Visit to a real old country auction

Both feet into the past…..

This old Walker & Pratt cook stove went for $100.  Women up here baked their biscuits in this oven in the early 1900s.  You can buy a refurbished stove like this for $4000.

            At my age, I’m sure most younger people think I’m really anchored in the past, but Marty and I took a real trip back to an earlier, quieter time last weekend, and we only drove about 100 miles!

            Hillsborough is a beautiful little town in south central New Hampshire, nestled high in the hills, near Pack Monadnock  and Mount Monadnock.

            If you approach it from Concord, or from Weare, NH, you enter a town that looks pretty much the same as in the 1940s.  There’s an old tenement, with about four floors of rooms for low-paid mill workers, perched right next to the Contoocook River.  Downtown is a string of businesses that look so untouched by time you start to think you are on a movie set.  Drive further, and you return to 2013, with modern service stations, Dunkin’ Donuts, and the rest.

            We went to a country auction, held by a New Hampshire auction firm called Wigsten Associates, and it was really country.  No telephone or internet bids, no computers helping keep the tally of bids.  

            The auction was held on a farm on Bear Mountain, and to get there we drove on roads that got narrower and steeper as we got closer, with magnificent views of the countryside, and the elegant, green mountains. 

            We passed several beautiful farms, with contented-looking cows taking in the cool Sunday morning air. 

Crowd came to buy tools, lawnmowers, tractors and antiques.

            At the farm we could see the big striped tent that told us we had found the auction.  Everything on this farm will be sold shortly, including a very stately homestead, built in the late 17^th century, but obviously very much up to date. 

            At the auction they were selling a Farmall tractor, several automobiles, all kinds of new and nearly new equipment like a hydraulic log splitter, and everything you need to overhaul a car, or a tractor.  There were about eight riding lawn-mowers, and a World War II era Jeep with license plates from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. There was a huge hose reel on wheels, just the thing to take to fires in the days before fire engines.

All this old buggy needs is a horse.

            There was an old buggy, and the kind of sled you would have used to haul your ice-fishing gear across a frozen New Hampshire lake back in the 19^th century.  There were 18^th and 19^th century farm tools and kitchen equipment, and there were neatly packaged large plastic bins filled with everything a packrat or a hoarder could imagine, including kitchen tiles, a roll of copper for flashing, drain pipes of every size, tools of all sorts, old pictures, boxes of letters from the 19^th century, and a complete set of modern equipment from a professional photographic studio. 

            This auction brought loads of good old boys from the neighboring farms, eager to scoop up the tools, the tractors and whatever else. It brought antique automobile fans to look over the 1971 Ford LTD convertible or the Jeeps.  It brought antique dealers, like Marty, anxious to buy interesting items from a forgotten age, so hard to find these days.  And it brought other bargain hunters of all stripes and sizes.

            An event like this draws a portion of people who look very much as if they had just come out of winter hibernation, including young men and women who seem to think that it is all right to eat until you’re bloated, and then cover all the extra skin with tattoos.

          

This 1971 Ford LTD convertible drew lots of lookers, but here only the man with the white beard is admiring that eight-cylinder 429-c.i.d. powerhouse.   Men at left are gathered around a relatively new military Jeep.

Man with feather in his hat is an antique dealer from New York State.

This family came to buy, and they did indeed.

            The antiques that fascinated us were genuine, Made-in-the-USA goods:  Old 18^th century candle stands, different pieces of equipment for cooking at an open hearth, a large brass trivet for keeping things warm near the open fireplace, loads of old snowshoes and sleds, 18^th century hay rakes, a Victorian candle reflector, and much more.

            Murray Wigsten heads this auction firm, based in nearby Weare, NH.  It was indeed fascinating to watch the teamwork of this all-family operation.   

            Two more generations of Wigstens take the auction business seriously.

