Bess Davis Ewy (1895-1993)

Transcription by Mary Shirer. Titles, hyperlinks, and [notes in square brackets] by John Huber.

Preface
This recording was made by me, Bess Ewy, in my 91st year, March 1986.

Born in the Cherokee Strip
When the Cherokee Strip in the Indian Territory in Northern Oklahoma was opened for homesteading, a race was formed by men who wished to file claims. They rode in wagons, buggies, and on horseback. My father, Samuel Edwin Davis, rode a grey horse named Frank. He staked a claim nine miles northwest of Perry, Oklahoma, at the point of a gun, as another man wanted the property more than my father. Dad won the argument and staked the claim. He built a house, a barn, and all the necessary buildings to maintain a nice farm.

On September 22, 1895, Mother started having labor pains, as she was pregnant with me. Since there were no telephones, John, my oldest brother, rode Frank to Perry to tell the doctor. However, Mother went into labor before the doctor, arrived, therefore Dad had to deliver me. I guess he did a good job as here I am still kicking at 90 years. The clock had stopped so they didn't know whother I was born on the 22nd or 23rd. They put the 23rd on my birth certificate.

I don't remember much about the farm but one thing I do remember was the lane on the main road to the house. On one side were mulberry trees and hedgeapples. Now, hedgeapples are an overgrown tree with fruit resembling grapefruit which is pithy inside, sort of spongy, and it is not edible. Another thing I remember is, when we went to the town, Perry, before we got there we had to cross a bridge. On this bridge was a sign which said, "Te dollars fine to trot across the bridge unless you go to Wallacestead's". Now Wallacestead's was a general store which sold everything -- clothing, groceries, coal oil, nuts and bolts, and plowshares. That is where Mother and Dad did all their shopping.

By Covered Wagon to Kansas
I wasn't very old when we moved to Kansas and had not started to school as there was no kindergarten at that time. We went to Kansas in a covered wagon with all our belongings including our family cat named Tom. The first night out, Tom went hunting -- or visiting, I don't know which -- and the next morning when we were ready to leave, Tom was nowhere to be found, so Dad impatiently took off without him, which made us very sad as he was part of our family

The farm in Kansas was seven and one-half miles northeast of El Dorado, in a little town named Chelsea. There wasn't much there -- just a church, a school, a store, a post office, and a blacksmith shop, as I remember. Our farm was located a short distance away on a river which crossed our property. In ordinary times, the river was low flowing. Whenever we had a storm it would overflow its banks. Therefore, there was a suspension bridge, suspended from trees on high ground on both sides to enable us to get across when the river was flooded, as the cow pasture was on the other side of the stream. We kids loved to run across this bridge and make it go up and down. We thought it was great fun. When the river was flowing normally, we wouId get in a row boat and row up the river and spank the bullfrogs with the oar and take them home for Mother to cook the legs.

There was a bend in the river which formed a sort of meadow where we had all our picnics. Mother would fry chicken, bake pies and cakes, make potato salad, lemonade, and ice cream -- and we would invite all our neighbors and friends. They would also bring food so there was plenty to eat. There was an area for a baseball diamond, horseshoes, and foot racing, so there was plenty to do to keep everyone entertained. There were large black walnut tress which were used for shade. Each fall we would gather these walnuts, put them on a canvas to dry so we could take the hulls off, store them away, and in the wintertime we would make pinoche, which is candy. We had a beautiful apple orchard with the most delicious apples, several varieties. We also had a cider press and in the fall Dad would make cider. However, when it started to ferment, he would feed it to the pigs.

Dad's sister, Bessie Parsons, her husband John, and three daughters -- Elsie, Irene, and Ruth -- owned the farm next to us. Since we had no phones, we would cup our hands and whistle whenever we wanted them to come over to play. Our house was framed, with flagstones at the entrance, with no roof over that area. One day Dad was on the the roof of the house repairing the shingles and I was on the flagstones playing with my big rag doll, which was almost as big as I was. I decided to go up and see what Dad was doing. When I was climbing from the top of the ladder to the roof, I fell on the flagstones. Fortunately the doll was under me and broke my fall. The first thing I remember was being in Mother's featherbed, as that is where she put us when we were ill or had gotten hurt, and that was a big treat for us, as our mattresses were made of straw.

