Submitted for the LA GenWeb Archives by Floyd Eugene (Gene) Milford, III June 1, 2004 glm @ internet8.net ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** John Thomas Milford The Early Years A BEGINNING OF MY LIFE STORY Feb. 18, 1979 In a task of this sort, it's difficult to know just where to start. So I'll begin with my birth. I was born January 9, 1895 in Lincoln Parish, just east of Ruston, Louisiana, about two miles on what was then known as a "sharecropper" farm. The farm was owned by a Dr. Lawrence in Ruston and was on the basis of 1/6th participation for the use of the house and the land. This 1/6 was taken out of all salable produce, such as corn, cotton, and peas. If we produced six bales of cotton, his share would be on bale. A hundred bushels corn he would get six and our share would be ninety-four, etc. (a barrel rep. one bushel). The land was poor and the above figures just about represented a year's production. Corn sold for 75¢ a barrel in the husk and cotton was 15¢ per pound or $75 for an average bale of 500 pounds. So you can see what our family of seven (at that time) had to squander (subsist on). Every member of the family had to work from age eight on (work, not play at it.) Even my next older brother, Sam, who was 6 years old at the time I am describing and I, age three, had a job. I'd carry water to those members working in the field. This is the earliest period in my life that I can still remember. The reason: we both got a sound thrashing with a switch for playing on the way and beating down some stalks of corn with a stick we were playing with (beating up Indians). The licking was so severe, my mother has to mop the floor afterward. This is why my early impressions are so long lasting. I have never forgotten, which implies a moral which is lacking in today's youth. I'm sure a great many modern parents will take issue with this statement. My father's vocabulary was almost limited to two words: yes and no. And the yes rusted out from lack of use. This is a brief, partial background to my parents and the family that migrated west from Georgia. A more full description will appear later in the story. Not long after the Civil War, the trend was to go west. So my parents had pulled up and left Georgia with little more than the clothes on their backs and only train fair as far as Ruston, Louisiana. But with a faith and hope of finding a better life. The railroad called at the time V. S. & P. (Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific, now Illinois Central) was just being completed. None of them had ever ridden on a train before and they didn't know how to use the indoor toilets, so they had some trouble keeping their feet from slipping off the stool. This may sound ridiculous to a modern day person, but I know what it was like as I was fifteen before I ever had used one. From this early beginning and meager surrounding sprung forth a "life" that I would not wish to change. We moved from Ruston soon after my third birthday to an old settled farming community called Pleasant Grove, near Choudrant, Louisiana. They got its name from a Baptist church and schoolhouse of the same name. Here is where I received most of my formal education. It was one of those one room schools (not a little red one) where all students were taught by a lone teacher in one room. There were no inside or outside facilities, not even a "half moon" two-seater. The girls used the bushes on the north side and the boys on the south. (The boys killed a big pine tree.) There was a fine spring of cold water down a short way from school, which supplied plenty of drinking waster which we would bring up in a two-gallon bucket, but there was only one dipper from which all drank. This is lieu of the prevalence of tuberculosis being wide-spread, is a wonder that all didn't contract the disease. This spring also provided water for the baptismal services to all converts at the church which used "baptism by immersion" only and we boys, who used occasionally in August for a bath. The water got up to around 55 degrees in August. Back to my education. There are many events that are still vivid in my memory. As a starter, I was taught my ABCs by Garrett Ray, who was later to become a professor at "now Louisiana Tech." I was told that he was Tech's first President (but this has been disputed). In this one room school we had only wooden benches. No desk, the teacher used a kitchen table as her desk and a cane-seat chair (cost then, 75¢). All grades up to the 8th (which was top) was taught in the presence of all. The enrollment for the school was less than thirty pupils. In order to maintain discipline, the teacher was permitted to bring smaller ones up, stand them on her desk (table), and administer five paddles with a little flat paddle. On the older boys she used a "hickory switch" which they were required by their parents to submit to. Suffice to say the teachers had no discipline problem. Here is where I learned my first "Greek." Namely, "a pronoun is a word that modifies a noun, adjective or another pronoun." I was fifty years old before I could understand what this meant. Algebra was also Greek to me. I don't think the teacher knew either. So much for now in my formal education. "More later." I'm writing this autobiography as the result of an extremely sad accident. My mother had two suitors for her hand in marriage. But my father had lost