Biography Frank Elijah and Helen Price Latham, Sabine Parish Source: Sabine Index, Many, La., Apr 29, 1998 Submitted by: Carl Dilbeck carlrad@earthlink.net ********************************************************** ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** ************ by George "Pete" Latham My daddy was mostly a farmer. In the winter, he became a cross tie maker using the big heavy broadax. This was extremely hard work. He was only able to make five or six a day and they sold for only eight to ten cents a tie. In farming, we raised corn, cotton, peas, sugar cane, peanuts, soybeans, watermelons, Irish and sweet potatoes and anything else good to eat. We had several hogs sometimes to kill for winter meat. They were either put in a salt box or cured by smoking with hickory wood, in the smoke house for two or three weeks at a time. To preserve sweet potatoes, we piled them up in big piles and covered them with straw, then we covered the straw with dirt. When we wanted potatoes we had to dig through the dirt and straw and then fill thehole up when we had gotten the potatoes we needed. Peanuts and corn were stored in the barn. During the winter, we would go to the barn, sink down in the peanuts and eat and pick off peanuts to roast. The corn was shucked and we later shelled it to make hominy or for seedcorn. Sugar cane was stripped, cut and hauled to the cane mill in the fall. Sometimes we would make over a hundred gallons of syrup, enough to last until syrup making time came around again. Drinking cane juice at the mill and watching the syrup cook was a good experience for any small boy or girl. The sugar cane we had left over would be bunked (buried) and used for seed cane the next year. One of the most enjoyable things to do was to ride on top of the cotton wagon and go to the cotton gin. We had to move everything out of the wagon when the suction pipe lowered to the cotton. It would take everything in it's way, hat caps, toys, etc... it took about 30 minutes to gin a bale of cotton. Getting cotton to the wagon was the biggest job, because we had to pick it. In order to do this we had to strap a big cotton sack on our shoulder's bend over, pick the cotton and pull along the sack until we got it full or nearly full, which usually was about 50-75 pounds. This was done during the hottest months of the year, and many times on these hot days we would not have a dry thread on us. In the summertime it was watermelon and swimming hole time. We would go to the watermelon patch, pull a melon, carry it to a shade tree, drop it, and eat the heart out (center) and make juice out of the rest. Sometimes we would carry them to the swimming hole, pitch them in and let them stay until we finished swimming and then eat them. The old swimming hole during the summer was a must, especially on Sunday afternoon. During my teenage lifetime, we had six different swimming holes from time to time. Each one was spring fed and always cold. We threw sticks and clods of dirt at snakes and kept on swimming. In the spring time, it was sprout-cutting time, (cutting bushes), cleaning the land and getting it ready for planting. We would first bed the field into rows, and sometimes we would have to re-bed if it was to early to plant, or some parts of the field were too grassy. All four of us younger boys played basketball and baseball. R.D.was a catcher, Lennis and Cecil, outfielders, and I was pitcher. In basketball R.D. and Lennis were guards and Cecil and I were forwards.R.D. and I played on one team together. We had a team that was good enough to win a few tournaments. Cecil and I played together on the only state championship ever for Converse High School in 1945. That year ended by us winning 13 consecutive tournaments, 59 straight games in a row and a 70 won and 2 lost record for my senior year. Every year on May Day, all schools in Sabine parish would meet at Many for baseball, volleyball, softball and many other games during the Mayday celebration. One of the fondest memories of these games was, Lennis hitting a homerun over the left field wall in one of the games. That's as vivid today as it was fifty years ago. One time R.D., Cecil and I decided to stay and watch Lennis play baseball against Oak Grove. The game went well until it was almost dark. We knew we were going to be in trouble when we got home, but what we didn't know was that we would be in trouble before we got home. When we hit the trail in the woods we saw mama coming to meet us. She had a peach tree limb about four or five feet long, and believe me she used it real good on all three of us. We had not gotten permission to stay and watch the game. One of my favorite memories is a buggy ride to San Patricio Baptist church with Grandma Brown. It was one Sunday morning that we took off for church four or five miles away, just me and grandma, all by ourselves. I was about nine years old at the time. I think Grandma let me hold the reins and drive some. What more could a nine year old ask for than a day spent with his Grandma. She said I was a good boy in church. Ha. When we lived at Grandma Browns place by the creek, eleven people slept in three bedrooms. Mama, Daddy, Grandma