In the summer and fall we had bad thunderstorms. One time we had a hail storm with stones as large as tennis balls. After the hail stopped, we saw a large funnel shaped cloud in the sky and Mother took all of us into the storm cellar -- except John, Agnes, and Dad, who were milking cows in the barn. While we were in the cellar, we heard a loud crash, and we thought sure the house had blown away, but it was only the rain barrels that had blown on the cellar door. The cyclone passed through between the house and the barn. The corncrib, which was in between, was empty except for a partly filled ton gallon milk can the milkers had been filling. The corncrib was completely blown away, leaving the can sitting upright with not a drop of milk spilled.

On November 15, 1904, my youngest sister, Nan, was born at home in Mother's featherbed.

Settling Alberta
In early 1906, land in Alberta, Canada, opened for homesteading. Dad went up and staked his claim 75 miles East of Stettler. The reason he was interested in this homestead was there were railroad stakes along the property, which indicated where the railroad would be. A few years later they made the railroad 14 miles south in a town named Coronation. It took Dad three days to make the 75 mile trip out to the farm.

After Dad got home from staking the claim, there was an excursion train organized. Each car had its own leader and he carried a cane which he would wave in the air so we could follow him. Nan was very ill on the trip with bronchial pneumonia. Dr. York was in our car, and he took care of her throughout her illness. He remained our family doctor during the rest of our time in Canada. He and his wife became good friends. Later they had two children, Joe and Dorthea. Unfortunately, Mrs. York died, so Agnes took Joe, and Mother took Dorthea, until Dr. York was able to find a competent housekeeper.

We arrived in Stettler on Easter Sunday, April 6, 1906. The next day we started off on the long trip to the homestead in a covered wagon. It took us three days. We lived in tents until the house was built. While we were living in the tents, we got the measles, one at a time -- all nine of us. One day I was not feeling very well so I went to sleep on a trundle bad. When I awoke, I was red as a beefsteak.

After the house was built, Dad started a grocery store and was later granted the post office, which was named Talbot for Senator Talbot.

One time when Dad went to Stettler shopping for supplies, he bought a pony and came home with it tied to the back and of the wagon. We named her Topsy. She gave birth to a beautiful little pinto pony which we named Dandy. When he was old enough to ride, we spent many hours riding all over the prairie on these two ponies. We also had a saddle horse which was used for rounding up cattle. All we had to do was give him the rein and say "Find the cattle" -- and he would find them every time.

There was a pond between the house and the barn, where in the winter we had skating parties. Also there was a hill north of the house where we would toboggan and ski.

In western Canada it was unlawful at that time to turn anyone away after 4 p.m., as places of refuge were few and far apart. Because we had a rather large house, people made it a stopping place. Mother gave them food for 25 cents per person. We especially enjoyed the Northwest Mounted Police, as they were all nice clean-cut young men, and lots of fun. One time my brother, John, and one of the MPs were scuffling and Mother had fly paper all around, so John grabbed one of these papers and plastered it down on the MP's head, flys and all.

In the fall Dad would butcher steers and hogs. From the hogs he made sausage and bacon. The beef was cut in quarters and hung in the pump house, as it was Uunheated and the meat stayed frozen all winter. As soon as the lake froze over, the men would cut holes in the ice and put a lighted lantern beside them, which would attract the fish. When they came up to the light, the men would spear them, throw them on the ice and in a few minutes they would be frozen solid. They took them home threw them into a snowbank and whenever Mother needed fish for dinner, Dad would go out and dig one out of the snow.

Our living style was very primitive: wood stoves for cooking, pot-belly stoves for heat, coal oil lamps for light. I had the job of cleaning the chimneys every morning. Also we had a two-holer in the backyard. On cold winter days it was a shock to go out there and find the seat covered with snow. Mother had to heat the wash water in a copper boiler on an outside fire to do the laundry using a large washboard in a tub.

Alice, Edna, Nan, and I spent long cold winter days making candy. One time we were dipping chocolates and Alice suggested we dip a piece of soap and give it to one of the boys. So we dipped the soap, put it in a special place on the cooling board so we would be sure to know where it was. In some way it got moved and Alice got the soap. The joke was on her!

There were no schools out there as yet, so Dad organized a school district. Then he and all the neighbors got together and built the school, which they named Junction Valley School. It was impossible to got competent teachers at that time. One was a housewife, another a boy from one of the farms -- so we did not learn very much.

Housefire
On the night of October 4, 1908, our house caught on fire. It started at the window in our bedroom. l grabbed my clothes and ran out and dressed behind the slop barrel. It was a very sad sight to see the beds and everything still standing on the upstairs floor. Since the fire started at the window, the siding burned off first, leaving a clear view of the rooms upstairs. My clothes that I had been wearing, and the piano, were the only things saved. A couple of men were pushing the piano out and they banged it against the door casing. One man said, "Watch out, you're tearing the door casing!" The other man said, "What difference does it make, it's going to burn anyway."

