My Best Memories
by Ralph Davis
Ralph was born in Danville, Kansas, on
January 30, 1924 to Charles and Charlotte Davis (Blubaugh). He had nine brothers and sisters who were in order from oldest
to youngest: Sam, Lucy, Evelyn, Raymond, Viola, Walter, Mable, Frank, Fred, and Ralph was the youngest.
This is the story of his life as he told it.
My Early School Years
I was the only child born in Danville, two others were born in Texas, six in New Mexico, and two in Oklahoma. The folks moved to Danville, Kansas from Tonkawa, Oklahoma in March of 1923. Oil was discovered on their land in Oklahoma, and for a short period of time money was not a problem at the Davis home. The reason for moving to Danville, I am quite sure, is because this was where my mother was born and grew up. They bought a quarter section of land one mile east of her home place and built a beautiful home which is still in the family. Today it is owned and lived in by my second cousin Corky Befort (Wedman), the daughter of Dan Wedman, my first cousin and son of Mike and Kate Wedman (Blubaugh), my mother's sister, which means my birth home is still in the family, sort of. Dad and mother later bought another quarter section of land one mile west of our new home.
My mother's home place was a big two story home with a full basement which stood for many years even after I was born in 1924. As a boy, I remember playing in it after it had been abandoned. At the time it was kind of spooky to go down in the cold, damp, dirty, spider infested basement. Playing there was kind of daring for us boys especially when we first discovered it, but in time it became pretty routine. Grandpa had a big fruit orchard (mostly apples and pears) which we enjoyed for several years. Since nobody lived in the house, the owner didn't care if we helped ourselves. To this day (1995) there are still some pear trees there, and they still bear fruit. This was a special place for us kids when we were growing up. By the time I was three or four the oil wells that I mentioned earlier had almost stopped producing, and the money had dwindled to fifteen cents per month, but I am thankful for the nice, big, new house that it provided. In order to feed ten kids we always milked eight to sixteen cows and sold the cream and butter. Later on a milk route was established and we also sold whole milk. Mom raised chickens so we always had fryers and eggs to eat. Dad planted a big garden that provided fresh vegetables as well as the canned goods that mom put up for winter. We also had a separate potato patch of about one acre, which furnished us with enough potatoes to last all winter. Dad's main crop was wheat, and every year we would take enough into town and have ground into flour to last us until the next harvest. Our pasture gave us sand plums, fish, and small game. To get a rabbit or a good mess of fish was always a treat. Dad also had an orchard with apples, peaches, pears, cherries and a big apricot tree. Dad and mom always managed to feed, clothe, and keep us warm in the winter. This lifestyle might sound primitive, but it was our way of life, we lived it and enjoyed it together. We never really felt like we were poor because everyone lived the same lifestyle as we did. Dad, mom, and God always provided food and shelter for us.
In the fall of 1929 I started school at Immaculate Conception Catholic School at Danville, just three miles from home. As near as I can remember, there were three different ways in which we got to school. We rode horses, dad took us in the car, or sometimes we walked. Fritz (that was a nickname for my next older brother Fred, I don't how he got the nickname, but everyone called him that for several years) and I started school together. He was fourteen months older than I was. Fritz had started school the year before, but he got into some kind of trouble the very first day, and the teacher broke a pencil over his head. Mom was quite upset over the incident so she kept him out till the following year and started us together. I was a little young for first grade and he was a little old, but it worked out fine. We stayed in the same grade through high school. Because we were in the same grade, many people thought we were twins so we just let them think what they wanted as a rule, unless they asked then we would tell them the truth of course. We were very near the same size for a long time, but I eventually out-grew him.
I really enjoyed my first grade, had lots of fun, got good grades, and had a teacher whom I really liked. Sister Geita was really good to me and everyone else too, I guess. I remember at Lent time we drew to see what to give up for Lent and of course I got "give up candy." Lent didn't start for a few days and I had a quarter, which was a lot of money in those days, but remember, my folks had an oil well. I asked sister if I could go uptown at noon and she said, "OK, but be back in time to march in school with the other kids" (we always lined up in two columns and marched in school after recesses and noon). So away I went to get candy before Lent started. I got back just in time to jump in line to march in school carrying the biggest sack of candy you have ever seen. Twenty-five cents bought a lot of bulk candy in those days. Sister Geita took one look at me and laughed till she could hardly walk. Sister Geita left us at the end of the first grade. The next year we had Sister Regies, whom I had for the next three years.
Our school was a two story building. The first four grades were taught on the ground floor, and the next four were upstairs with a different teacher. When you moved upstairs, you were upper class. Sister Regies didn't care much for boys, especially boys named Ralph. Needless to say, the next three years were pretty rough on me. I seldom saw light at recess time or at noon. I remember one time in math, which I loved at that time and was pretty good at, Sister Regies marked all of my problems wrong with a bright red pencil, called me names in the same red pencil, slapped me on the hand with a twelve inch ruler, and told me to do the problems over again and not to show them to my folks. That evening, my sister Mable accidentally bumped my books off the table and the paper fell out. She picked it up and checked some of the answers. The answers were OK. She called mom and mom went over every one of the problems and found only one error on the whole assignment (about 20 problems). The next morning, with my paper in her hand, mom took us to school instead of dad. For the first two hours mom kept Sister Regies in the hall in a hot debate over my assignment. The only answer she could give mom was that she thought I was copying the answers out of the back of the book. When it was all over, Sister Regies was quite different, at least for a few weeks. I even got my recess again. She soon fell back into her old habits, but not quite as severe as before.
