Who Am I ?
Who Am I ?
Bill
‘Smokey’ Stover
Introduction
My name is Bill ‘Smokey’ Stover. I am a new author. This book (not yet titled)
Parts 1 through 4 is my first attempt at writing. The continuing story is
divided into 4 parts and will be published and sold as 4 individual books. The
books are a series of stories based on situations that really happened. I am
uniquely qualified to write these 4 books because I have lived through each of
the life situations that have been chronicled in these stories. Although all
names and characters are fictional, each character is a composite of a type of
person who lived in each of the times that are written about in these 4 books.
The target market for each book is very different from each of the others.
Those who may be interested in any one of the stories may not be interested in
any of the others. Any individual who reads any of these stories, may find what
they believe to be their own character embedded in the storyline. Many will be
angry because a likeness of their character may be exposed to the world for the
first time. Others may be elated to see that truths are finally revealed.
These stories were written using information from many sources. They were also
written from my very unique perspective. My advice to anyone who reads any of
these books is to read it with an open mind and with a desire to learn more
about the time and place that is the focal point of the story.
About
the Author
I grew up in Earlimart, a town of 3000 in the very center of the Central Valley
in California. Some people I know say that they were raised in the town where
they lived during their childhood. To say that you were raised implies that
someone taught, trained, nourished, loved, and fed and clothed you. Very little
of these types of attention were ever applied in my family, in my town or in my
environment. I grew up, or I should say, I was allowed to grow up in Earlimart,
California. It is only by the grace of God that I lived to see adulthood, and
then it may only be because I ran away from Earlimart in the summer of 1959
after my junior year of high school. I ran away and never looked back. Life
was very hard and very dangerous in the Valley in the 1950’s.
My Roots!!!!
The Dust Bowl Days
Also Known As
The Dirty Thirties
In the 1930’s the dust storms blew across the southern plains destroying crops,
killing cattle, and changing the lives of all who lived in the path of the
drifting sands. The Dust Bowl was created in the area of southern Colorado,
southern Kansas, and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas. The dust storm also
affected Arkansas, Missouri, South Dakota and New Mexico. The wind blew and the
topsoil was blown away. The decade was called the Dustbowl Days and the Dirty
Thirties.
Landowners lost their farms to foreclosure and sharecroppers were left with no
means of support for their families. At the same time the country was suffering
economically in a period known as the great depression. Some workers headed
south while a few headed north and east. Most, however, headed west toward
California in search of jobs and food. The migration of perhaps 2,000,000
people took place along Route 66. Most of the migrants found their way to the
San Joaquin Valley of Central California.
What Brought Us To Earlimart?
My wife and I are grandchildren of the Dust Bowl Days. Although we lived our
childhoods just a few miles apart, we did not meet until we were adults. Our
grandparents were from Oklahoma and Arkansas. They grew up in different towns
and states and never new each other in the old country. These families crossed
paths in California in the 1930’s and 40’s. Our parents ended up in the San
Joaquin Valley because they were the children of the Dust Bowl.
In 1923, some 8 years before the Dust Bowl Days began, my wife’s father, Jack
Hawkins, at the age of 25, left his parents home in Maysville, Arkansas in
search of income and employment. Jack had heard of an old friend in California
who had jobs working the grapes in Delano, California. He thumbed a ride on a
Ford Model T drawn trailer ending up in Delano about a month later. Jack was a
confirmed bachelor. He remained single until he met Winnie Myers and married in
1944.
My maternal grandfather Andrew and grandmother Mary Snider were the parents of
sixteen children. They were sharecroppers in McAlester, Oklahoma. The owner of
their farm lost his property to foreclosure. In the fall of 1934, Andrew and
Mary took their 16 kids, headed south to a farming area just south of Fort
Worth, Texas and settled in to work 160 acres of farmland. Within 10 years,
Andrew and Mary owned that farm. Through the years the farm was subdivided and
at one time or another all of their 16 children lived in separate homes on the
farm. Andrew and Mary lived on their farm until they died. Andrew died at 93
years old and 10 years later Mary died at 92 years old. My mother Mintie was
one of the middle daughters of Andrew and Mary.