            Murray did most of the auctioneering, but his son stepped in (see photo above) to spell him, ably assisted by four children, including this sprite of a little girl, here showing bidders a toy vacuum cleaner.  All four kids did a tremendously energetic, enthusiastic and devoted job of helping show the goods and then delivered items to winning bidders.   One young boy, no older than 10 or 11, drove the riding lawn mowers, one after another, into position to sell, and he wasn’t joy riding—he was a serious worker.

            Call me old-fashioned, but it was really fun to step back and spend a few hours in old America.

Contact me at scoulbourn1@verizon.net

Navy Comes to Rockport

The Navy Comes to Rockport, 2013

Three Naval Academy Sailboats visit Rockport July 12-14, 2013

Three 42-ft. Yachts of the Naval Academy Sailing Squadron visited Rockport this past weekend, as did sailors from Portsmouth, NH and Newport, RI, and the town rolled out the welcome mat for them. 

            Roger Lesch, a retired local police officer, and Sharon Grandmaison, who runs a child care service, are the driving force behind the Rockport Navy Committee, which also includes people connected to the American Legion, local fishermen, the Sandy Bay Yacht Club, the Rockport Country Club, Navy veterans, friends of the Navy and old Naval Academy graduates who live here. 

            It is fascinating to see how Rockporters, and visitors, are attracted to these sharp young men and women sailors and Midshipmen.

            

            While the Navy was in town, we took turns standing “watch” down on T Wharf where one of the boats was open for visitors.  Visitors to Rockport strolled down the wharf to look at all the boats, and we offered them a chance to visit the Naval Academy yacht. 

            They’re usually eager to do it, and clamber down the gangplank and lift themselves on board. 

             The Rockport Navy Committee had a whole schedule for these 30 Midshipmen and their advisors, including volleyball and softball games, cookouts, a lobster feed, breakfasts at the First Baptist Church and at Brackett's, and many local merchants and citizens helped offer Rockport's hospitality.

            The Navy Committee has done this for visiting warship crews in recent years, as well.

Northeast Regional Navy Pops Ensemble as they play a New Orleans jazz number

            Roger and Sharon always do a spectacular job of organizing all the events of the Navy Weekend, and this means getting families to sign up to house the midshipmen and sailors, and organizing for feeding all these hungry young people, including a lot of lobsters. 

            This year the Northeast Regional Navy Pops Ensemble came, and Roger and Sharon set up to give them all a fine lobster dinner before they played. 

            The band with some 38 members, is a brilliantly professional organization, based at the Naval War College in Newport, RI.  It amazed me how, on a hot summer day, these musicians appear in perfect, spotless and crisply ironed white uniforms.

USNA Adult Advisor shows visitors Academy Yacht

            When I had my "watch" on T-Wharf last weekend, Advisor and Skipper Hight Spencer, an adult with more time under canvas than most naval officers, joined two of his  Midshipmen crewmen to show off their boat, and they showed off the cramped spaces for ten midshipmen aboard the boat, and usually there was a conversation about life at the Academy, and the Navy. 

            It’s interesting to talk with visitors to Rockport, and Rockporters, who stroll down and go aboard the Navy sailboats.  They come from all over the world.

USNA boat at sea

            Summer cruises at the Academy have always been very serious training events, with a little time squeezed in for the Mids to see new lands and meet new people. 

Midshipmen spend their first summer at the Academy learning about the Navy, and getting ready for four years of rigorous physical and academic life.  From the day that they are sworn in, their lives are a continuous whirlwind of marching drills, obstacle courses, trips to the rifle range, swimming tests, whaleboat rowing, academic work, running, hiking, sports, more marching, and lots of sweating. 

            The second summer is such a relief, because Plebe year, and all the harassment and questions and drilling and memorizing, sitting on an invisible stool at meals, and other forms of “character building” are done.  The year of academics is done, and it is time to go to sea.

            Today, some Midshipmen spend part of that summer in these 42-foot sailboats, and they practice navigation, and learn the finer points of handling a real sailing craft for several weeks.  After that, they’ll fly to some base in the United States or overseas, and embark in a submarine or surface warship for several weeks. 