Going upstairs to fifth grade was almost like going on vacation. I began to like school again. My fifth and sixth grade teacher, Sister Germain, was just great, unlike Sister Regies. I believe Sister Germain actually babied me. Her pet name for me was "Bug Ears," I never knew where she got that name.
My seventh and eight grade teacher was Sister Cecelia, who made school almost a pleasure. There were five graduates in my eighth grade class: Lawanda Clements, Una Dell Drouhard, Ruth Wedman, Fred and I. I had quite a crush on Una Dell at that time, but it only lasted until high school. So much for my grade school education at Danville, Kansas.
CHILDHOOD SUMMERS
Our farm had a sixty acre pasture with a nice creek running through it. This creek and pasture was a real good source of fun for us kids, especially the boys. We played all sorts of games, not to mention the hunting, fishing, swimming, and horse-back riding. When a big rain would come, we would take our ponies (which dad always seemed to provide for us) and go swimming in the wild dirty creek. We would hold onto the horses' tail and they would pull us through the water. It was a ball. The dogs, horses, and kids all seemed to enjoy it together. Even though it was somewhat dangerous, we were having so much fun that we didn't realized the danger. We would eventually tire out and head for the house, wet clothes, wet shoes, mud and all and get our usual scolding for doing such a thing. I really think mom was kind of happy to see us enjoy ourselves so much; at least she never gave us a lick'n, just a scolding.
The pasture had three different varieties of sand plums: yellow, big red, and small red. When they got ripe (sometime in July, I think), we would take the wagon, and lots of buckets and baskets, and the whole family would go plum picking. By evening we would have a gob of sand plums. Mom would make jelly, plum butter, and can bushels of them into quart jars for winter eating. Sand plums were practically our only source of fruit and jelly, and they were really tasty the way mom fixed them.
The pasture also provide our means of cooking and keeping warm in the winter by giving us all of the firewood we needed. The only cost was our labor to cut and haul the wood. For several days, we would cut trees into the largest logs we could handle and bring them home. We had a buzz saw driven by our International tractor and a fifty foot belt about six inches wide. We spent all day cutting those logs into firewood, but the buzz saw made short work of it considering that it would last all winter. That pasture was a source of summertime fun throughout my childhood.
My Freshman Year (1937/38
I started high school as a scared, bashful farm boy in the fall of 1937. The school had three floors and a basement and seemed so big. There were so many kids, and I was afraid to talk to any of them, especially the girls. If a girls would even smile at me I would get as red as a good sunburn. The only kids I knew were the one who went to Danville. Before long, however, I got over most of my shyness and became just another high school freshman. Nothing too exciting took place my freshman year, and it passed pretty quickly.
Everything was pretty much the same at home too, except now I was older and more was expected of me. It was about this time that I began to work for hire for some of the neighbors. I plowed, filled silo, and hauled bundles to the threshing machine. I also started to play baseball, which I really liked and was pretty good at, especially hitting. I would play softball about two nights a week and as a rule I would play hardball on Sunday afternoons. Our season was pretty short because there were not many teams around. Softball and baseball would play a major part in my leisure life for many years to come.
Fishing, hunting, and trapping was also beginning to interest me more. I went fishing as often as I could in the summertime. Dad liked to eat catfish and mom favored perch. When ever I would go fishing I would always try to catch dad a big catfish and mom a nice perch. If I could do that, I considered my fishing trip a success. It usually worked out.
My Sophomore Year (1938/39
When school started again in the fall of my Sophomore year everything was beginning to shape up. Most of my fears were gone except for girls. The only things I remember about school my sophomore year was that it was easy. Life had started to turn for the better. I was now allowed to attend high school games, and Mom & Dad took all of us kids to Harper to the movies about every other week, which we really looked forward to. The price for the movie was 2 for 25 cents on Wednesday evenings. In the summer months we attended free outdoor movies every Friday night in Danville. It was a big deal for us, and almost everyone for miles around would come. There were no chairs so we would all find a good spot in the grass to sit down, but we enjoyed every minute of it.
My Junior Year (1939/40
When school started again in the fall, I wanted to go out for sports so bad I could hardly stand it. Due to a knee injury a few years earlier, the doctors advised against it for fear of more injury or even a handicap. I went to three different doctors who all had their opinion about what the injury was. Several treatments later I realized that I would go through my life with sore knees. They only hurt when I bumped them just right (wrong) so they didn't really hamper a normal life. Between bumps I would do just fine except they were stiff and sore most of the time. I learned to protect them pretty well and even wore pads some of the time. So much for the knees.