and, Maybelle slept in the fireplace room. The seven boys slept in two bedrooms. R.D. and Lennis slept together, Monroe and Cecil, Red and Floyd had the privilege of sleeping by himself. Later somebody stole my bedpartner away. A young lady by the name of Ruby stole my partner and I had to sleep in that cold bed all by myself. Later Grandma had a side room built on to the house and she and Maybelle moved out there to sleep. My first basketball goal was at Grandma Brown's place. I took a stiff rubber hose and circled it about the size of a goal, nailed it to the old sweet gum tree on the west side of the house, used my little red ball for basketball and ran my legs off chasing it. As of today 4-3-1990, the old sweet gum tree is still standing. Although we didn't have much at Christmas time, it was always a joyous occasion. We had apples, oranges and a few raisins. Sometimes there was some hard candy in our stocking. There were no presents, music, or Christmas cards. At Christmas there was always plenty to eat, such as cakes, pies, canned vegetables, and sometimes we killed a hog just before Christmas, if the weather was right. With crops planted, hoed, plowed and laid usually by July 4th, we had to take to the woods with ole gappy (cross cut saw) and cut winter wood for the stove and fireplace. This job took place in the woods where ticks and red bugs gave us a very hard time. The wood was sawed, split, hauled and stackednear the house. Building fires in the fireplace during real cold weather was a teeth- chattering chore. It usually took about thirty minutes to get the fire in the fireplace and stove going good. In the meantime you just froze. After the fire went out in the fireplace at night there was no heat in the house, except under several quilts. Sometimes there was snow and ice to wake to. Mama was usually in the kitchen by 5 a.m. or 5:30 a.m. getting breakfast ready for ten or eleven people. Some of the older ones had to be at work at the sawmill by seven o'clock. Then there where four or five school kids that had to have a lunch fixed plus breakfast. School did not start until 8:00. When we lived at Grandma Brown's one of our favorite work animals died, old Bell. She was about 18 years old and a very good plow mule. Press Wardell and the agriculture teacher tried to save her by sitting up all night with her. The next day they knew she was going to die, so Monroe and Press Wardell started leading her off. They had not reached the end of the lane before she started braying and then fell dead, about four hundred yards from the house. It was a sad moment for she had done so much to help feed a family of eleven people. R.D. and Mama did the milking of the cows. Sometimes we would drink the milk while it was still warm, after it was strained. In the summer time the milk went in a well or sometimes we lived where we had a spring. We usually kept anywhere from six to 12 milk cows. Our walk to school through the woods from Grandma Browns was about and one half miles. Unless it was snow or heavy rain, we always made it to school, none of us had raincoats. Walking through the woods on a trail part way we had the protection of the trees from cold wind and light rain. Sometimes when big rains came and the creek flooded, we had to take a longer route to school, through Mac Paul's pasture. When we moved from the Mann Raymond place to Lula, we had several loads of corn, in addition to household wares. We also had hogs, chickens and cattle that had to be moved. Mr. George Pugh helped Daddy with his wagon, taking several loads. They would leave before daylight and get back after dark, load up, and be ready for the next day's trip. The round trip was a little more than 20 miles. This went on for over a week because everything we had was moved in those two wagons. The sad part about it all, we had it to do all over the next year when we moved back to Grandma Browns' place. We lived with her about 8 years. From Grandma Brown's place we moved to the Valin Barr house down the railroad. This is the first place we had electric lights, but the heat was still the same, fire place and wood stove. All the children by now had left home except Monroe, R.D., Cecil and me. I built me basketball goal by nailing several boards about ten feet high against the old sycamore tree, cut the bottom out of an old waterbucket, rounded up empty quart oil cans for basketballs. It helped Cecil and me to develop the one hand setshot. We shot thousands and thousands of oil cans at that old water bucket. While at the Barr place, we strung a cable from one tree to anther, put one end high up in one tree and low in the other, put an iron pipe about one foot long on the cable to hold on to while we rode down. Sometimes we busted our butts when we landed. We still farmed the Charlie Jackson place north of the house, along with brother Henry lsgitt and his two youngest sons, H.T. Jr., and Kenneth. (Time Out: News flash -- April 4th 1990 - I just got back from a state wide Senior Citizens Olympics held in Houston, Texas and I won two gold medals in my age bracket, 60-64. One was in free throws, and the other was around the world, fifteen