            On that ship they’ll learn what enlisted men and women do that makes the ship operate and able to fight.  They’ll learn how to make torpedoes or missiles ready for firing, how to stand deck or diving station watches, how to inspect tanks, how to charge batteries on a submarine, how to fuel ship, how to navigate, and how to clean a head (crew’s toilets).  This cruise as sophomores or “Youngsters” is intended for them to get to see the Navy from the point of view of enlisted men and women.  The next times they go to sea they’ll be studying the role of officers.

            That “Youngster Cruise” of 2013 is not much changed from the one we took aboard a battleship in 1954.  (At least, from my point of view!)

            As soon as the graduating class had received their commissions and diplomas, we boarded troop transports from Annapolis down to Norfolk, where we embarked in a summer training squadron.  My ship was USS New Jersey (BB62), a 45,000 ton behemoth, with nine big 16-inch guns.

Four Battleships Rendezvous off Norfolk, June 1954

            As soon as we were aboard, we sailed out of Norfolk and rendezvoused with three other battleships.  The photo above shows that event, which was the last time those marvelous veterans of World War II ever sailed together.  Besides New Jersey, there were the Battleships Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri.  Missouri bore a large nameplate that marked the location on her deck that had been the place for the signing of surrender documents by the Empire of Japan that marked the end of World War II.

            When this historic event was over, New Jersey and Missouri, two cruisers, many destroyers, a small carrier, and some auxiliary ships, started our way across the Atlantic. 

            All the way across we worked, and studied, stood watches, and worked at the jobs usually designed for enlisted men, like cleaning compartments and washrooms, painting, loading stores, assisting in taking on fuel, and much, much more. 

            The Jersey crew had just returned from duty off Korea in the Korean War, firing those big guns at North Korean targets. 

            In the evening there were movies topside on deck, and once on the cruise a “Smoker” when men gathered on the large teak deck aft, the fantail, to watch boxing matches between sailors, or between midshipmen.

Crew toilets in battleships resembled the bottom half of a large pipe, or trough. Sailors sat on toilet seats across this half pipe, and sea water flowed through the pipe, and then carried the waste overboard.  At busy times, there might be a dozen or more sailors all sitting on this half pipe.

At some time or other, a wise guy would take a wadded up newspaper and set it afire, and let it float in the halfpipe, upstream of the men sitting there.  You can imagine the surprise as the fire passed beneath the bottom of each man, and each popped up, in sequence.

Holystoning

            Each Saturday at sea was Field Day, with meticulous scrubbing from stem to stern, and midshipmen learned how to holystone.  This was a long-observed job of lining up sailors, barefoot, on the teak decks of the battleship and scrubbing those decks with soapy water until they shone.  The device for scrubbing was a mop handle stuck in the hole of a boiler fire brick.  In a row of Mids, we rubbed the brick back and forth on the deck, sliding and sloshing in the soapsuds, until a senior Chief Petty Officer decided the deck was sparkling clean.  Here’s a video of sailors holystoning the decks of USS Missouri:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dktL8MdZWF8     

After about two weeks of this life at sea, the ships arrived at their first liberty port, and ours was Vigo, on the northwest (Atlantic) coast of Spain. 

            This part of Spain, just nine years after World War II ended, was really poor. Many of the people who came to see our ship come alongside the pier and tie up were barefoot.

            They were poor, but Spaniards showed the sailors and midshipmen aboard the battleship and other ships a marvelous welcome, with dancing in the streets, a street fair, and loads of booths selling all kinds of Spanish food and drink.  I recall a bottle of Spanish “champagne” sold for about one U.S. dollar. 

            We had tours of the town, and trips just a few miles north to the very picturesque and historical city of Santiago de Compostela.