During the school year of 1939 I had my first date with Beverly Jordan. She was the daughter of a dairy farmer and lived near Freeport, Kansas. She lives in Wellington now; its hard for me to believe that was 54 years ago.
My Junior year in school went fine. I still played baseball and softball in the summertime, but something else happen that summer that was a big step in my life. In the summer of 1939 I hired out for the first time to do a man's work. After harvest, our neighbor, Henry Oliver bought a thrashing machine to thrash wheat and oats for local farmers to supplement his farm income. He asked me to work for him and I told him that if it was all right with my dad I would be glad to. It was all right with my dad so I had a paying job. Henry Oliver asked me if I could get three of my strong high school friends to work too, and I told him that I thought I could. So for about three weeks we were employed. We pitched bundles onto the hay racks, hauled them to the thrashing machine, and pitched them in the machine. The thrashing machine removed the grain and blew the straw into a big stack in the middle of the field to be used as winter bedding for the cows and horses. Oats straw was also a good roughage feed for livestock and they really liked it. While we worked for Henry, we slept in the field. Sleeping in the field was much more practical than going home because we were sometimes twenty miles from home, and we worked until sundown. The only transportation we had was the horses and hayrack so it was easier just to sleep in the field. The only time we got off was Sunday. If it rained we got a day off so we prayed for rain--just enough to shut us down so we could get out of the sun and maybe go swimming. We were out a total of three weeks, but due to breakdowns, rain and long moves we actually only worked 12 days. For this effort we received three dollars per day, and they were ten to twelve hour days. That was good money then, and Henry said it was the best crew he ever had work for him. We were young bucks and this made us feel good even if it was hot, hard work.
Later on I helped Henry fill silo. Insilage bundles were sometimes eight or nine feet long and fourteen inches in diameter. They were green and as heavy as lead, especially along toward evening when I was tired. The weather was not near as hot because we filled silo later, in the fall of the year.
Work around home was about the same. We farmed, milked cows, raised a garden, planted feed, and put up hay. Every fall we spent two to three weeks gathering wood for winter cooking and heating. and this year was no exception. We hauled wood from the creek, sawed it into lengths with Dad's buzz saw and stored it for the winter.
I belonged to 4H so I also played ball at night during the summer of 1939. That was also the year I learned to drive a car. I didn't have a license yet, but it didn't matter much back then--I also didn't drive much.
I was beginning to use guns (22 rifles and shotguns) quite a bit by the 1939 school year. I really enjoyed hunting and shooting. I spent most of my hard earned money on shotgun and rifle shells and practiced shooting quite a bit. I got to be a pretty good shot. There was a man in Attica who had a hardware store and mink farm. He raised rabbits and would feed rabbit meat to the mink and sell the furs. We would trade him rabbits for shells. I remember one time in particular that Bill Drouhard and I went to Attica to get rifle shells. We started out with a box of shells each. Every place we saw that looked like good rabbit country, we would stop and hunt for awhile. When we got to Attica we had thirty-five jack rabbits and about six or seven cotton tails, each of us had a half a box of shells left, and we had not shot a rabbit setting still. If we saw one setting we would scare him so we could shoot him on the run. We got to be such good shots this way that it got to the point that the first one who shot would get the rabbit.
Not only did I enjoy hunting and fishing, but it also put a considerable amount of food and the table at times. We would either walk or ride the horse, but it was pretty hard to shoot from a horse. I could shoot straighter and get more game on foot than I could on horseback so I walked most of the time. Our game was mostly rabbits, some quail, and an occasional duck. We didn't care much for the taste of duck so I couldn't get too excited about it.
The summer of 1939 was also the year that I got into the first and only fist fight (bare knuckles) that I ever had. I'll try to tell about it and do a little bragging along the way. I always liked people and never wanted to fight anyone. I wanted to make friends, not enemies.
It was June, I think. Several of us boys (Bob & Ted Oliver, Norbert Drouhard, and my brother Fred) were in Harper. There was a fair in town that night. We had made some of the rides and were just sitting on the fender of our cars thinking about going home and just talking, as boys do, and three strangers came out of Ed's Cafe. We later found out that they were working on the telegraph lines for the railroad and were just passing through. Anyway, they walked over where we were and said a few foul words of insult to us, which really surprised us because we didn't know them and hadn't evern noticed then until then. They were surely looking for trouble and figured we would be an easy target. These guys were four to five years older than we were and much bigger. We were freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. Well, they kept harrassing us and none of us were saying a word. I guess we were scared stiff, I know I was. Finally they called us a bunch of yellow bastards and turned their backs to walk away when Bob Oliver said "well what do you think you are?" They turned around and came back, acting really mad, and dared the one who said it to speak up.