At about the same time, my other grandfather John and grandmother Jessie Stover
were forced to leave Clinton, Oklahoma in search of income. John and Jessie’s
three older children were gone from the home. They opted to stay in Oklahoma.
My father Carl was the youngest (16 years old) child. Dad had heard of work in
Texas, so at 16 he took out on his own in search of income. He bummed around
until he ended up on the farm of Andrew and Mary Snider just south of Fort
Worth, Texas. John and Jessie found their way to Earlimart, California. John
worked the crops for 40 years. He picked cotton, picked up potatoes, picked
melons, cut grapes, and even worked some in the wineries of the San Joaquin
Valley. Jessie was Cherokee Indian. She had some college and was a School
Teacher in Oklahoma. She hated California so she never assimilated. Jessie
returned to Oklahoma in 1952 to live with her oldest son until she died in
1965. John died in Earlimart, California in 1976.
Houston and Nora Myers left Oklahoma in 1935 with three daughters. They headed
for California. Nora was legally blind. My wife’s mother Winnie and her sister
Florene were also legally blind with the same rare form of birth cataracts.
Their younger sister Marie who had normal vision, accompanied. Houston found
work in Alamogordo, New Mexico. He also found a state operated school for the
blind in Alamogordo. He kept his family in New Mexico long enough for his blind
daughters to progress through the 8th grade in the school for the
blind. They learned brail and touch typing while at the school. My wife’s
mother, Winnie survives her sisters and at 83 years old still communicates by
telephone and by typewritten letters. After their daughter’s completion of the
8th grade, Houston and Nora moved the family to Delano, California
where Houston worked the crops until he died. Houston and Nora both died in
Bakersfield, California in 1975.
Jack Hawkins was a bachelor. He had not given much thought to marriage. He and
Winnie Myers met in Delano, CA in 1943 and were married in 1944. Jack was 45
and Winnie was 22 years old when they married. Their son Von Ray, was born the
following year. Paulette (my wife) was born the next year. Leotta was born the
next year and their youngest daughter, Eva, was born a year later. Jack worked
in the Grape Fields until he was forced by health to quit working in 1956. He
died in Bakersfield, California in 1976. He was 78 years old when he died.
Winnie at age 83, resides with her daughter in Bakersfield, CA.
My father, Carl Stover and mother Mintie Snider met and married while he worked
on the Snider farm in central Texas. They were very young. My father was 18
and my mother was 15 when they married. After they gave birth to their first
child (my older sister), they left the farm to find work in the oilfields of
west Texas. My father worked as a roughneck for two years. Shortly after my
birth, the family moved on to Casa Grande, Arizona where my father worked with
my uncle in the cotton gins about 50 miles from Phoenix. A few years later, my
younger brother was born. Shortly after his birth, the family headed for
California to join up with my grandparents in Earlimart, California. We arrived
in Earlimart in 1946 and in 1948 my younger sister was born in Tulare County
Hospital, California. The four of us were literally born as we were moving west
from central Texas to California’s San Joaquin Valley. My father worked as a
tractor driver, mechanic, and night watchman on ranches and farms around
Earlimart until he gave up on them. My parents relocated back to Phoenix,
Arizona where my father worked as a mechanic until he died there in 1979. After
my Father’s death, my mother moved back to the farm in central Texas where she
lived for a number of years. She relocated to live with my sister Marie, her
oldest daughter, for the last years of her life. She died in 1989 and was
buried in central Texas. Although my mother was forced into the gypsy lifestyle
adopted by the children of the Dust Bowl, she never mentally left here home in
Texas. Because my mother always missed home, we made a yearly pilgrimage to
Texas for as many years as I can remember. She lived and died as the daughter
of a Texas farmer. My grandmother outlived most of her 16 children. She died
on the farm at 92 years of age.
All of our family members, those original migrant workers who fled the Dust Bowl
are now dead. My wife’s mother Winnie at 85 years old is the only remaining
child of the Dust Bowl. My wife and I are only two of hundreds of family
members who remain as grandchildren of the Dust Bowl and we have spent a
lifetime working our way from poverty to peace.
