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.

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.

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.