Bob had been sick and vomiting that day and I didn't want him to fight these guys in his condition. The next thing I knew, I got off my fender and stood up. I didn't stand near big enough, but Bob was smaller than I was. In spite of my size I figured I would give them a try even if I got beat up. I told them "you guys have been calling us foul names and swearing at us for no reason, however, if one of you wants to go out in the middle of the street and settle this right now I'll take you on, but only one. The guy doing most of the dirty talking and the one who made the dare backed down, but another one stepped up and said "I'll take you on." We started out into the street when I thought, we better not do this here. We could get arrested, go to jail, and have to pay a fine so I suggested that we go to the country to avoid trouble with the law. We all got into our two cars (they didn't have one) and headed for a country road. It was a little us road not far from town. We got out of the car and got ready to fight when I thought "what the heck am I doing, I don't know anything about fighting." Oh, I had done some wrestling with some guys at school and thought I was pretty good at it. I had also boxed a little at school, but this was serious. This guy was going to try to hurt me and would probably succeed.
When the fight started, I turned to wrestling tactics. I immediately got a hammer lock on him and had him pinned over the hood of the car. I could have hurt his arm and shoulder but I elected not to and released him. Almost immediately he caught me on the chin with a mean right. The next thing I knew I was face down in the dirt and pretty well dazed with him on top of me. He said "I ought to hit you while your are down," and then he did hit me right in the back of the head. Somehow I managed to get him off of me, and staggered to my feet. This guy was quite a bit bigger than I was so I stood on the raise in the middle of the road. As I turned to face him (standing on the ridge) he was nearer my height. I started boxing--what little I knew. I kept jabbing in the face with my left, and he was soon bleeding from the nose and lips pretty badly. He stopped fighting for a minute and went to one of his buddies to have him check his mouth for any serious cuts. His friend said "your all right, get back in there." I asked him if he had had enough and he said no so we went at it again. While we were fighting, the other two guys were yelling "if you don't whip him I will." They had pulled off their shirts and were ready to fight. Pretty soon I got a chance and hit him real hard with my left and again with my right in his jaw. He went down. He tried to get up but was bent over at the waist. I drew back for another big punch but stopped. Again I asked him if he had had enough. This time he admitted that he had had enough and wanted to shake hands. I walked over to one of his buddies and said "what about you," he backed down and shook my hand.
We all got into the two cars and headed back to town. The guy that I had fought wanted to go to his apartment, but one of his buddies called him a foul name and was picking on him. I told him to shut up; he wasn't the one who was in the fight, and "if this man wants to go home, we'll take him there." Nothing more was said, and we took all three of them home. Bob, Ted, Norbert, Fred, and I felt good about the fight. They really thought I had done something great, but I wasn't feeling so good so Fred and I started for home. About three miles east of Harper I got sick and Fred had to stop the car to let me puke. When we got to the house, I asked Fred not to say anything about the fight for fear that the folks might not like it. We slept upstairs, and the next morning when I came downstairs for breakfast I heard Fred telling dad how I had "whipped this big guy." I suppose they would have found out anyway because I had a black-eye, a sore chin, and a cut on my left knuckles. When I walked into the room dad said "you should have hit him while he was down like he did you," and mom said "you better check and see if he is ok" so they weren't very upset. Actually I think they were kind of proud. The Lord was sure looking after me that night--maybe because I was in the right and the other guy was in the wrong. So much for the only fight in my life.
As for the rest of the summer of 1939, everything went pretty normal. We milked fourteen or fifteen head of cows twice a day (by hand). Our $25 per week milk check was about all the cash flow the family had. We always had food, milk, garden vegetables, chickens, and eggs to eat. We produced almost all of our food ourselves, but once in a while we would have bologna or hot dogs from the store, which was a big treat for us. We also had some of our wheat ground into flours, and mom baked all of our bread.
We raised a big garden every year and potatoes was our main crop, I suppose because they kept well. We grew about an acre of potatoes and would yield fifty or sixty bushels. We kept them in the basement, and would sprinkle lime on them to prevent spoilage. We ate potatoes and gravy almost everyday, and to this day I can do without them. We still had potatoes in the basement at planting time in the spring, and the cycle would start all over again. Not bad for a family of twelve.
Our evening entertainment consisted of reading, listening to the radio, playing ping pong on the kitchen table (we couldn't afford a regular table but we had just as much fun), cards, and other games. There were also outside games. We often played Blind Man's Bluff until after dark and then it was off to bed for all of us. The children slept upstairs with no heat in the winter and no cooling in the summer, except for open windows. Us boys would often try to sleep outdoors in the summer , but many times bugs, storms, or strange noises (mostly owls or coyotes) would chase us inside to again put up with the heat.
It was around 1938 that dust storms in Western Kansas were chasing everyone out of that part of the country. My sister Evelyn and her husband and family lived near Scott City. When a dust storm hit they all went inside, closed the doors and windows, wet blankets and got under them in order to survive. She said that a light bulb on the ceiling in the center of the room would only be a faint yellow spot in the room and would hardly put out any light. These storms sometimes lasted two to three days, dust drifted like snow, sometimes to the windows of houses, and would bury fences and farm machinery. Roads were blocked, wheat blew out, crops were completely covered up, and livestock died from suffocation as a result of dust pneumonia. All in all it was a complete disaster. People had no money, no crops, no food and most were forced to move away. I remember only one such storm in our part of the county. It was on a Sunday afternoon, and it blew in from the North. I was fishing down at the creek all by myself with my back to the North. I was having pretty good luck so I didn't notice anything unusual, there wasn't a cloud in the southern sky. I heard a humming sound behind me like a swarm of bees, and when I turned to look I saw a big, big, storm cloud coming, at least that is what I thought it was. This was the first and only dust storm like this I had ever seen, and it scared the daylights out of me. I was afraid of all kinds of storms, but to see a sight like this turned me into a fearful boy. I grabbed my fishing pole and took off for home. It was a half mile to home and I ran all of the way. I got to the yard just as it hit; it was around four o'clock in the afternoon and it lasted into the night. The next morning it was all over but the house was full of dirt and full of a dirty family. We all looked as though we had been in a dust storm and by golly we had been. We never saw a dust storm like that around Danville again, thank God, but they were quite common in Western Kansas. This time became known as the Dirty Thirties.
