The Life and Times of Mary Lou (Stage) Huffman Read online

  My brother Gerald was like a mother to us younger kids. He would take us blackberry picking in the spring. He would get us up real early and we would all get our baskets and head to the river. That’s where the best and biggest berries were. He would take us to his secret place and we had to be real quiet so no one would find our patch. Later after school we would wash and package them. We would take them around to our neighbors (most lived pretty far off) and sell a basket full for fifty-cents. When we made enough money, Gerald would take us to the movies on Saturday afternoon. If we sold enough we would even have money to buy some candy which was a real treat.

  There was a small creek that ran down to the river that we had to cross to get to the berry patch. One day I fell in while we were crossing it. I began to scream and scream that I was drowning (I was a very poor swimmer). Everyone started laughing at me and I was splashing around trying to save myself. I was so mad at them, finally Gerald yelled, “Just stand up,” and when I did the water was just barely above my knees. I really started to cry and was making such a scene that they made me stay behind while they went and picked berries. To this day I am still a poor swimmer. I don’t like getting my face in the water. I’ve take several swimming lessons but I am still not any good at it.

  One other summer day Kat and I were walking home from Church. We decided to walk on the railroad tracks. We were in our Sunday school clothes but decided to cross the river on the trestle. It was a big long thing that went from one side of the river to the other. About half way across we heard the train whistle. It was coming fast and we didn’t know what to do. There was no place to stand and we were screaming and yelling, trying to think what to do. Should we jump in the river? We decided we would climb over the side and hold on until the train passed. We just got over in time as the train came barreling down the track. We were hanging over the side, holding on for dear life. We were lucky the train was short and going so fast. We both felt like God was looking out for us that day.

  Another summer trip we took was the worst ever. My dad got the big idea that he could make some great money so off we went to Michigan to pick strawberries. He loaded us up in the car, he also built a platform over the trunk of the car and some of the boys had to ride on it. He put the mattresses on the top of the car. It was worse than the “Beverly Hillbillies”.

  When we got to the farm where we were hired, we started to pick strawberries. We didn’t know how to pick berries fast like the other people so we started to eat them and throw them at each other. We only worked two more days and we were fired. Dad was so mad he packed us up and headed home.

  At this time we were really poor (the depression had really settled in) so dad would stop at old empty houses and take the mattresses off the car and we would stay all night. One day during the trip back home we were driving along and the bed that had been tied to the top of the car slid off and down the front of the car and into the middle of the street. Unfortunately we were right in the city of Terre Haute, Indiana. We held up traffic while Dad struggled to get it back on the car. The police showed up and helped him get it tied back on. We had to sit on the curb until they finally got it back in place. We were all so embarrassed. It was a traumatic experience when you are young.

  One other night we stayed in an old barn that chickens had lived in and we all got chicken mites and had to go to the doctor when we got home, we had so many spots on us. That was our last trip for a very long time.

  When I was thirteen, I was baptized. I really tried to be a Christian. I spent lots of time at the Nazarene church. The preacher had a son and I fell madly in love with him, but he was too old for me. He had a girlfriend. I thought she was so ugly and I was beautiful. He married her, and like all thirteen year old girls, I was sad for a few days.

  Kat, my sister, and I spent our time at the skating rink. We had a nice girlfriend named Geraldine. We would spend lots of time at her house.

  Gerald, Bob, and Kathleen finished school and I was left at home with my younger brothers. Kathleen got married that year after school was out. Ed, James, Bill, and I were still at home.

  Gerald had moved to Little Rock, Arkansas with my brother, Frank. They both had good jobs so they sent for me to come to stay the summer with them and work there.

  I missed my sister, she was best friend. They thought it would be good for me so I went to Little Rock and got a job at a theater selling popcorn. I bought lots of new clothes and dated the kid that lived in the rooming house that we stayed at. I really liked him but he didn’t like me because I couldn’t swim. I really had a good time that summer but then it was time for me to go home and back to school.

  When I got home I thought I was so great because I had some new clothes and had lots of dates. I was a real “jerk”. I went around acting like “look who’s arrived.”

  When I was finished with school, I moved out of Dad’s house and went to live in a rooming house with a friend named Juanita. Then the worst thing happened on that terrible day of December 7, 1941. Pearl Harbor was bombed and the world was going crazy. America was at war not only with Japan but Germany as well. What a change in all our lives. It became a time of pray, pray, pray. It also became a time of people pulling together for the good of the country.

  Almost all of the boys that were eighteen and over were drafted. Air Force and Army bases were being built everywhere. There was a large base built in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, which was twenty-five miles from our little town. My brothers, Frank, Gerald, and Bob were drafted. Gerald had just gotten married to Claudia so he had to leave her behind when he was sent off to Texas.

  At that time I had found a better job and was working in a shirt factory. We soon changed over and started making uniforms for the soldiers. I also worked at night in a defense plant making bullets. I didn’t want to wear the hat they gave us to protect our hair, until one day I caught my hair in the machine and I got in big trouble. Life was very hard. We had food rations, no gas without ration stamps, no silk hose, no cigarettes and all the things that came from Japan and China were stopped. People that had immigrated from China and Japan were sent home or put in camps.

