where to begin? It is my mother’s box. They are letters to her. But the story in the letters is Lewis’s.

           

            Then, that’s where I’ll start. That’s where I have started. I’ve pulled both 1933 files. I will count them; put them in order, and then, begin to read. My knees almost lock again. Do I want to do this?

Simple answer.

Yes.

This blog is going to go in three directions, all with the same final destination: what is in the letter, more about Lewis (and some about Dorothy), and some about me and my memories as I begin this adventure.I’m back

 And, now to work at the empty table on the newly vacuumed rug. (Oh! how it hurt to let those 80-year-old scraps of paper go! First, I'm going to count. How many letters in 1933?