Eventually things started to turn around, the storms stopped and people began to move back to Western Kansas and to reclaim the land from the wind. Farming practices changed. They began to use the plow less and the disk more. This left more trash and stubble in the field, which prevented the wind from picking up the soil so easily. They also practiced strip farming; they would plant a sixty foot wide strip of crop and then leave a twenty foot strip unplanted, another method of preventing wind erosion. These farming practices turned Western Kansas into good farming country.
My Senior Year (1940-41)
My high school senior year (1940-41) was a great fun year for me. By this time I was pretty relaxed around most kids and I had a lot of friends, both boys and girls. I got along good with everyone and I got good grades in school with little effort. I went out for track, football and enjoyed them both a lot. During my last two years in school I was in four plays. The two I enjoyed most were SUBMERGED and our fourth play AFRAID OF THE DARK. Here is a little bit about each of them.
We took first place in the county with this play and went on to regionals where we took first place. We took second place in state because the judges said the play was too sad and had no female characters. When people in our community heard about it we were asked to put it on at the high school, at the Freeport community building, and the Danville church hall. One woman said she saw it three times and cried every time.
The unique thing about SUBMERGED was that we (the actors) built the submarine on stage with 1 X 2 lumber, gray paper, and big headed thumbtacks ( to simulate rivets). It took us about a week to build and when the play was over we had to tear it down immediately and clear the stage for the one-act play that followed. It took us about five minutes to disassemble it behind the curtains. Quite to the surprise of the audience, when the curtains opened for the next play the sub was gone and the stage was completely redone for the next play, all in about five minutes. So much for my stage career. I really enjoyed it.
My senior year was the only opportunity that I had to go out for sports, which made it most enjoyable. I went out for football and track but football was my favorite. In track, I ran the 220 yard dash, threw the javelin, ran the 220 yard relay, and broad jumped. I wasn't very good at any of them, but I was good enough to make a letter. Football was great. I played left end on defense and offense, and I loved it. Tackling was my favorite part. Preseason scrimmage night admission was a bar of soap, which was used in the team showers. We were playing "A" team against "B" team. I played on the "B" team. The "A" team uniforms were bright blue with a Bearcat on the back of the jersey and helmet. There were only eighteen "A" team uniforms and the players were selected by performance. One particular preseason scrimmage night would have a big impression on the coach (Eddie Dividson) in making a decision as to who would wear those bright blue uniforms for the season. Well I was lucky, caught a few good passes and played good on defense. I had broken through the line and made a few good tackles for "A" team losses. The announcer wanted to know if number 44 would be playing left end for the "B" team or in the backfield for the "A" team. When scrimmage was over, I walked off the field with team captain Curtis Fields when the quarterback came over to me and said that I had earned myself a bright blue uniform because of the way I had played that night. I couldn't believe it, but it gave me hope. Sure enough the next day coach gave out the blue uniforms and I got one. My number was 44, the same number I wore in practice. Two weeks later the real surprise came when I started in the first game of the season at left end, chosen over a third year man. This was absolutely my first football game; I didn't even know the rules. I played for about five minutes when the coach took me out. I thought "Oh boy, what have I done or worse yet not done." He motioned me over to him and said "you have never played football have you?" I said "No." He sat down beside me and gave me a few do's and don'ts and then said "get back out there." From there on out, football was easy for me and a lot of fun. On Thanksgiving Day we played the championship game against our rival, Anthony. At one point, I went out approximately fifteen yards for a pass, the right end did the same thing, and we crossed in about the middle of the field. I looked up for the ball. It was thrown too long for the right end and too short for me. Just as it sailed over his shoulder, I stopped, turned, and caught the ball as I went to my knees for a fifteen yard gain. I was down at the seven yard line. On the next play, team captain Curtis Fields went in for the first touchdown of the game. We went on to win twenty to zip, and took the championship. It was the biggest thrill of my life. The rest of my senior year was pretty routine and I was content.
My brother Frank graduated from high school in 1939, the first in the family to accomplish this goal. Fred and I graduated in 1941. As it turned out, we three were the only ones out of the ten kids in our family to graduate from high school. But there were a lot of kids in those days who didn't go to high school. Besides not being able to afford it, everyone was needed to help on the farm.