            Our next port was Cherbourg, France, and there the battleship anchored out, and we took ferries to go ashore.  The liberty boats returning sailors and midshipmen to the battleship after an evening in the town could be interesting.

            I grew up in a non-drinking home in Texas, and I had not really been exposed to people who routinely got very drunk and fought with each other, using fists, feet, knives and firearms to maim and kill each other. 

            Battleships were big in every way, and with a complement of 2000 officers and men, there were always a few troublemakers. 

            The Cherbourg liberty boat was really a large ferry that could carry over 200 men, and one evening I was aboard along with a whole load of enlisted men and midshipmen, and some were really drunk.  One rather small, wiry sailor was incredibly drunk, and started picking fights and then picked a fight with a large sailor who was a Shore Patrolman.  The S.P. started to restrain the sailor, who then summoned up the superhuman power only available to drunks, and swung the huge shore patrolmen around the deck like a limp rag.  Then, more shore patrolmen showed up, and soon there must have been a dozen sailors wheeling around, trying to restrain this little drunken man. When they finally had him down, a hospital corpsman appeared and gave the man an injection of something to quiet him down.

            I’ve seen spectacular drunks quite a few times in my thirty-four years in the Navy, but that was my introduction.

            Ashore in Cherbourg, ten years after the D-Day Invasion there against bitter Nazi opposition, there were still signs of bomb and artillery damage, and graffiti about the then current war of French troops fighting at Dienbienphu, in French Indo-China.

            After a wonderful trip to Paris, we were all back aboard New Jersey, and then sailed to Guantanamo, Cuba, where we had a chance to fire those big 16-inch guns and experience life in boiler rooms when the temperature reaches 130 degrees F. or more.

           [NOTE: This Blog first appeared in July, 2011.  It has been updated for this Navy visit.]

Contact me at scoulbourn1@verizon.net

Remembering Hannah Jumper, July 8, 1856

No Friend of Fire Water…    

       

Old Fifth Parish Cemetery, Rockport, MA

            It’s July the 8^th, 2013, and as I walk through this fine old New England cemetery I cannot miss the grave of Hannah Jumper. 

            July 8^th, 1856 is a very important date in our little town’s history. 

           

            I can just see this neat little old lady, with fire in her eyes, as she led a horde of women and three men in a raid on Rockport’s drinking establishments, on July 8^th, 1856.

            Hannah Jumper is buried in our Old Fifth Parish Burial Ground.  She’s famous here because this quiet spinster was a woman of action.  In the middle of the Nineteenth century Rockport had a large number of sailors and fishermen, and a large number of little pubs and bars where the men would hang out.  They’d often get drunk and then go home to their wives. 

Hannah Jumper’s gravestone

This went on for years, but in 1856 the Temperance Movement was gaining steam all over the United States (31 states).  The women in town had had about enough of this, and the preachers downtown helped stir up their emotions.  Local women gathered and decided that on Tuesday morning, July 8^th they would take matters into their own hands.  They trusted no males with their plans, except for three preachers.

Hannah Jumper, courtesy of Sandy Bay Historical Society

http://www.sandybayhistorical.org/Hannah.htm

On that fine summer morning Hannah, age 75, put down her sewing, and marched out of her house down by the harbor, and led a group of angry, determined women and preachers down the street. The women had hatchets under their shawls, and they stormed into one bar after another, smashing bottles, and emptying kegs in the street.  Pub owners and customers alike couldn’t believe what was happening.

The women smashed kegs for five hours. Then they went home to cook supper for their families.

That was the end of drinking in Rockport.  Bars and pubs were outlawed, and stayed that way for 149 years.

Then, in 2005 citizens finally voted to allow restaurants to serve alcoholic beverages. 

  

Hannah Jumper’s house in Rockport.

This photo, shot in 2005, shows sign promoting a vote to restore sales of liquor in Rockport—right in Hannah’s front yard! She actually launched her raid while living in this house, right down next to the harbor on Mount Pleasant St.