We had a large root cellar where we kept all our extra supplies like vegetables, carrots and potatoes, and our coal. There was a large cook stove down there so Mother and Dad moved into the cellar and the rest of us stayed with neighbors until the house could be rebuilt. The very next day Dad went to town and bought lumber and as soon as the debris was cleared away Dad and the neighbors got busy and the house was built in a very short time, which was a good thing because the weather was beginning to get very cold.

To California
Four years later, in the spring of 1912, Dad decided to move to California. John, Rea [Rachel], Agnes, and Helen had all married, therefore, they all stayed in Canada. We [parents, Alice, Edwin, Edna, Bess, and Nan] took the train to San Francisco. On the way, the train got snowbound, so we kids got off the train, played in the snow, and had snowball fights. Since we were snowbound, the railroad company had to give us our meals in the dining car, which was a big treat for us since we had been eating cold food from our picnic basket. When we got to San Francisco, there was no way across the bay except by boat, so each car was put on a flat boat and taken across to the ferry building.

Dad bought a Ford car and we drove to Earlimart, to our new home, [in the San Joaquin Valley] north of Bakersfield. Since I had missed so much school, I decided to take the seventh and eighth grades over.

Delano High School
I didn't get to high school until the fall of 1914. Dad rented an apartment over a pump house in Delano. Two brothers, Robert and Dean Snow, and Edwin and I lived there while we were in school. We went home for the weekends. Mother and Dad would load the car with groceries and baked goods so I would not have to do any shopping during the week. They would drive us back to Delano on Sunday evening. In June, I graduated and was elected Valedictorian, but I was very shy so I declined.

Dad's sister, Sarah Dawson, who we called Aunt Sade lived a short distance from us. She had three boys: Ralph, Robert, and Emory, and one daughter, Hazel. We had a water reservoir for the stock, which we used as a swimming pool. They, as well as all the other neighbors, came there to swim.

Mother was a very patient person. I don't remember of her ever striking me except for thumping me on the head with her thimble if I bothered her when she was sewing. But one day Nan was running around the reservoir and Mother called her. Nan said, "Wait until I run around three more times." Well, Mother met her on her first round and switched her legs all the way around and into the house. However, Dad was different. He whipped us at the least provocation. He would take down our panties, put us across his knee and spank us until we stung. If one of us did something naughty and he was unable to find who the guilty person was, he whipped all of us so he would be sure to get the right one. At other times, he would put as many of us on his lap as he could, trot us, and sing songs. His favorite was the Arkansas Traveler.

One of the neighbor girls got sick, so Dad went to get his doctor. Unwisely, he went into the house not knowing what her illness was. The doctor needed a pencil to write a prescription, so he borrowed Dad's. Nan liked to sit on Dad's lap to write and draw pictures and had a habit of putting the pencil in her mouth. As a result, she got diphtheria, which was what the neighbor girl had. Dad and Mother pitched a tent in the yard, furnished it, and moved the rest of us into the tent. We cooked Thanksgiving dinner out there. Mother baked a pumpkin pie and brought it out while it was still hot, placed it in the yard for us to get. None of the rest of us got diphteria, for which we were very thankful.

Owens Valley and Return to Alberta
Dad was a very restless person, so in early 1915 he staked a claim in Chalfant Valley, north of Bishop. In August we moved up there, rented a two story house on Pine or Elm, I don't remember which. We registered in school the first part of September. Attended Bishop Union High School for a week, when Dad learned that the City of Los Angeles had taken all the water rights. Therefore, there was no way to get water out there. Since Dad still owned the farm at Talbot, he decided to move us back to Canada. The railroad at Bishop had been abandoned, therefore there was no way to get our household furnishings to Reno. So Dad fixed up a covered wagon. We kids were so ashamed and embarrassed -- we hid in the back of the wagon. When people would pass us in cars, they would laugh, blow their horns and yell. We Came to a farm just out of Carson City which had an "EGGS FOR SALE" sign on the gate. Mother curled Nan's hair and dressed her in a fluffy dress and sent her to buy eggs. The lady of the house asked Nan where she lived, and Nan pointed to the covered wagon and she wouldn't believe it. Dad left us in Carson City to take the narrow-gauge train to Reno. It was an old antique train with a pot-bellied stove in the rear end. Dad went on to Reno, where he took a passenger train from Reno to Coronation.