Homemade Toys and Games
It is real interesting how we provided our own games and fun items. There were several fun and useful items. There were beanies (sling shots), chenny clubs, wirlygigs, tin can stilts, beanie & arrows, sleds, marbles, rubber guns, skies, and wind propellers. We made wooden stilts of all heights. Some so tall we were almost afraid to get up on them, but they were lots of fun.
Beanies were made from a fork of a tree. You could choose the size of fork to fit your hand and a spread between the fork that was to your particular desire. I was pretty particular when making my beanie. The fork had to be just right. The rubber bands were from car inner tubes and had to be just the right width (about 5/8"). They also had to be the right length to get the right power behind the shot. The leather for holding the rock had to be small and flexible so it didn't interfere with the projection of the rock. I probably had one in my back pocket constantly from the time I was in the fourth grade through high school, and I got pretty good with it. I even carried one on my trap line in the winter.e used them to hunt rabbits and target shooting of all kinds (still and moving). Rocks were much cheaper than rifle shells. We also used them to kill undesirable birds, snakes, animals, and turtles. We only killed birds that were considered to be destructive. We even killed chickens for dinner with a beanie.
Rubber guns were another real good toy that we made for ourselves. We would cut out the shape of a gun (sort of) the size that we wanted from an old piece of wood. Next we fastened a clothes pin to the handle end with a rubber band cut from an inner tube. We cut other rubber bands for ammunition. Then we would fasten one end of a rubber band into the clothes pin and stretch the other end of the rubber band over the barrel end of the gun. Ready, aim, fire by opening the clothes pin with our thumb. It would sting pretty good at ten to twenty feet, depending on how tight we stretched the rubber band of course. Believe me, we fought a lot of battles with these toy guns.
Fishing, Hunting, and Trapping
In addition to the homemade toys, I enjoyed fishing in the summer and hunting in the winter. In the summer I took every chance I got to dig a can of worms and head for the creek. I was the same way with hunting in the winter, I loved it. It was never too cold to hunt or too hot to fish. It was always a challenge for me to do something that no one else had done, like catching the first mink around our p art of the country. Each spring my brother Frank and I were the first ones to dig a can of worms and head for the creek to catch the first mess of spring fish. We usually done pretty well, which got everyone else started fishing again. My Dad and I walked to the creek together quite often, especially in the evening. Dad would say that I was just about the luckiest fisherman he ever saw. I remember one summer when I was helping my brother Raymond cut wheat in Oklahoma. When evening came and we had quit cutting, Raymond said, "let's go to the pond and take a bath." I agreed but said that I wanted to take my fishing pole. Raymond said, "there's no fish in that pond; I can eat all of fish that you can catch raw." I took my pole anyway, baited it with worms, and set it before we jumped in for our bath. To make a long story short, before we finished bathing I had four real nice catfish on the bank. To this day Raymond still says that I can catch fish where there aren't any fish.
I also loved to trap in the winter for furs, which I sold to get spending money. Some of the animals I trapped were muskrat, skunk, opossum, civet cat, and mink. Skunks would bring from $1 to $4, opossum, $.25 to $1.50, civet cat, $.75 to $2, and muskrat, $.25 to $4.75. I believe I caught the first mink ever heard of in our part of the country, in fact, I caught three in the winter of 1939. I believe my best and biggest one brought $32 and boy was I proud. That was a lot of money then. If I had a good year, I could earn close to $100, and have fun doing it.
There never seemed to be enough time to do all of the things that I loved doing when I was growing up on the farm in Danville, Kansas.
Early Adulthood
In may of 1941 I graduated without the slightest idea of what I was going to do with my life. I wanted to stay home for a while and help my dad with the farming. However, Hitler and Japan would sort of get me started into adulthood. Hitler was trying to take over all of Europe and seemed to be proceeding pretty successfully. At that time the war seemed a million miles away to me, but I would soon learn that it was at our back door. The army draft program was starting and would soon effect our whole family, although I did not yet realize how much. The United States was not at war yet, but the future looked pretty bad. When war did come, it was quite a surprise. It was a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. This made the decision for me although I was still only seventeen years old and felt like just a kid.
Frank was in Wichita and was now working for Boeing. Since I was only seventeen and couldn't get into the service, I decided I would go to sheet metal school in Wichita. Frank agreed for Fred and I to move in with him while we went to sheet metal school. We finished in about a month and Boeing hired me even though I was only seventeen; I was close to my eighteen birthday. I went to work on second shift as a sheet metal mechanic at sixty-five cents per hour. That amounted to twenty-six dollars per forty-hour week. This was big money for me after working as a farm hand ten to twelve hour a day for a maximum of three dollars per day. After we went to work, Fred and I started paying our share of the living expenses. Frank never would take a penny for what he had spent on us up to that time. Quite a brother, huh?
Everything worked out pretty good in Wichita and at Boeing. We lived in a basement apartment with three other boys from around Harper. We did our own cooking, washing, and cleaning and shared expenses from a jar that we all donated to on payday. The apartment was owned by Jim Harrison, who charged us four dollars per week rent. Jim's wife, Mildred, looked after us boys as if we were her own. She had two boys and two girls of her own, who were about five to ten years younger than we were, and Jim's mother also lived with them. They were a real nice family, and we all liked them a lot.