            Hannah kept Rockport “dry” for nearly 1 ½ centuries, but in the 21^st century, it really didn’t make sense.  People could buy alcoholic beverages in Gloucester, just 3 or 4 miles away, and they could bring them to restaurants in Rockport.  

            It just meant that Rockport restaurants could not benefit from sales of alcoholic beverages, which put them at a competitive disadvantage with restaurants in neighboring Gloucester and other nearby towns.

           

Peter Beacham

            Peter Beacham, local antique dealer and enthusiastic promoter of all things Rockport, headed the town’s Economic Development Committee, and led a drive to make this change.

            It wasn’t easy.  People just don’t like change, and there were dire predictions of crowds of staggering drunks in the streets, and visions of our children being run over by beer trucks.

            Rockporters went to the polls and voted to repeal the Town’s “dry” status.  Then the measure went to the Massachusetts Legislature, who soon approved the decision, and now, Rockporters can enjoy drinks in local restaurants.

            And Police Chief John McCarthy reports that the roaming, roving drunks haven’t shown up, and no kids have been run over by beer trucks.

                                                                                                            ----Sam Coulbourn

[Adapted from a blog published in July 2012]

Contact me at scoulbourn1@verizon.net

A Woman's Crusade

The feisty Quaker with violet eyes…

Alice Paul

History Book Club, Rockport Public Library

Rockport, MA 01966

Next monthly meeting, Wednesday, July 31, 2013

             Our History Book Club next meets Wednesday,  July 31. We’ll read and discuss BRIC ['Brazil, Russia, India And China’ ] BRIC is an acronym for the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China combined. The general consensus is that the term was first prominently used in a Goldman Sachs report from 2003, which speculated that by 2035 these four economies would be wealthier than most of the current major economic powers.  Read about any of the four countries, or all.  Recently, economists have speculated that other countries, like the Philippines, Colombia, Thailand and more may overtake the BRICs, so you're welcome to read and discuss any aspect of growing economies!          

            We invite you to prepare a review of your book, but this is not school.  If you’d rather come and simply brief us on the high points without the detailed reviews you see here, that’s fine!  And if you’d like to just sit in and share in the discussion, you are most welcome.

           

            In August (8/28) we’ll read and discuss Modern Capitalism—Capitalism Chinese Style, Capitalism in emerging economies, How Capitalism has evolved in the West—your choice.

            In September (9/25):  America and its wars or near wars with European powers viz.: France, Spain and England.  Starts with the French and Indian War.  Takes in the Monroe Doctrine.  Could go all the way to the Spanish American War.

            October, (10/30): History of the North Shore.  This opens the way to looking at the rich history of the Gloucester fishing industry, Essex boat building, the fashionable summer resorts in Manchester and Magnolia at the end of the nineteenth century, etc.

            November (11/27):  Labor Movement in America 1900-2013.

            There will be no meeting in December.

            We meet the last Wednesday of each month.  Contact me if you’d like more information.

Sam Coulbourn  978-546-7138 scoulbourn1@verizon.net

         At June's meeting, held June 26th, we discussed Women's Movements for Equality 1900-2013.  Here is the story of Alice Paul.....

Mary Walton, A Woman’s Crusade:  Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot, 2010. Palgrave, Macmillan: New York, NY. 284 pp.

            Imagine a country where only half the adults have the right to vote. 

           

            Alice Paul was a pretty, slender, frail, modest and shy young Quaker woman who came from a family of means.  Her leadership, against tremendous opposition, propelled women into the Twentieth Century.

            Her fierce determination and strong leadership led women all over the United States to fight for the right to vote, and provided a template for women and men to fight for causes right up to today. 

            Just last night, women in Texas staged a lengthy filibuster, fighting against legislation that would limit women’s access to abortion in the state. Reading the coverage of that event today reminds me so much of Mary Walton’s excellent account of Alice Paul’s superb leadership in the fight to obtain the vote for women. 