out because of his drinking habits. He also ran a grist mill powered by a waterfall, where they ground corn for meal, also hops for making Georgia corn likker. The other suitor, who didn't drink and to whom she was partial, accidently shot himself after a squirrel hunt trying to separate his dogs that had gotten into a fight over the squirrels' residue. He used the gun butt to punch them apart. The gun discharge struck him in the stomach from which he never recovered. After a short while my father, who was really in love with her, came back with a promise that if she would marry him, he would never take another drink (a promise he never broke). From this union sprung a family of five boys and three girls, of which I am the youngest of the boys. My youngest sister, who is three years my junior, and I are the only survivors of the family (at this time, 1979). They both came up in mountain families though my mother lived in Alabama, my father living in Georgia, only three miles apart. More about the family tree will be dealt with later. An Incident That Changed the Rest of My Life I learned to play stringed instruments at an early age (by ear). I earned my first money ($1.50) at age eleven playing for a "square dance." It was common practice for the young adults to gather at their homes and have a grand time square dancing. (No round dancing, as it was called, was allowed, since this was just a sly way to hug your girl. The instruments usually consisted of fiddle (violin), guitar, mandolin and five-string banjo, all of which I could play. This fact gave me my first opportunity to fill in. On this particular time the fiddler didn't show, and my brother said my little brother can play if you want. They agreed and I was in; the other fellow lost his job. By my fifteenth birthday I had become the Johnny Cash of my day. And here is where the "incident" entered. My father had rented a house on our farm to a newcomer to the community who had two daughters. The younger one was a nineteen year old sultry brunette who loved to have me sing love ballads with my guitar. Her favorite was "I'm Alone Because I Love You." My dad sensed that at fifteen I was getting too involved with a nineteen year old girl. So he asked them to move. They moved across a creek to a man's place who had two sons, one 27, the other 21, which made a good match agewise. The catch: I was forbidden to ever go to her house again. In the meantime the younger man had fallen in love with her. But she still "mooned" for my song and guitar. She would send me word to come and play for her. The suitor had become jealous and warned her not to see me again. If she did he would beat me up. So, on the "eventful" night, I violated my forbidden law, sneaked a "went." After arriving the older sister informed me that I had better leave as the two brothers were coming also. Shortly they arrived and without words sat down. No one talked. Taking my cue, I decided it was time to leave. So, after expressing my regrets for leaving, I departed. They quietly followed me outside. The younger one said you were warned not to come here again. I said I had a special invitation and it was none of his business. I suggested we go down the road to settle our difference. He was 21 and weighed 175 pounds. I was 15 and 120 pounds, but I was lean and hard, he was fat. Here is where a fatal act almost happened. We boys always carried long bladed knives of which the point on mine had been broken off. After realizing I was over matched, I managed to get it out, opened it with my feet, stuck it in his lower back and walked around him. Had not the point been broken, his kidney would have been severed. What happened after that almost became another tragedy. His older brother seized me from behind while the other beat me with his fist, closed the knife up, beat my hair off, threw me on the ground, stomped my face in with his shoe heel, beat me over the head with a pine knot, left me for dead. I managed to get home, but still fearful of my father, went to bed without telling anyone. The next morning, both eyes closed, bloody all over. My face looked like a piece of liver, black and blue. My dad said what in the world happened to you. I said, "I went over to see Ida Glass and Bud and Vassar Bennett beat me up." Without further comment he said, "I thought I told you to never go there again." I said, "Yes, but she begged me to come." My good fortune was that after two weeks in the hospital the other fellow recovered. My misfortune was that for disobeying his injunction, my father took me "out of school" and made me saw logs for lumber until I was eighteen years old. So, at age eighteen I was "set free" to go out into the world to seek my fortune. This ends one chapter in my rather eventful life. My Military Service Record I volunteered (not drafted) in June 1917 in Company K, Louisiana National Guard, "was rejected" by recruiting officer in Lake Charles for being four pounds underweight for my height (5'11", 138 pounds). However, they sent me to New Orleans to see if they would accept me. I went in without question. This was on a Sunday, when I had my first army meal, which I'll never forget. A squad of eight men sat at a long sawbuck table with a long bench on each side. Since I was new they put me on the long end. I had no "mess kit," so they gave me a tin pan and tin cup. They didn't ask what you wanted nor how much. The first