  My brother, Bob had a handicap (cleft palate) so he was sent to the CCC camp (Civil Construction Corps - for those not in the service) to work on the highways. He was paid, however, which was good.

  My sister Kathleen was pregnant and her husband, Neal, was drafted into the Navy and sent overseas. Dad had to work off and on for long days because he was a railroad man and the trains ran all night long with the soldiers being sent to the bases. The news was depressing on both fronts and Germany and Japan continued to win one battle after the other. 1942 was a very gloomy year in America.

  WHEN I MET CLAUDE

  I was still working at the shirt factory and living with my friend, Juanita. We lived in a rooming house where there were about thirty people and shared rooms. The lady’s name was Mrs. Trice and she was like a mother to all of us. We had to come in at 11:00 p.m. If we didn’t she would lock the doors and we would have to ring the doorbell to get in. When she let us in she would always tell us “I will make you move if you don’t stop being late.” Of course the real reason she didn’t make us move was because we were paying her to live there and she needed the money.

  My girlfriend had a guy from the base and they were dating on the weekends. The Air Force base was only twenty minutes from Paragould, so the soldiers would come to town on Saturday night and go to the U.S.O. Club to dance with the girls. One night Juanita and Joe asked me if I would go with them on a blind date with one of Joe’s soldier friends. His name was Claude. He was a northern boy from Indiana. When I met him I was shocked. What a handsome guy he was and we had a wonderful time dancing. After that we dated every Saturday and Sunday.

  My dad was very unhappy about me going with a soldier especially since he was from Indiana and we did not know much about Claude. You have to remember that the South was still leery of the North. We spent long hours talking about our lives and he was such
a wonderful guy. Sundays were really special because we would go sit on the back steps of the high school and talk about life and what we wanted some day. We would sometimes talk until early morning. Claude would talk about Indiana and it sounded like a great place. I had been out of Arkansas only a few times in my life. We fell in love and dated only 3 months before he asked me to marry him. It was war time and courtships were often very short because the men never knew when they would be sent overseas.

  The date for our marriage was set for Saturday, July 3rd, 1943, and then all hell broke out at the base. A soldier was killed and the base was closed (quarantined) because they didn’t know if there was a sniper on base.

  We had planned to meet with our wedding party at 6:00 p.m. at the pastor’s house, which is one of the duties that pastors did in those days when you married a soldier. Claude couldn’t call me because the base was locked down and it was strictly against the rules. I, of course, didn’t know about any of this so I went right on with my plans. He was to be at Mrs. Trice’s at 6:00 P.M. It did seem strange that he had not called to let me know he was on his way. The hour came and no Claude and everyone was waiting for him and I began to cry. I thought he had changed his mind and I was beside myself. I was going to be one of those brides left at the altar.

  After an hour or so everyone decided the wedding was off and began to leave. However, all of a sudden Claude drove up. He was dirty and his uniform was a mess. I was so upset, I would not come out of my room to talk to him, so he left and then I really was sad. He went to the hotel and got cleaned up and came back over to talk to me. After he explained all the bad luck he had, I felt very sorry for him. However, we almost did not get married because it was so late. The stores were closing, the courthouse was closing, the preacher was giving up and we had no license, no ring and no one to marry us. We rushed around and got all of this done by 11:00 p.m. and the preacher welcomed us in his home anyway. Just before 12:00 midnight on July 3, we were married and then we all celebrated at the hotel. It was the 4th of July. I was married on July 3rd and on July 12th, I became 18 years old.

  We moved out to the Air Force base because Claude was a Staff Sergeant and the soldiers that had rank could live on the base. We had only lived there about 3 months and Claude got his shipping papers. We were moving away to Lafayette, Louisiana. I was sad to leave my family. Bill, Ed, and James were still home and Kathleen was ready to have a baby. I loved my dad so much I didn’t want him to be worried about me.

  I never saw my friends again. Joe and Juanita had been sent to Texas. The last I heard from her was that Joe was sent overseas and he was killed the day they landed in Normandy.

  When we got to Lafayette, Louisiana, we had news that Kathleen had her baby. It was a little girl named Joyce.

  We were stationed in Louisiana for fourteen months so Kathleen came and stayed with Claude and me because her husband, Neal, was sent overseas. Then the Air Force gave Claude his orders. He was going to be moved to the Air Base in Bainbridge, Georgia, so Kathleen went back to Paragould to live and we moved on to Georgia. I was going to have a baby.

  We moved to a one room apartment with good neighbors and we were very happy there. I remember hearing Claude whistling when he got off the bus from the base as he walked home. He would whistle all the time when he was happy.

  Then the big day came and I was so excited and afraid. It was a very hot day. I had pains all night and then at 8:00 A.M. I woke Claude up to tell him our baby was coming. It was exciting but a hair raising ride with Claude to the Air Base about eight miles away. It was the first baby born on that base and everyone was excited. But the excitement was soon to be over.