            Alice was the quintessential public relations genius.  She ranks with Gandhi in his fight for independence for India and Martin Luther King, in his fight for Civil Rights.

When Alice asked an associate to do something, she asked quietly, with those “violet eyes”… few could refuse.

            Author Walton has had a career as a journalist, with 20 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer.  Her account of this Woman’s Crusade is fast-paced and filled with suspense.  You know that now women have the right to vote, but she shows the fierce, brutal opposition they faced from men, and often women.  It was a tough fight!

            Alice, born in 1885 in Paulsboro, NJ, grew up in a “Quaker cocoon”. She attended Quaker schools and graduated from Swarthmore College in 1905. A friendly professor pointed her in the direction of a career in social work, and she began working in settlement houses in New York City.  She experienced the struggles of the urban poor, the newly-arrived immigrants, the crime, and filth, and terrible living conditions in the Manhattan slums. Alice concluded that she was “not doing much good in the world—you couldn’t change the situation by social work.” 

            In 1907 Alice won a Quaker scholarship to a Friends study center in Birmingham, England.  There she encountered Christabel Pankhurst, as she led a drive to demand the ballot for women in England. Alice soon joined the cause of fighting for suffrage in England, marching to Parliament, joining in huge demonstrations, fighting in picket lines, getting arrested and jailed, starvation campaigns and force-feeding.  Alice, the Quaker from New Jersey met Lucy Burns, an Irish-American Catholic from Brooklyn, and a Vassar graduate there, and the two began their friendship and struggle for women’s right to vote.
 

            In early 1910, Alice returned to America and at once got involved with the cause of American women’s suffrage.  In April of that year, President William Howard Taft agreed to deliver the welcoming speech before the nation’s largest suffrage organization. He said “The theory that Hottentots or any other uneducated, altogether unintelligent class is fitted for self-government is a theory that I wholly dissent from.”  The President continued to declaim about his expectation that suffrage would be embraced by the class of women “less desirable” rather than those who are intelligent and patriotic.

            His remarks were met with a huge “hisssssss” by the women.

            Alice began to grow first in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NASWSA), and then established her own. For much of the next decade there was a running gun battle between these two organizations, NAWSA working to obtain suffrage in each state, and Alice’s focusing on a federal amendment to the Constitution. 

            Alice’s big public relations event was set for the day before President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration in March 1913.  Nearly 28 years old, Alice obtained permission from the Washington, DC chief of police for her parade, right down Pennsylvania Avenue. In 1913 the concept of “marching on Washington” was almost unknown.  But Alice and her organization pulled women from suffrage organizations all over the United States.

            What a parade it was!  Floats that showed the progress in American womanhood; females breaking the barriers of discrimination, fighting for their places in a man’s world; How it was here in 1840; women farmers, military nurses, college women, teachers, librarians, and on and on, and everyone wearing purple, white and green.  There was a beautiful, famous socialite (Inez Milholland) riding an elegant horse, and trumpeters and drum and bugle bands. 

            Women in New York staged a separate march of women from New York to Washington to join the parade.

            The police, who shared the attitude of many American males toward suffrage, did a particularly miserable job of controlling the crowds at the parade, many of whom were roaring drunk. Fortunately Alice had arranged with the Secretary of War to provide a company of Army cavalry, and they cleared the path for the thousands of women marchers.  When it was all over, the poor showing by police and drunks somehow worked to the advantage of the suffrage organizers, as it aroused public outrage and sympathy.

            Alice organized rail trips of women organizers all across the United States to form stronger suffrage organizations, particularly in states that had already granted women the right to vote.  There were cross-country trips by automobile, no small feat in those days.

            Alice and her growing entourage next went directly after President Wilson, staged “silent sentinel” pickets along the gates in front of the White House.  Alice, ever the lady and the Quaker, ruled her demonstrators with an iron hand, cautioning them never to argue or fight with hecklers or officials. 