servers (K.P.s) came with a small garbage-like can of stew (slum) dished up with a big dipper. Every one received a full dipper, which just about filled my tin plate. Next was a similar container of beans; same procedure, my tin pan was now running over. "But not yet." Every one got a dessert, boiled rice with raisins, which added on top of my stew and beans. The last server was bread; he "skidded" two slices down to me shuffle board style. I had been boarding with Mrs. Gaston Martin who served very dainty meals. After looking at my tin pan, I wasn't hungry though I hadn't eaten since the night before. The others dived into theirs and wanted to know if I was sick. My first day after the typhoid, paralyphid, small pox vax and others given men on entrance, I was placed in a squad, went on a twenty-mile hike my first day out with full pack of seventy-five pounds. But here is where my country life came to me. It was easy as I had been used to walking all my life. Many fell out and had to be picked up by ambulance. My next experience (second day) I was put on guard duty. Lieutenant Jimmy Kuttner, who had double-dated with my future wife and me and his future wife at home. I hadn't been instructed on what to say, if the Officer of the Day came by my post at night, but I had seen it in the movies. So I said, "Halt, who goes there?" Since he knew I was a rookie, he corrected me with the correct challenge. He said, "You should say, 'Halt; advance and be recognized.'" I said, "Thank you, Jimmie." Again, he said, "You must address me as Lieutenant and say, 'Yes sir,' and 'No sir.' We can no longer fraternize since I am an officer and you are an enlisted man." Another comical incident on my second day of guard duty. They assigned to me three men from the guardhouse to guard on a work detail, and issued me three rounds of ammunition and said, "Don't let anyone get away." It was lucky no one attempted to escape as, while I was a rookie in the army, I could shoot a rifle, learned on the farm. And they told me I must obey orders. The remainder of my stay in Camp Nichols in New Orleans was routine. Except my guitar came in handy. We had two men who could sing. We formed a little group as entertainers, would go up to the end of our company street late in the afternoon and "put on a show." Since we were stationed in City Park, many park-goers would come by to see the soldiers. We soon had large audiences. This made us "feel good" and helped break the monotony of camp life. Like most good things, it came to an end. We were transferred to Camp Beauregard near Alexandria. This was a new experience. When we arrived by troop train, there was nothing but one company of engineers, one mess hall, and sufficient tents to take care of our company. The rest was broom sage and pine stumps, and a few rattlesnakes. At this time we were changed from an infantry company to a military police company in preparation to police a whole division of new recruits of the first draft. These men were from Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, right from civilian life with no military training. Most of the officers were called "ninety-day wonders," having gone to three-month officer training school. If you think this was an easy job, you have another guess. Many of them were from the Ozarks and did not take discipline easy. When four or five of them got on a spree, it took a whole company to quell them. So we never ran short of K.P. and latrine tenders. It seemed I always got picked for guard duty. On my second night in camp I was posted to guard the water tower which was then way out in the woods. I drew the midnight to 4:00 a.m. shift, and there were the usual rumors that Germans would attempt to poison the water. So we had strict orders to remain alert. Well, I've spent many more pleasant hours than these four hours were. Policing in Alexandria was quite an experience. It seemed that many of these young boys, who were enjoying their first time away from home, tried to see how much mischief they could get into, since all we could do was take them back to camp for a week on K.P., etc. The "Black People" would have a Saturday night dance down on Lee Street where all the young girls could be found. This caused us much trouble. The soldiers would go down and take all the boys' partners. Solution: close them down. Alexandria was a "wet town" and this was another problem. Camp orders: no liquor could be brought into camp. The check point was at the bridge over Red River. Here is where I received my Ph.D. in ingenuity. They could devise more ways to get it past you than a squirrel can bury pecans. One favorite way, they would take the spare off a car, put small bottles in, and place the tire back on the rim. We would search under the hood, seats and lining (this is how we got our supply). They ran a shuttle train twice each day into town, where an M.P. rode each car. No one wanted the officers car, so I volunteered and found it easy but monotonous. We had only three orders: 1, let no one on after the train was moving; 2, let no one off until it stopped; and 3, no feet on the cushion seats. I only had one occasion to assert my authority. A major fresh out of West Point got on with his high boots, swagger stick and spurs. He sat down and immediately socked his spurs into the seat opposite him. I approached, saluted and said, "Sir! You will have to remove your feet from the