Summer of 1937 - Fristoe, Missouri

Lou's cousins - Charles and Lila Laree Davis
about 1925

Louis Butler, Charles Davis, Lila Davis
about 1925

Shortly after school was out in 1937, my brother Chuck and I went to Fristoe, Missouri down in the Ozarks, 11 miles south of Warsaw, Missouri. I had turned 14 in March and had finished junior high and Charles would turn 12 in September and was ready for junior high. Uncle Floyd, my mother’s next to oldest brother, was living in Fristoe. It was in the Ozarks and very different than living in Colorado. Uncle Floyd was teaching carpentry at the high school as well as farming. Aunt Irene was a rather quiet lady who was not well much of the time. Their son, Charles, was about 9 months older than I, their daughter Lila was 5 months younger than I, and their son Mervin was the same age as my brother Chuck, almost 12.

This took place 60 years ago, so if my memory is not too clear about it, you will know why. Leona says that seems to make my stories more interesting and exciting, so bear with me!

Charles Davis, Chuck Butler on King

This summer was right during the depression, and my dad who worked for the railroad as a fireman, didn’t get to work many months of the year. So for us to spend a summer away was a help to my parents financially. Uncle Floyd said we could do a lot of work on the farm for them to help earn our keep. There was very little that we ate that summer that we did not raise on the farm. Chickens, pigs, cattle, vegetables and several kinds of fruit were all grown on the farm. There was lots of work to do, with the barn yards to be kept clean, animals to feed and water, cows to milk, eggs to gather, milk to separate in order to get the cream to sell, weeds to be cut or hoed everywhere, hay and grain to be harvested, and fruit and vegetables to be picked.

The family was a lot of fun, and we all worked together very well. The day started early with each of us assigned to early morning chores, followed by a big breakfast which would keep us going until noon. Before breakfast we would always have the horses harnessed and ready to go as soon as we finished eating. We had no tractor, so everything was done with horse drawn equipment except the harvesting of grain, which was done by an outfit that went from farm to farm. As part of our way of saving on expenses, we followed the combine from farm to farm to help each other.

Grain Harvesting
Uncle Floyd in big hat, standing behind tractor

Grain Harvesting Crew

The meals were really great on these grain harvesting, sharing times. I think that each farm wife tried to outdo the others with fried chicken and all of the trimmings. We really put away a lot of food after working in the field all morning. There was no money available, but everyone had lots of food from their farms. Egg and cream money seemed to be the main source of cash for everyone. The desserts were great, always several kinds of fruit and home made ice cream for parties. No candy.

My Uncle Floyd was a strong, hard-shell, southern Baptist. We had prayers at each meal and scripture reading at breakfast. Sunday morning everyone went to a little white church. The meetings lasted a long time – at least that is my recollection as a child. It was very hot, with no air conditioning. They would open all of the windows and sometimes we would get a cross breeze which would help. Not being used to professional preachers, I was not used to the volume of their voices. This preacher was so loud and spoke so fast, and his voice was so high pitched, that we could have heard the sermons from the parking lot with no difficulty! Uncle Floyd thought he was wonderful and we never missed a Sunday.

It was so hot and humid in the summer that we would stop work in the fields about 11 a.m. and go to the house where we would wash up and go in for lunch. Then everyone would take a nap on the living room or dining room floor as that was the coolest place we could find. You couldn’t sleep on the grass because of the ticks and chiggers.

This family took great enjoyment out of tickling someone. If you were ticklish, your life would be miserable, but everyone else would enjoy it. My mother had warned me about this before we went there to spend the summer. So I had made up my mind that they would not be able to have any fun with me, because I would tell them I was not ticklish. Well, it was murder at first to keep from being annoyed by their tickling. It would happen when you were asleep, or reading, or just not looking at them. They would crawl under the chair and tickle your bare feet. They used feathers, straws, or anything they could find. Sometimes I thought I would explode before they would give up on me. It took a long time before they gave up on me and only tried occasionally. I had to be on my guard continually.

In that little farming community they had a party every time there was the least excuse. They would gather at one of the farms in the evening and the parents would sit around and visit and the young folks would dance. I am sure that they had several dances of the folk type, but the main one I remember was “Skip to my Lou, my Darling.” Usually they had no music, so they all sang the song and danced to it. They had a lot of fun and I don’t remember any drinking or other problems at any of them. They always seemed to have homemade ice cream and cookies or cake.

Louis Butler and Charles Davis with Beauty

One of my favorite things to do was to go horseback riding in the woods and find a plum tree and sit on the horse and pick plums and eat them right there. We didn’t have the money for fruit at home during the depression, so this was a real treat. I would also find wild strawberries and eat them. The persimmons really didn’t get ripe until after we went home, so I don’t know about them. I know they were awfully sour before they got ripe! There were lots of currents and other kinds of berries and lots of cherries too.

One of the most disagreeable things about the farm was the presence of ticks and chiggers. We had to be very careful about being in the grass or trees and sometimes around the animals, or the ticks and chiggers would get on us and that could be very disagreeable. Whenever we worked in the woods or in the grassy areas, we had to strip down in the evening and check each other to make sure there were not ticks on us. We usually knew if we had chiggers, because they itched something awful.

There was a creek running along the edge of the farm just about 200 yards from the house. We could always catch fish there and it was a great place for a swim at least once a day, and often more than once. When there were rains, the creek would rise up pretty high and would be very swift. We used to like to swim in it and didn’t realize how dangerous it was. There was so much brush and so many small trees growing over the water and all tangled up, that when we would ride the waves downstream during high water, we would go down to the bottom to miss the branches. It is a wonder we didn’t get caught up in them, under the water, and drown. It surely was a lot of fun, though!

I was very sorry to see the summer come to an end. This meant we had to go back to the city and back to school.

front: Aunt Irene and Uncle Floyd
back: Charles, Lila, Mervin
about 1940

Uncle Floyd was an excellent wood worker and did some construction work. Sometime after we were there, the family sold the farm and moved to Orlando, Florida where Uncle Floyd worked in a furniture factory. Charles worked there also.