shots from different spots.) When we lived at the Barr place Daddy bought a big black draft horse. He was huge, about 1200-1400 pounds. We called him "ole Bob". He was a very good plow horse, being very gentle. He hardly knew a plow, slide or wagon was behind him because he was so big and strong. He got out of the pasture one day, went over on the highway and a car ran over him and killed him, almost in front of our present house on Highway 171. Our farming was done on a limited basis now as R.D. and I were big enough to work at the sawmill, although we were only 14 and 16 years old. We had only one hour for lunch and we had to walk home for lunch, eat and be back within an hour. That railroad got pretty hot during the summer months. It was almost a mile one way. When Lennis was in the Air Force he came home on leave. He had bought him a 38 or 39 Ford. Brought it home and, of course, I had to try it out, twenty feet forward and twenty feet backward. This was the first time I ever was under a steering wheel. Another time when we lived at Grandma Brown's he bought R.D., Cecil, and I a brand new bicycle. He left it over at Aunt Harriet's and made me go over, get it, and ride it home. We rode that bicycle until the pedals were nothing but stubs. I graduated from high school when we lived at the Barr place, entered Tech, played one year of ball and was drafted into the Army April 4, 1946. After three months in boot camp, I was on my way to Japan for a year. When I finally got my orders to come home, we came on a troop ship from Japan to Seattle, Washington. From Seattle to Shreveport, La. we were on a Troop train. I caught the bus from Shreveport to Converse. The bus driver was nice enough to let me ride the bus to the top of the hill south of Converse at the present gas station. I ran through the woods and across the railroad. I was screaming and hollering like a wild Indian, I was so glad to get back home and see all the family again. I had never been away from home but a few weeks at a time, and this had been over a year. Mr. Hamp Boyd and Mr. Herbert Briery were in the process of building our new house on Highway 171. I went back to Tech in the fall and Mama, Daddy, Monroe, and Cecil, and maybe some help from others, moved in the fall of 1947. This land was bought from Mr. Jack Burkett. Maybelle, R.D., Cecil and Monroe were the ones responsible for the getting the money, signing the papers and helping Mama and Daddy to settle down in their new house, with electric lights and gas heaters instead of a fireplace. At first, an inside bathroom was not built. They still used the out door toilet, later they agreed to have an inside bathroom built. One night when living at Grandma Brown's place, Monroe carried the family somewhere, that is, all except Daddy and me. He went to bed early and I sat down in front of the fireplace, eating some kind of nuts. I discovered daddy's overalls hanging on a chair by the bed. I knew he kept his Brown Mule chewing tobacco in his pockets, so I thought it was time for a good chew. So I slipped over and got his tobacco and cut me off a good size chew. I went back to the fireplace and started chewing. In about 10 minutes my head started going around and around. I didn't know you were suppose to spit the juice out. Yes, it made me sick, sick. In a few minutes I heard a voice say - "Son, is it making you that sick?" He had been lying there watching me all the time. I don't have to say that was the beginning and the end of my Brown Mule chewing. Short tid-bits -- The old well was used until the late 70's before running water was added. It was filled up by R.D. and me in 1989. Monroe, Daddy and Cecil built thebarns in the fall and winter of 1947. Maybelle sure liked to swing on vines across the creek, when they broke she'd go plop right in the middle of the creek! Lennis spent several years in the Air Force, and was in England on D-Day June 6th, 1944. Maybelle spent a lot of her Army life in the South Pacific during World War II. R.D. spent several years in the Navy during World War II, muchof it in the South Pacific. I spent 18 months in the Army, a little over a year in Japan with General MacArthur's occupation forces. Cecil spent twenty years in the Air Force in various places in the United States and the Pacific. I played pro-basketball one year in Indiana and pro-baseball one year in South La. Preston (Red) spent his life in the sawmill industry, working in Converse, Zwolle, Many, Nacogdoches, Texas, and Winnfield, La. He also did a lot of truck farming on the side. Floyd farmed, worked for the sawmill in Converse and spent most of his life working in the oil fields. Monroe did farming, sawmill, railroad and oil field work. Most of it around the Converse area. One day R.D. and I got into a fuss over who was to draw the water, take it and pour it in a tub over the fence, for the mules to drink. Finally Daddy came out took the well rope from us, doubled it and beat the tar out of both of us. That settled the issue and it was the only whipping I ever got from my Daddy, but it was enough, believe me. Mama was the one that carried the big switch - she got a lot of practice on me - Ha.