seat." Said he, "By whose orders?" I said, "General Hodges, sir." (General Hodges was our division commander.) "Very well, corporal." (I had been promoted to corporal.) I had decided by this time that I didn't join the army just to ride a train back and forth to Alexandria. There came a general order that they were organizing a field signal battalion, that anyone wishing to change could do so. I immediately put in for transfer, not knowing the M.P. company was destined to be stationed in Paris for the duration of the war. My transfer came in December 1917 and I entered into a field of endeavor to which I was wholly unqualified for. No formal education, no experience in any branch of the battalion. Company A was a wireless company made up primarily of professional operators. The head operator was from Arlington National Station in New Orleans. Company B was made up of telegraph operators from Western Union and railroad dispatchers, all professional. Company C was a telephone company. We used all types of communication, trench radio, telephones, buzzers, carrier pigeons, wig-wag flags, also strung wires and set poles. We had to do all the hard work. It didn't take me long to realize that I was a square peg in a round hole. At first, all the above named companies were in a state of organization and spent all of our time teaching recruits infantry drill, to which I had already been trained. But before I came in they had set up with draft non-coms who didn't know how to "squad right." The weather was cold. The top sergeant came out and asked if anyone could use a typewriter to step out. I was the only one, though I could only use one finger. After one day he thought I had better try filing. Anyway, I got out of drill. They asked for people who would like to try out for airplane pilot training; I of course stepped out. Our first test was rather crude but effective. We sat in a revolving office chair. A rope was wound around with which you would get a fast spin, after a sudden stop. You'd have to walk straight and steady about ten feet and touch a post in front. Suffice to say I failed completely. I couldn't even stand up. By this time daily classes began in actual war condition in which we would have to be prepared to "get the message through" and no fooling. Including what to do if captured by the enemy, etc. All of which was like pronouns and algebra (in my country school), Greek to me. But to my surprise I learned it fast. Here enters another "incident" in my life. An order came from the commanding general to all company commanders to select one man from each company to attend a new intelligence school being formed for special services in war. Guess who was picked? "Me." Why? I'll never know. This school was held in a highly secret building. It was composed of high ranking intelligence men from the English, French, Canadian and American armies, all the way from General Hodges, our commanding officer, General Cornels, majors, captains down to lowly sergeants like myself. (I had been promoted to sergeant). Once inside this double-sealed room, rank was suspended, all there to study how to defeat the enemy. The school was to run for six months which time one could request to get out. If you chose to stay in, it was for life, as after this period. All the secrets of the war effort would be revealed and to reveal them was treason and punishable by death by firing squad. Due to my inherent nature, it wasn't pleasant to study and plan so many ways to kill men. However, it was pointed out that it was not a question of emotions but one of either killing or getting killed, and that in war it's not murder but one of survival, that the enemy was doing the same to us. This experience was indeed revealing. Such as taking note of casual expressions and attitudes amongst our own men. Giving our opinions on what we would do under certain situations. We also learned how to code messages, decode the enemy messages, how to conceal them using many ideas learned from the Germans who had the most advanced and highly effective system. They had perfected photography to perfection, especially photographing a coded message then reducing the picture so small it could be place on a typewriter period dot, taken off and reenlarged. But the most simple places were nailed in one's shoe heel, under the sole, two piece buttons, etc. They also made much use of the Holy Bible as a code book. They would write a simple little letter as one Christian to another and quote a verse of scripture. Without their code book, one would have to resort to the many methods we perfected to attempt their solution. I had a natural aptitude for reproducing on paper things that I saw. So I was useful in sketching terrain and map sketching. These were important. Another reason, I came to realize later, was my obeying orders without exception, no questions asked. This stemmed from my early childhood obedience to my father, who didn't permit questions of why, nor accept excuses. Disobedience brought on a most severe "licking" with a hickory switch. In this school was a man who had been in the British Secret Service for twenty-seven years then. He had been stationed all over the world and could converse in seven different languages, including Chinese (Mandarin) from service in Hong Kong and Peking. He had charge of the carrier pigeon department. From this service we became close friends. He always