            In 1917, Wilson, who had labored to keep the country out of war, found that we had to fight and, with Congress, ordered troops to France to fight the Germans.

            The banners came and grew in number, as they chided the President, using his own words against him; chiding him and America because Russia, now the budding Soviet country, allowed women the vote; calling the President “Kaiser Wilson” because he was sending men to fight for freedom, but women in America had not the freedom to vote.

            On the fight went, with Alice increasing her attacks on Wilson.  Finally, women picketers were arrested and thrown into the D.C. jail, and down to the new D.C. prison at Occoquan, Virginia, where they encountered unbelievable conditions.  Here these women, many from very comfortable family settings, found themselves assigned a cot next to a syphilitic black woman with one leg amputated and the other crawling with maggots.  They ate oatmeal with worms and maggots in it, and drank water from a bucket used by all the prisoners.  Toilets filled up and were rarely flushed.  Alice was put into what would now be called a psychiatric section for a time. 

            The women went on hunger strikes and were force fed; if they kept their mouths shut, tubes were stuffed down their noses. 

            Author Walton paints a graphic picture of this stage in the women’s fight for the right to vote.

            Eventually, on June 4, 1919, Congress passed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, named after the originator of America’s fight for women’s suffrage, who had died in 1906. 

            On August 17, 1920, Tennessee became the 36^th state to ratify the Amendment, making it a part of the Constitution. 

            Alice shortly afterward introduced a new cause, the Equal Rights Amendment, which she presented to Congress in 1923. In 1972 it passed both houses of Congress and went to the states for ratification, but failed to receive the requisite number before the deadline mandated by Congress.

          
             Alice died at 93 on July 9^th, 1977.

--Sam Coulbourn   

-end-

Here is a fascinating video commentary on Alice Paul by Mary Walton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwFSi2fTZuQ

Recollections on Father's Day...

PRIVATE DIXON LONG COULBOURN, Army of the United States

  

Young Private Coulbourn on bivouac with Co. E, 124^th Infantry Rgt., 1917

(In third tent on right.)

            My Dad, Dixon Long Coulbourn, was busy all his life, always in a hurry, and yet he lived to be 98 years old.

            He was born in a little Virginia town on Chesapeake Bay on January 27, 1899.  His dad ran an oyster business.  The employees were all African-Americans, and I am sure some of the older ones had been slaves at one time. 

            Watermen raked up tons of oysters and brought them back to Morattico to be processed.  Black oyster shuckers worked all day, filling barrels with fresh shucked oysters, which were iced down and rushed to customers all over the eastern United States. It was hard work, and a typical shucker made $6 a week.  They piled up mountains of oyster shells. 

            America was going to war in France to fight the Germans in 1917, and young Dixon was in a hurry to join.  He enlisted in the 124^th Infantry Regiment (First Florida), and was shipped up to Camp Devens in Massachusetts, to join the Yankee Division.

            1,500,000 young men boarded troop transports and were soon fighting in France. Dixon was among them. The shells exploding near him permanently damaged his hearing, so he spent the rest of his life with very poor hearing.*

            On November 11, 1918, Armistice was declared. People went from unit to unit, announcing the news.  Dixon remembered that vividly, especially because a cook wagon came to the front lines and started cooking pancakes for the soldiers.  “Man, that was the most wonderful thing!” Dixon used to say. 

            As it has done for most men, and now women as well, combat made a lasting impression on Dixon.  He was proud of his service.  

[A note for those who despise war and demonstrate for peace: You are right-- war is bad, we should strive for peace!  But when your country calls, and needs young men and women to fight, someone has to answer the call.   ]

            When the war was over, all the soldiers returned to America, and suddenly all those young men were looking for jobs at the same time.  Dixon and his brothers went to work in central Florida, packing strawberries and trying all kinds of schemes to make a living.   Texas was gaining notice all over the country because oil wells were popping up, new refineries were being built, and workers were needed. In 1927, Dixon got himself on a freight train headed for Texas.  He made his way to Port Arthur, in the southeastern corner of Texas.  Real estate developers financed with money from the Netherlands had begun building a town here to handle shipments of locally grown rice. They located the Kansas City Southern Railways terminus here, and Dutch settlers came to live, followed by Americans. Then a huge oil discovery at Spindletop, right where all the Dutchmen were living, led to creation of several refineries here. Texaco and Gulf Oil companies were created. Families began streaming here to make their fortune in this oil boom town. 

