The Sojourners

Sarcastically, my father would say, "Sure, I have a hole in the ground out back, where I just reach in and pull up dollar bills."

I looked for that hole many times, and never found it. I was now starting to rapidly learn about reality.

The Bible says," to eat, you must work."

It made me reflect back to those "canning days" in the hot summer. We worked in the summer to eat in the winter.

My father was now going to be out of work and there wasn’t much chance of finding a job in our area that would pay him enough to keep a family. Although my father was employed during the Depression, my mother and father had been able to save little money. Other members of family didn’t have steady jobs, so my parents would help out as the needs arose. And now, if something didn’t happen soon, we would be the ones in need.

One Friday my mother and I had supper alone. She said Daddy would be home later because he was going to a funeral.

"Who died," I asked?

"The paper died and the people are having a funeral for it. I’ll be going to drive your Daddy home in little while, so I want you to mind your sister while I’m gone," replied Ma.

After the supper dishes were washed, Ma left to go get Daddy.

When they came home about an hour later, my father was ranting and raving about the no good Japs and Nazis and he smelled like Uncle Bill’s sour mash tub.

I was later to learn that funerals of this type were a newspaper tradition.

By late the next morning my father had regained sufficient senses to explain our future plans.

We were going to be moving this coming week. Through some contacts my Aunt Ellen’s husband had, Daddy had gotten a job at a car factory in Linden, N.J. This car factory was going to making airplanes for the war. Aunt Ellen had also gotten us an apartment next to where she lived in Elizabeth, N.J.

I found Elizabeth, N.J. on the map. It was south of New York, but not south enough to suit me. We would have to drive about four hundred miles to get there. By my calculations, we would have at least eight flat tires on the way.

Fortunately for us, the parts of our family that had moved already, sent us directions and said how much gas and oil we needed to get up there.

Now it was our turn to pack and load up. Daddy came home with a little open trailer hitched behind the Ford.

I was told to sort out my stuff, and I could only take those items I was using now. I had lots of old toys that I had out grown and books I already read. When I got down to the items I really wanted all I had was my flashlight, a bone-handled hunting knife, my pocket knife, a right handed catchers mitt, a baseball autographed by the 1936 N. Y. Giants, my crystal radio set and my slingshots with a bag of marbles.

All of the other stuff was given away, except my clothes.

We had a new Easy washing machine that my mother kept working overtime. She washed every bit of clothes we had. I helped her hang the wet clothes in the yard and take the dry clothes in. Ma took all the clothes and folded them neatly and placed them into boxes.

The same procedure was followed for dishes, glasses, pots, pans, and silverware.

Over the next few days a small mountain of boxes began to grow in our living room. Once something went into a box it couldn’t be used, or even seen until we reached New Jersey. My mother had set aside certain things for us to wear or use that could be loaded at the last minute.

We had one of the first refrigerators made by General Electric. It was electric and could make a tray of ice cubes. The refrigerator was pretty small by today’s standards, but we were the first family in our part of town that needn’t get ice. The refrigerator was set out on the porch to defrost, after which my mother cleaned it inside and out. When she was all done, I helped my father load it onto the trailer.

It was cool outside, so we kept our food in a wooden box on the front porch.

During the next two days, I helped my father take furniture apart and load it on the trailer. The hardest thing to handle was that Easy washing machine. It was a round tub on wheels and had gear shift levels to make it wash or shift to the wringer. It was real cumbersome, but finally we woke up and took the darn wringer off.

My mother’s favorite things were secure in the trailer. The refrigerator, the washing machine and her Sears Roebuck sewing machine were lashed to the forward end of the trailer. We took apart the kitchen and dining room tables, and the beds.