remembered me at Christmas time with a unique, specially engraved card, many of which I prize highly. The 114th F.S.Bn. to which he was assigned for the duration of World War I, celebrated our 23rd yearly reunion in 1978 and offered to pay all expenses for him to attend the reunion a few years back, but he had become too feeble to make the trip. He and his good wife have since made the Final Mustering-out Call. His memory as a war buddy will remain until my Final Roll Call. More about my happening during the school. About midway in the school we had a meningitis scare and the whole camp was quarantined. Companies on the marching field had to keep a distance of fifty feet apart. No one was allowed to come in or leave camp. This of course closed the school temporarily. I was married then and since I was in school with the General, I asked the major of our battalion if I could have a seven-day leave. He said the only persons who could grant my request was Major General Hodges and the Surgeon General of the 39th Division. I requested permission to go see the General and to my surprise it was granted. I had never had this experience, but upon entering G.H.Q. an orderly questioned the purpose of my visit. I informed him that I had an appointment to see the General. After verifying my statement I was ushered into the General's presence. To my surprise he recognized me from the school, gave me "at ease" and invited me to take a seat. After a few inquiries about my school, he said, "Sergeant, what is the purpose of your call?" I said, "Sir, I'd like a leave of seven days." He said, "Why?" I said, "Because I'm married." Without another word, he said, "Request granted. How soon can you leave?" "Right now." He inquired if I had been to get clearance from the Surgeon General. "Yes sir. I have his report with me." After looking it over, he picked up his phone, called the hospital to send an ambulance to take me in to the train. This was the only vehicle permitted to leave camp. All this is true and took only 30 minutes, but getting through the meningitis test was not pleasant. This didn't take so long, and was not as painful as it may sound. It consisted of a fine flexible piece of wire about fifteen inches long. They put a small piece of cotton on the end and go through your nose (both nostrils) down through the back of the head into the spinal column without anything to deaden the pain. But I was so anxious to get away I hardly felt it. The quarantine was lifted after twenty days and the school reopened and I went back to learn more about how to become a spy. But fate entered again. We had an outbreak of measles, school closed again, but this time I was sent back to my company with strict instructions not to discuss anything about what we had in school. We were sent out on a ten-day training mission under actual war conditions, with artillery, infantry, machine guns. The only difference, they were firing blanks and we knew we wouldn't meet the enemy. On the seventh day, I was in a command post out in a field near a building being used as an office. A wireless came through my post for the company commander to end the training at once, bring all troops to camp, and prepare to leave for France. I knew this would take several days, so I went over to the office to ask permission to phone my wife and tell her to come to Alexandria to see me before we left. No one was in the office, so I used their phone anyway. When we got to camp we were immediately quarantined to quarters. Positively no one could leave camp. But they didn't reckon what a Tom (cat) could do to get out. Our top sergeant and I were very close and being a sympathetic man, he agreed if I didn't get caught, he wouldn't report me. Here enters my training as a military police. The top sergeant said, "I'll give you an M.P. armband and an M.P. hat cord, You can go into town as an M.P." I went into town every night until the night before we left. Only one close call. They had a fire drill at 2 a.m. Everyone had to fall out for roll call. When my name was called, a buddy said, "Here." Alfred Hebert's "sweetheart," not girlfriend, came up to camp, as other relatives did to say, "God bless you and keep you 'til we meet again." He and I often talked about how my wife and his sweetheart just waved good-bye as if we were just going on an overnight hike, though no one knew what the near future would bring. But, "Thanks be to God I'm writing this." There were many who never returned and now rest in Flanders Field. Our trip to the port of embarkation at Camp Mills, New Jersey, was uneventful, with one exception. A dance had been arranged for all who cared to dance at Cincinnati, Ohio, with well-chaperoned daughters to dance with. This was a welcome break from a boresome troop train. They served us ice cream, cake, coffee and sandwiches, which was a break from K-rations. We left about midnight to board a ship in a convoy of twelve other ships for a twelve-day crossing of the Atlantic. The 114th Battalion was assigned to the "Dekalb," a captured German gunboat which guarded the rear end of the convoy due to it being heavily armored with fourteen big guns, five anti-aircraft guns and two depth charge ramps. The Germans had a double reason for destroying this ship. First, revenge; second, it was deadly to submarines. We had only one sub attack in the crossing and due to deft handling of the ship am I here to write