Gusher at Spindletop, Jan. 10, 1901

Courtesy of American Petroleum Institute

            For a young man, veteran of The Great War, looking for work, this looked to be the place, and Dixon landed here.  Dixon found a job as a bookkeeper at a local grocery store.  Dixon, who enlisted in the Army before he had graduated from high school, now enrolled in correspondence courses to learn to be an accountant.  He earned his certificate.

He met a young woman at a Methodist Church social event. Katherine was the daughter of a doctor and a strong supporter of the local Methodist Church and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.  Dixon and Katherine were soon married. 

            I was born a couple of years later, in 1934, and my brother Dixon Wall Coulbourn was born two years later, in 1936.

            Dixon then began taking the test to become a Certified Public Accountant, but didn’t make it.  He took it again.  All through World War II, every year he took the test, and finally, in about 1945, he earned the “CPA” designation. We were all so proud of him!

            In 1944 my sister, Martha Louise, was born, and our parents looked at the neighborhood where we lived, just over a mile from downtown, and decided that now, with a little girl, it was time to move to more idyllic surroundings. So, in 1945 we moved to Griffing Park.  Here we had a cow pasture beyond our back door. Dixon ordered a flock of Plymouth Rock chickens from a supplier in Massachusetts, and soon we were in the chicken business. 

Dixon’s family, 1946

L to R: Dixon, young Dixon, Martha, Sam, Katherine.

            We collected the eggs each morning, and cleaned all the chicken mess up, and fed the chickens.  Dixon started his own accounting firm, leaving for work after he had made sure that we were doing our chicken chores.

            Dixon was always in a hurry.  He hurried to work, and he hurried home.  He ate each meal like there’d not be another.  The only thing he slowed down for was church. We all went to the Methodist Temple downtown every Sunday, but as soon as the sermon started, Dad would turn off his hearing aid and drift off to sleep. 

            Dixon loved gadgets.  All during the war, Army surplus items were finding their way to market, and when war ended, there was a flood of interesting gadgets, and Dad wanted to buy as many as he could find. 

            He had a friend who owned a store that sold outboard motors for boats and all kinds of appliances, from washing machines to record players. 

            Dixon bought an electric deep freezer, and then one of the new Bendix washing machines, with the window, so you could see the clothes swirling around inside.  He bought my mother an electric ironing machine (mangle), which turned out to be a total waste of money.

            When a new voice recorder came out, that you could record on a paper disk, he brought one home to try out, and took it back.  Then a wire recorder came out that made a recording on a slim silver wire on a spool.  He brought that home, and then took it back. 

            However, we were one of the last families in the neighborhood to buy a television. 

            Even though he loved gadgets, Dad was no spendthrift!

            Dad kept his accounting business until he was 73 years old, then with all of us kids with families of our own, he and mother moved to Georgetown, Texas, where he opened up another accounting business, and wrote a book, “Control Your Finances”.

            All his adult life, Dad was a loyal member of the Kiwanis Club and the American Legion.  On his 90^th birthday the local newspaper ran a front-page story of this crusty old World War I veteran.  Dad wasn’t pleased about the publicity, because he thought the fact that he was 90 years old might turn away some of his accounting business.

            Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

 NOTE: I first posted this on Dad's birthday, Jan. 27, 2012.

 *Dad had poor hearing. Now, after years of operations in and around gun turrets, jet engines and submarine diesel engines, I do, too.  Technology has improved tremendously, but still.....