Helen, Jim, and [their son] Bateson were living on a farm a short distance out of Laugheed, which was north and west of Talbot. They came home for Christmas that year and talked me into going home with them to help Helen through her pregnancy with Georgina. I churned butter, made bread, helped take care of Bateson, as well as the housework. Helen was in the hospital over a week, as that was the standard time in those days. I did all the aforementioned chores plus laundry and shopping.

Georgina was born March 21, 1916. I stayed with them until Helen was able to take over. Then I took a job at the post office in Laugheed. The postmaster lived on a farm and did not come to town except once or twice a week, so I had the whole post office to myself, except for a boy who brought the mail from the railroad station.

I lived with Jim's oldest sister Olive and her husband Gordon, who was station master. The apartment was upstairs over the station. Everything was fine until Olive went to Edmonton on a shopping trip and was gone a couple of days. I was coming up the stairs one day. Gordon was coming down and he made a pass at me. I jerked away from him and ran to a boyfriend's house. When I told him what had happened, he took we to a hotel and got we a room where I stayed until Olive came home. Then I got my things and moved into Mrs. Thomas' boarding house. Several of the boys that worked at the bank lived in the boarding house. As we became good friends, they helped me with the books, as I had never taken bookkeeping in school. I was invited to all of their parties as well as their picnics, and we had a very good relationship.

To Brawley, California
The first part of January, 1917, I received a letter from Mother saying that Dr. York had told them that she had to be moved to a warmer climate as her arthritis was so bad, and for me to meet them in Calgary at a certain date. So I quit my job and left. All my friends were envious of me because I was moving to California. We took the train from Calgary to Seattle, where we took the U.S.S. Governor to San Pedro. It was a very rough sea, and all of us got very seasick -- even some of the crew. Uncle Charlie met us at the boat and we stayed with him and Aunt Cora until Dad got a place for us to live in Brawley [in the Imperial Valley, near the Mexican border]. I registered in school again, but soon I had to quit to take care of Mother. Edwin, Edna, Nan, and I were the only ones left at home, as Alice was in Raton, New Mexico, with Aunt Alice. Soon after we moved to Brawley, Edwin joined the Navy, 4 April, 1917. Edna and I attended the Christian Church, where we made some very good friends.

While I was still in Laugheed, I [had] felt a lump on my left breast, but did not say anything about it to anyone until April, 1917 -- and when I told Mother she immediately took me to Dr. Dunham and he made arrangements for surgery on Friday, April 13, at the El Centro Catholic Hospital. The only room available was in the maternity ward. A woman was expecting at any time, and she had a crib all fixed up, which was very embarrassing when young men came to see me.

My boyfriend, Marshall Mills, brought Edna to visit me one day and from then on he was Edna's boyfriend. That was the story of my life, as Edna and Nan were always enticing someone from me. Soon after I met Marshall, I met his cousin by adoption, Forest Dowdon. He and I became very close friends. On my birthday in 1917, he gave me a beautful diamond lavaliere, which I still have and wear. We were friends until he enlisted in the medical corps. There he met a nurse, which ended our relationship.

Los Angeles
The first part of 1918, Dad sold the farm in Brawley and bought a general store in Bell, California, at the corner of Gage and Atlantic, where Edna and I worked for spending money and very little of that. When one worked in a grocery store in those days they really worked. Everything had to be weighed and bagged and carried out to the vehicles. We only had the store a year when we bought a house at 1856 West 38th Place in West Los Angeles.

On May 24, 1919, I went to work at Bullock's at 7th and Broadway in Los Angeles, cashiering in the tube room. It was a good experience with little pay, just $11.00 a week.

Courtship and Marriage
In May of 1921, I took my vacation and went to Brawley to visit my best friend, Opal Burton. Before I arrived, she had planned a wiener roast out in the sand dunes, and had a blind date for me with Slim Gruel. However, Carl Ewy had seen me get off the train and he told Opal if he couldn't take me, he wouldn't go. So she made other plans for Slim, and I went with Carl. We [Carl and I] spent most of my vacation together. Then when I went home he would drive the 210 miles on the weekends to visit me. I thought that I would give him a special treat for one weekend, so I bought tickets to see Madame Butterfly at the Morosco Theater. He slept though most of it.

On September 9, we went to the Los Angeles city hall to get a marriage license, only to find it was closed [for] Admission Day. So we had to go back the next day and were married that evening at 6:00 in Mother's living room. After the reception, we took the train for Brawley. Carl was a volunteer fireman. The "boys" had planned to meet the train, grab Carl, and throw him into jail. But as it turned out, we didn't arrive until Sunday morning, so their big joke failed.