this. It was between sundown and dark. The alarm was sounded, all had to rush to preassigned wooden rafts which eighteen men were supposed to push into the water some twenty feet below, jump in, climb aboard, and hope to survive. It so happened that my raft was facing the sub. I could see the wake of the torpedo racing toward us. The engineer reversed the engines and swung sharply to the left and the torpedo missed by about fifty feet. You could have grated a potato on the goose pimples on my back as it was very cold and the water looked so black. One can't put on paper their feeling in such a situation, but the sigh of relief could be heard for a mile, and it was a time when no atheist could be found. There were only 1,400 troops on the ship, plus crew, but plenty of excitement was going on as all the big guns began blasting away, our ship being part of the defensive force to protect the convoy. It sounded like all hell broke loose when all the big eight-inch guns cut loose. I believe I'd preferred our ship to being on the sub. Our ship turned and dropped "depth bombs" over the place where the torpedo came from. Thanks to the heavy armament on our ship, the attack was thwarted and all the other ships were saved from attack and thousands of lives were saved. The shore patrol met us 500 miles at sea with planes and destroyers. This made us feel like a little boy walking along with a big policeman. We landed at Brest, France, disembarked about 2 a.m., marched through the town, and got our first smell of a city without sanitary facilities. It smelled like "Pis-copalians." More about our first day on ship. We went aboard about 2 p.m. and sailed about 4 p.m. By dark we were well at sea. The ship had been freshly painted inside and the paint odor was very strong. When the sun went down, all portholes had to be closed. This made poor ventilation. The bunks were made three-high, with a heavy canvas stretched across to separate two men sleeping side by side, or nine men to a tier. This wasn't so bad until most everyone got seasick and started vomiting. Words cannot express the foul odor. The guys down below caught it from those above. If they hung their head off the bunk, they would catch it from above, a kind of chain reaction. The floor next morning was an inch deep in vomit. They sent sailors down with big water hoses and hosed down the bunks and the floors. There were hundreds of men in each compartment and not one escaped the sickness. No one died, but some wished they could. More About Mv Early Childhood and Teen Years We lived a hard life, and if based on the today's rating of poverty level, we would have been fifty feet under the bottom. Money was practically non-existent. We raised on the farm everything except flour, coffee, sugar and tobacco. We never killed beef, only hogs; cows were for milk and butter. We had plenty chickens, but sold some eggs for small change. We had a pear tree with seven different kinds of pears grafted on; it furnished more than we could use. Peaches, a fine orchid, all varieties. Often we would gather up in a wagon and feed them to the hogs. Butter beans and crowder peas was a daily diet in season, dried for off-seasons. Turnip greens, both summer and winter varieties. Collard greens after first frost. My mother used only big iron pots to cook all our food. To this day I prefer food cooked in iron pots and skillets. No fancy aluminum or pretty red utensils for me. My mother was famous for her chicken and dumplings. It was not unusual for a family of five or six to drive up (in a wagon) after church on Sunday (uninvited) and say, "We came for your chicken and dumplings." It was custom to kill two chickens for Sunday and the adults were fed first, too many for one table; we kids got what was left. I guess that is why wings and necks are still my favorite. Peanuts and sugar cane were also a must. We made all our syrup. My father took great pride in syrup cooking. In those days we had to strip the cane by hand and this was severe on the hand. The fodder had sharp edges with little saw teeth on them. After this we cut the stalks down with a heavy bladed knife, loaded them on a wagon, hauled them to be ground in a little cane crusher pulled by a horse or mule. The cane had to be fed into this little crusher, two stalks at a time, and in order to have enough juice to start cooking, we had to start grinding at 4 a.m. Syrup making time came late in the fall. Often there was a white frost that made it a very unpleasant time for me. We had to use our bare hands as gloves were scarce items. The old mules would have to be changed every hour, due to their going round and round in a small circle. My next older brother and I would take two-hour turns. A day's run produced about 25 gallons of syrup, which meant we ground 100 gallons of juice. The day ended about 8 p.m. My dad insisted on cleaning up all utensils to prevent souring. To cap this all off our neighbors would flatter my dad by telling him no one could cook syrup as good as he, so would he grind their cane and cook their syrup. They would give him one-sixth of their syrup for his labor (not mine) which he would do, even though we already had more than we could use (there were no sales for it). Sweet potato curing time was another special event. This came in mid-summer when the sun was very hot, since everything was done the "hard way." It meant we kids would have