I worked at Boeing for approximately five months, when I quit to enlist in the Air Corps with my best friend, Bill Drouhard. We had to go to Fort Riley to take a test before they would accept us to pilot training. It was a very tough mental test and we both failed at which time we both returned to the farm. We could take the test over again in four months if we so desired. Dad wanted me to apply for a farm classification which would exempt me from being drafted. I told him I would until people started to talk about me for not being in the service. I didn't think I could take that. Dad agreed and I got a class 2C classification for farm work. It was important to the war effort that farms continued to produce because there was a big need for food supplies. I settled into the farm routine, but it wasn't very long until people began to ask me when I was going into the service. There was especially one lady working in the post office, who would ask me every time I saw her, and that was nearly every day. She made me feel guilty that I wasn't enlisted. I felt like I was shirking my duty.
Eventually I told Dad that I would harvest the wheat and stay long enough to sow the new crop and then I was going into the service. A few weeks later Bill Drouhard came over and wanted me to go take the cadet test again. I told him I couldn't, I was working in the field at the time and I told Dad that I would stay until sowing was done. I didn't want to back out on Dad so we made plans: if Bill took the test and didn't pass we would wait until wheat was planted, then we would enlist in the Canadian Air Force, which was quite a bit easier to get into than the U.S. Canada was in dire need for pilots. As it turned out, Bill passed the test so after wheat was planted I went to Kansas City to take the test again--test headquarters had been moved from Fort Riley to Kansas City. I also passed the test and was accepted in October. They told me it would be a while before I was called and to go home and wait for orders.
Military Service
My orders came on about the fifteenth of November, 1943. I was to report to Fort Levenworth, Kansas, for shots, army issue of clothing, shoes (two pair), back pack, gas mask, and orders to go to Sheppard Field, Texas, for more rough tests and basic training. It was kind of a dirty trick. We took the tests and then we were called to a meeting and told that the army had all of the pilots they needed, however, they did need gunners for the bombers. We were to take more training and be assigned to a bomber unit. Needless to say, we were quite upset, but at least we would be flying. A few days later they told us they no longer needed gunners, either, and we would be interviewed and assigned what ever we were most qualified for. Because of sheet metal school and my Boeing experience, I was assigned to Casper, Wyoming, a B24 bomber airbase. One nice thing about Casper was that my brother, Fred, was also stationed there. He had been assigned tailgunner on a B24 and only had a couple more weeks to finish his training before he would be leaving to go overseas. We had a few weeks together before he left, which was great. I met all of his crew and even went out on the town with them just before they flew out. Fred wasn't over there very long when he was shot down over enemy territory and captured. He spent about a year in a prison camp. The Germans didn't have much food to give them because they were about starving themselves. Just before Germany surrendered, the Russians liberated them. Except for about starving to death, Fred was all right. He was shipped back home as soon as possible, thank God. There were four of us boys who were in the service, Walt, Frank, Fred, and I, and brother-in-law, Hank Wohlschlegel, and we all came home safe and sound, thanks to the prayers offered by our family and friends.
About four months after Fred was taken prisoner, I went to (POA) Port of Embarkation to be shipped overseas. This was quite an experience for me. I boarded a troop ship early one morning. It was nothing like a liner. As I recall, the ship had three decks. Two decks were filled with troops and there necessary facilities (bathrooms, kitchens, mess halls, and bunk beds). There were hundreds of bunk beds, three high and just barely wide enough to lay on. I drew the bottom deck and a middle bunk, lucky me. I didn't even have enough room to sit up without bumping my head, which I did quite often when I woke up, especially if I woke up kind of sudden.
The mess hall was lined with stainless steel tables about thirty inches wide with about a three inch raised edge. The edge was to keep our plates of food from sliding off onto the floor in a rough sea. The tables were about three feet apart, just barely enough room for two men to stand back-to-back to eat their meal. We had to constantly hold onto our plates to keep them from sliding away lengthwise when the ship would list. About three days out we ran into a storm and we leaned very quickly to hold onto our plates. The storm lasted two days and two nights and about 80% of the guys were sea sick by the time it was over. I was one of the lucky ones; only got a little queasy once in a while. In fact, I went up on deck several times and kind of enjoyed it. In the hole, as we called it, where we slept and spent most of our time the water soon got to be about four inches deep. It was quite a mess. We learned not to set anything on the floor or it would either get soak or float away or both because this water was constantly sloshing back and forth each time the ship would list. While up on deck, it was easy to see where the water in the hole came from. Each time the ship would hit a wave, water would splash all over the top deck. Most of it would drain back into the sea, but we were getting our share down in the hole, too. It would slosh around until we could get it pumped out.
It was quite a sight to stand by the rail and watch the waves. One minute, when we were on the top of a wave, the sea looked about a hundred fifty feet away, and the next minute it was in my face and I could wash my hands in it. Flying fish would shoot from wave to wave sometimes staying airborn for forty feet or more. The storm really made me understand the power of the sea and what a little speck I and the ship were in it. I could see nothing but enormous waves of water and it was tossing us around like a cork. Right then I prayed that the guys guiding the ship knew what they were doing and somehow I knew they did, without fear. I am sure glad it wasn't up to me to get us to our destination.