  Then bad news began to come over the radio that my doctor, who was a Major, was missing and I had no doctor. The next news was that Dr. Carpenter’s (the Major) airplane had hit a mountain on the way back to the Air Force base in Bainbridge, Georgia.

  The search was on to find a doctor close by to deliver my baby. They found a Lieutenant Colonel to come to the base to deliver our baby.

  There was no A/C in those days and it was 102 in Georgia, so the nurse brought me ice water and fanned me all day. Our big 9 lb. boy was delivered breech late in the evening on July 16, 1944. What a great and wonderful day.

  We named him Marshall after Lieutenant Colonel Marshall who delivered him. After Marshall was born, the Air Force let me stay two weeks in the hospital and it was wonderful. We only paid $7.00 for the special food they served me. My room was always full of soldiers because they missed their babies or children. All went well and I went back to the apartment. However, the war was getting worse so they began to ship out the men for overseas.

  When Claude’s orders came, it said Arizona. He was going to Tucson, Arizona but I was going to Indiana to live with his family whom I had only seen once. Aunt Cel’s husband was overseas in the Seabees building bridges and Claude’s mom, Elsie, was still working at a hotel in Indianapolis as a chef. What a change for this southern girl!

  I stayed there with them until Claude sent for me to come to Arizona. He found us an apartment with an old lady. He wanted to see his wife and boy.

  I left for Tucson, Arizona with little money and my son. I traveled on the troop train all the way across the country. There were very few women on the train and so the men loved my little boy. They were so lonely for their own children.

  When we were almost in Ft. Worth, Texas, the conductor came in the train and told all of us we had to get off and wait until the next train came because there was no a/c and it was very hot from Texas to Arizona.

  I was beside myself; I had very little money and no place to stay with my baby and very few bottles of milk. When I got inside the station, I began to cry. A little old man saw me and helped me get a cab to go to a hotel with my baby. We stopped at many places and couldn’t find a room because of all the soldiers. Finally, the cab driver took me to a place that wasn’t nice, but I could get some rest. God was with me that night because it turned out to be a red light district (whorehouse). The man at the desk was so nice to me because I was crying. He told me to push the chest in front of the door after I locked it and turn all the lights off as soon as I could and be very quiet so no one would bother me. I did as he told me to do but I left as soon as the sun came up and I could get a cab back to the train station. I was out of money by that time so I had to beg the restaurant for food for my baby and to have his bottles filled up.

  I arrived in Tucson safely and had a great summer with my husband. We celebrated Marshall’s first birthday, and I was so happy in Arizona. I loved it so much. The lady we lived with could not walk very well so she had a putt-putt car and she would ride Marshall around all the time and he loved her. I still remember her name - Mrs. Cook. Then Claude had to ship out again and I went back to Indiana.

  A few months later Germany was defeated and soon after that the good old US dropped a big bomb. The war was over and the boys were coming home.

  I had already gotten back to Indiana to stay with Claude’s sister and mother and wait for our men to come back. Cel’s husband was coming home from overseas and they also had a new baby, Donnie.

  That night it was announced that the treaty was signed. Germany and Japan had surrendered to US. All the cities in the USA celebrated. Cel, me, and my mother-in-law all went to the Indianapolis Circle where there were thousands of people singing, dancing, and celebrating. What a great time we had. There were thousands of people on the Circle that night. The stores closed and people were jumping in the circle fountains splashing around and horns were blowing way into the night.

  All the men began coming home and many had jobs waiting for them. We began having money because Claude got a job at Koch News Co. Many of Claude’s friends were back from the war and we had lots of fun.

  Ed and James were old enough to travel alone now so they came in the summer and stayed with us and worked at jobs and went golfing with Claude. He loved having the guys at our house. The two boys moved in downstairs an
d we had so much fun playing games, going on picnics, hiking, and going to the Indianapolis 500 mile race.

  NEW LIFE BEGINS

  We soon had the money to buy a house. We bought a double and a very good friend of ours rented the other side of our double, Eve Lee and Howard Smithers. Howard was a fun guy. Sometimes I would be singing in my bathroom and Howard would say silly things to me through the wall. Like “you make great music, more, more, more.”

  I became pregnant again when Marshall was two and a half. This time we had a little girl, Patricia. She was born on her dad’s birthday, September 30th. My friend Eve Lee also had a new baby so I baby sat with her baby while she worked.

  We bought our first car and it was a real laugh. It was a Ford Model T and had a flat top that would leak all over us when it rained or snowed.

  Every summer we would go home to see my sweet dad. He lived in the country and a lady named Juanita stayed with him. They got married before dad died and had a son named Eugene. Marshall and Pat loved dad. He would build them race cars and stilts for them to play with while we were there. He was so funny and had two dogs he named after my brothers Ed and James. We used to tease him. Dad really loved Claude. He left us 5 acres of land. After dad died, I sold it. I would never go back to Paragould to live.

  When Marshall was about four years old and Pat was 2 ½, our country was beginning to have a conflict with the North Koreans. Before we knew it, there was trouble and the men were called back to the service. A new war began. It was the Korean War and once more my husband was in uniform because he and Smithers had signed up for the reserves services. He was stationed at Delhart, Texas with his friend Smithers.