to go behind a big plow, called a "middle buster," which was pulled by mules, that would turn them up out of the ground, and pick them up, pull those still attached to the vine free, place them where the sun would "cure" them for storage. This was done by digging a large cellar hole underneath the house, lined with straw, covered with dry white sand. The potatoes would then be spread in layers and covered with dry sand. They would keep indefinitely and get sweeter. When cooked in the old wood- burning stove, the syrup would ooze out and substitute for candy or dessert (which we never had). I can still relish one the choice yams when we'd come from school. Just eaten like an apple. They were rich in vitamins and other things, especially when combined with peanuts, which we rarely roasted. This also helped to keep life from being dull during long winter nights. More about my labor as a teenager. This was a time before saw mills had "ravished" all the virgin timber. My father had bought 200 acres of which about half of it was in virgin long leaf yellow pine, mixed in with 100-year-old white oak and various other trees, such as hickory, tupelo gum, black walnut and few ironwood. The priceless "today" white oak we would cut down for a few stave bolts, from which whiskey barrels were made. A large tree would produce only about three to four blocks four feet long, which we would split into pieces suitable for making barrel staves, as they were called. These were then shipped to Monroe to a stave mill to be made into barrels. These barrels were charred on the inside by fire so they could age the whiskey stored in them. Joe Littleton, my childhood buddy, would make $1.50 per day sawing stave bolts. As to the long leaf yellow pine trees, my father wanted to clear the land to plant cotton and corn. So he sold thousands of dollars worth of this timber for $500.00. Also, in the bargain, he was to saw the trees down and cut them into logs at no extra cost. Younger people today have no idea what a beautiful sight these virgin forests were like. The trees were only thirty or forty feet apart, twenty-five to thirty inches in diameter, and seventy-five to eighty feet tall, with no knots for sixty feet. Today what he sold for $500.00 would be worth $250,000.00. And fly in my ointment to make this sale more tragic in my life, as a penalty for disobeying his order not to visit the Glass girl (which has been previously described), I was taken out of school to help him saw the timber into logs. This lasted from age fifteen to eighteen. For this labor I wasn't paid a nickle. The custom was that parents didn't pay their children for work. Another thing (perhaps I shouldn't mention), my father never gave me a nickel to spend in his lifetime. All the money I had to spend was earned elsewhere. When I was twelve years old, he let me farm two acres in cotton which I could have all I produced. When fall came one bale of cotton was ginned and sold for $35.00, but he decided it was too much money for a twelve-year- old boy, so he took half and let me keep $17.50. With this I bought my first "store bought" clothes, a pair of knee pants and a "go to meeting" (church) coat, cap and shoes. They said I walked backward for three days just to see my tracks. The only shoes we ever had was work shoes, called "brogans." They didn't lace up. Instead they had a latch-type buckle on top to keep them on. My mother made all our clothes, which included only two pieces, what is now called "blue jeans" pants and shirt. No underwear. In spite of what may seem terrible by today's thinking, we were just as happy, or more so, than today's people with all the money, fine clothes, autos, and other luxuries. Since they were unheard of, we didn't miss them. We didn't own a buggy or surrey, only a wagon pulled by two mules. Some of the wealthier families had these modes of transportation. I lost my "first girl" to a young high stepper whose father owned a stable of fine horses and furnished him with a "sport model" single seater without top. I just didn't have a chance. But I wasn't without assets. I had my music which kept me in a little money. After my debut at age eleven, my opportunity to play for square dances expanded into a bigger hand and more money. Many funny and sometime exciting things would happen. On one memorable occasion, during our syrup making day, we would place the "scum" as it was called in a barrel, pour water into it and produce rum (not distilled, but rather potent). My cousin and I were engaged to play at a family square dance. It was about two and a half miles away and the night was pretty cold. We decided we would both ride one mule and to take the chill off the cold night we took along a jug of this rum, which we consumed about one-half going. It was fine until we went into a room with a big roaring fire in the fireplace. Before we got started playing my stomach emptied on the man's floor before I could exit. He became very angry (mad) and wanted to beat me up, and my brother-in-law, who was a 240-pounder, intervened in my behalf. However, my cousin had placed his fiddle on a chair while he came to help. Someone sat down on it and smashed it to pieces. So after the party was over, we left with no pay but a very sick stomach. As time advanced we expanded into a five-piece string band with fiddle, guitar, mandolin, banjo and bass fiddle. Our first engagement took us to