The storm left us on our fifth day, and the rest of our trip was really quiet and enjoyable. The water in the hole was pumped out, we didn't have to hold onto our plates anymore, and we could play cards again.
Two days later we landed in Pearl Harbor. I saw a lot of damage caused by the Japanese sneak attach on December 7, 1941. We unloaded and were taken by truck to Mokulia airstrip on Oahu, directly across the island from Pearl Harbor. Here we prepared all of our vehicles for the battle zone. After everything was ready, the orders were changed and they took us back across the island to Wheeler field air base. Our living quarters were in Schofield barracks, just across the street from Wheeler field. Schofield was a permanent military peace time living quarters made of concrete with three floors and would provide lodging for about three hundred soldiers. This was to be my home. I was stationed at Wheeler field to patch up sheet metal damage on our air force planes (all kinds). I spent the next eleven months there.
Love, Marriage, and Family
Not too long after may arrival at Wheeler Field, I received a letter from a girl in Wichita. I did not know her nor had I ever heard of her. One day there was a short story and pictures of the Davis boys in the Beacon, so she wrote Mom and got my address, hence the letter. She just wanted to write to someone who was in the service and maybe make him a little less lonely. In the letter, she told me a little bit about herself and that my cousin Fern Blubaugh rented a room in her family's home. I told my buddy about her, and said that I guess I'd write to her, but I would probably never hear from her again. He agreed that it was a good idea to answer her even if she didn't answer me back. However, I got another letter right away. This time she sent a picture, which I thought was pretty cute. My buddy said, "You know what? you'll probably go home and marry that gal." I just laughed. Soon we were writing nearly every day and I even got phone calls, gift boxes, and goodies from her. She really impressed me with her faithful letters, which came almost every day. I sure did look forward to them. I was beginning to believe my buddy might be right. When I got home, if she still felt the same as she wrote in her letters, it sure might come true. She did! I was discharged on October 5, 1945, and we got married on February 16, 1946. Marrying Jerry Rosenhamer was the best thing that ever happened to me. She is the mother of my nine children. We have five boys; Don, Dan, Daryl, Dick, and Bill and four girls; Nancy, Marcia, Grace, and Deanna.
Working for a Living
When we got married, Jerry had a job at the telephone company. I didn't have a job or a car. I was living on the farm and had $250 in the bank. We even borrowed Fred's car to take our honeymoon. While we were on our honeymoon, Jerry's Mom and Dad rented an apartment for us on Riverview street in Wichita. Mom completely stocked it with all of the staples: salt, pepper bread, flour, sugar and so on. When we got home, we moved right in and set up housekeeping. We had a kitchen, front room, and a nook for a bedroom with a curtain separating it from the front room. Our bathroom was down the hall and up the stairs, and it was shared with other renters in the building. I believe our rent was $10 a month.
I soon got a job at Davis-Westholt. They made farm machinery and other things. We still didn't have a car, but I got a ride to work right away. I worked there about six months when Fred decided to get married. He was living on the farm at the time but they didn't want to stay there after they got married. He asked if we would move back and run the farm and take care of Mom. I agreed, and once again we were farmers. We farmed on a 50-50 basis. Mom supplied the machinery, which she already had. We deducted expenses and split the profit equally. After a few years it was obvious that we could not make a living for Mom and us on the farm. It was just not going far enough for Mom or us. I was going to an agriculture school, for which I received $50 a month. I believe I was eligible for this for about eighteen months through the G.I. Bill of Rights because of my service time. When this ran out, we (Mom and I) decided that we had better sell out and call it quits. There was no land around to rent and one quarter just wasn't enough to make it.
We had the sale and moved back to Wichita. Mom bought a small house in Anthony and moved there. We lived with Jerry's folks while we looked for a job and place to live. I soon got a job at Boeing and started at $.95 per hour with a $.10 for working second shift. After about six months, I transferred to first shift. I worked in final assembly rigging control cables and modifying B52 bombers. I was given a leadman job and a rigging crew. After about two years of this, I heard about a salary job that was opening up in functional test planning. It would be clean work, with better pay, and ten days sick leave per year. The job happened to be on the very operations that I was working on, all of the flight controls on the airplane. I applied, and due to the experience I had working on controls, I got the job.
I worked for about five years in functional test and eventually got to be "A" man in the department. Later I transferred into tool and production planning where I spent the remainder of my Boeing career, thirty-two years in all. I retired in February, 1980, at the age of fifty-six.
Retirement (1980 and Beyond)
Retirement has been great, except for a little set-back with triple by-pass surgery in October of 1990. It took a while to recover, but on this date everything seems fine (October, 1995).
So much for the highlights of my life, as I remember it .
. . . to be continued.
Dad died on August 1, 1997 of a sudden stroke while relaxing in his cabin on Anthony Lake. Mom, my eight brothers and sisters, and I miss him very much. There is not a day goes by that I don't think about the many lessons I learned from him. He was a great father and husband. I will love him always.
- Daryl