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.