Hodge, Louisiana, a big saw mill town about fifteen miles south of Ruston. My brother drove down with instruments, the others went by train. We stayed for three nights and was quite a novelty with a "bull fiddle." There was another band down in Indian Village that was very good, and one time bands played for the same dance, a competitive affair to see which was most popular, but they didn't have a bull fiddle. I graduated, so to speak, from this strictly country music and joined a group of better musicians who played popular "ragtime" and ballroom dance music popular at that time, one-step, two-step, turkey-trot and hesitation waltzes. Our lead member was a very fine violinist, could bring down the house with his ragtime piano playing. He turned pro and went to Monroe to play for-the silent movies. It was becoming popular to have a violinist and pianist to play a chamber-type music during the show. I now own a violin bow that I bought in 1926 from professor Benton who used to play in the Arcade Theater here in Lake Charles. It's a genuine French rosewood bow made in Paris in 1925. I also own a hand-made violin made in 1916. It was made by Dr. Crawford's father, who went to France and beat wood from war-destroyed-cathedrals a thousand years old. The back of this violin is rosewood. The top is spruce. Notes from Conversation, Thanksgiving 1986 John Thomas Milford, Sr. was born in Ruston. Some of his brothers were born in Georgia, fifty or sixty miles north of Atlanta. His father was William Jefferson Milford, born about 1849 in Georgia. His mother was Nancy Jane White (Wilhite), who was born in Alabama. His paternal grandparents came from Cork County, Ireland, to Georgia. They lived on the Talapoosie River north of Atlanta, and used the running water for a mill. His grandfather was killed in the Civil War and his home was burned out by General Sherman. His parents left Georgia and arrived in Ruston with nothing but the clothes on their backs. His first job was as a one-mule sharecropper for a Dr. Lawrence. It was about this time that JTM was born (January 9, 1895). The family moved to the town of Choudrant (the town had been established in the late 1700s) when JTM was about three years old. In Choudrant, the family lived in a notched-log house (built by someone else). A niece still owns and lives in the house. Nearby is the old cemetery (established in the early 13005) and the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. By the time JTM was about fifteen, his father had accumulated two farms. JTM became a musician about age eight; he played for his first dance at age eleven (made $1.50). He learned to play all the instruments (guitar, mandolin, fiddle), and by age fifteen he and his brothers had a full string band. At age eighteen (after the period during which he sawed pine lumber for his father), his father told him he was free to do as he wished. His brother got him into the eighth grade in a city school in Monroe. There he had a short career as a football player. He was living with his brother, who worked for a wholesale/retail furniture store. His brother got transferred to Shreveport, so JTM moved too and attended what is now Byrd High School. He graduated from the eighth and went to work for American Furniture Company in early 1914 as a shipping clerk. The company decided to open a store in Lake Charles, so they sent his brother to open the Southern Furniture Store there. JTM stayed in Shreveport. At that time, the Kansas City Southern Railroad ran a tourist train from Shreveport to Galveston and back ($1.00 each way). JTM thought it would take him to Lake Charles for a visit, so off he went. He found out the train did not go to Lake Charles, so when he got to Dequincy he got off. This was his first time in South Louisiana. He took another train into Lake Charles. Ryan Street was paved with bricks and had street cars at the time. He didn't like Lake Charles and went back to Shreveport. However, at the time he had a girlfriend from Haynesville who wanted to get married, so JTM decided it was time to move to Lake Charles after all. He went to work for his brother in the fall of 1915. Udith Greenwood was working at Mullers when they had their first (blind) date. She later confessed it was love at first sight. The war came along and, stirred by patriotism, JTM tried to join Company K of the National Guard and was rejected. But the army recruiting office in New Orleans accepted him and he entered the army signal corps at Camp Beauregard. He and Udith got married during the war. He got out of the army in 1919. After the war, he worked briefly as a window-trimnier for Jacob's (1919-20), trained by Udith's brother-in-law (___ Runte). Then he moved to Jennings where he worked for a lumber/hardware/implement store, in the furniture department, at $35 per week. He was offered jobs in Beaumont (at $250 per week plus a two percent commission) and New Orleans (at Wurlein's at $350 per week plus a two percent commission), but he stayed put. The Jennings store went broke, so they moved back to Lake Charles and went to work for his brother George (who died at age eighty-two). They bought out the Burton-Campbell Company and began the Milford Furniture Company in 1922. Udith Greenwood's father was Coleman Greenburg, who grew up in a foundling home in New York City. Her mother was Florence Maier, granddaughter of a Weinburg from Bavaria. # # #