HONORED--THEN and NOW

by Danna Shirley

            My parents, Howard and Elsie (Daugherty) Goines, were born in 1919 and 1921. As children living on rural farms in Arkansas and Oklahoma during the “Great Depression” (1929-1940’s), they were not fully aware of the financial collapse of the country. Life was already hard and went on as usual; eating from the garden, gathering eggs, carrying water to the field hands, and chopping cotton beside them when they were old enough. It was understood and automatic that the children helped whenever and wherever needed; without question and without opposition. It was a necessity if the family was to survive.

            Mother remembers one of the programs instituted by President Roosevelt was to employ men to work on the roads, which some in her community did to earn a living. Others would follow the crops as harvesting time arrived by picking peaches and strawberries. 

            When Mother was a young girl, she overheard a conversation between her father and one of his field hands. He had asked for a raise from $1 a day (twelve hours) and her father answered that he would like to pay him more but he just couldn’t afford it. Her father was very disappointed but there was nothing he could do; his own children worked for free, a situation that afforded my mother limited attire. 

            Even though Mother grew up during the depression, she was fortunate to be able to take advantage of FDR’s N.Y.A. (National Youth Administration) program, which paid most of her room and board at Arkansas Tech. She was responsible for the remainder and earned it by answering the one phone present in the entire three-story women’s dorm and locating the person the caller wanted. This paid her only $10 of the required $15 for her room and board so her father paid the additional $5, which was a hardship for an Arkansas farmer. 

            Her last year at Tech she worked as a waitress in the dining hall six and a half days a week, which paid for her entire room and board. After her two years there she graduated in 1939 with a teaching credential and her first teaching job earned her $65 a month. She later received her B.A. degree from San Francisco State University when my parents moved to California in 1946.  She taught in the John Swett Unified School District for thirty years and retired in 1981.

            Daddy’s father had three hired men on his farm so when the government was looking for workers to grade the roads he hired out the hands and his team of mules. The pay was given to his men.  It was their only income.

            Daddy planted and sowed in the fields for no pay right along side his father. When the crop was harvested, however, he was paid $2 a day for twelve to fourteen hours work or ten cents an hour if less than a full day.  He was paid just like any other field hand. 

            As a teenager, Daddy told his father, “I will drive the tractor on the hottest days or coldest days of the year, but when I graduate from high school, I’m off the farm. Three days after graduation, he left for Muskogee, Oklahoma where he trained to read aircraft blueprints. 

            From Muskogee he went to the Cessna Aircraft plant in Wichita, Kansas and from Cessna to the Beechcraft Factory where he earned $.71 an hour. He was only there a short time when Pearl Harbor was bombed. My parents had planned to marry in February of 1942 but they moved up their wedding to Christmas Day, 1941 when they knew the war was at hand.

            They began to see an end to the depression with the Lend Lease program and the buildup of airplane factories and shipyards. Also the oil fields had opened up for drilling.

            I suppose the best place to be during the “Great Depression” was on a farm where families could grow their own food and raise chickens, cows, and hogs. That life was hard but the financial loss was limited because there were limited finances. The depression had a positive effect on my parents because they learned to do without the frills, to live within their means, and to save up and buy with cash instead of credit, a virtue that has stayed with them all of their lives.

            Today the family farm has all but disappeared and our food is being imported from countries which do not adhere to our own food and drug standards; an added threat on the home front.

            It is yet to be seen how this present depression/recession will shape and influence us as individuals, as families, and as a country. Maybe being forced to return to our old ways will not be such a bad thing. We can all learn a valuable lesson during these hard economic times and that is look to GOD and Get Out of Debt!

 ADDENDUM   (as told to Danna by her father in 2005 at age 84)

 HOWARD EURBIE GOINES

February 26, 1921 – March 1, 2010

Place of Birth:  Spiro, Oklahoma

             Howard, affectionately known as Pa by his family and friends, enlisted into the U.S. Army Air Corp in Little Rock, Arkansas on December 1, 1942 and served with the 3^rd Bomb Division, 388^th Bomb Group, 562^nd Bomb Squadron. He went from Private to Tech Sgt. within six months of enlisting and was the highest ranking Non-Commissioned Officer in the 562^nd Ordinance Department, responsible for the conduct of the men in the barracks, assigned all duties i.e., KP, issued passes, policed the grounds, serviced the ground equipment, etc.

            Pa went from Little Rock to Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, Missouri, then to the Oldsmobile Plant, Lansing, Michigan for basic training where he broke the record for field stripping a 20 millimeter machine gun blindfolded (he never had to fire a gun during the war). From there he went to Salt Lake City, Utah, then Tacoma, Washington, then Wendover, Utah, then Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, and finally to Knettishall, England, where he spent most of the war.

            Pa traveled overseas on the Queen Elizabeth I. There were only half enough beds for the troops so those who weren’t working slept and vice versa. The ship docked in Edinburgh, Scotland before going on to Knettishall, England. Pa’s unit was the first to arrive in Knettishall so they had the privilege of establishing the layout of the base and setting up the Quonset huts as their living quarters.

            After arriving in Knettishall, Pa was in charge of the Ordinance Department. Although it was not considered part of the Army Air Corp, it was still attached to it. He was responsible for twenty-eight men whose duties were to load the planes with bombs and ammunition. Each plane could carry twelve 500 pound bombs. The bombs were armed by the men after being loaded; however, Pa and his Lieutenant were the only ones allowed to insert the delayed fuses due to the fact that they could not be manually disarmed but had to be dropped and detonated.

            Pa’s men loaded the planes at night and the American pilots flew during the day. The Brits loaded their planes during the day and flew at night. Pa was able to improve the standard way of loading the bombs by backing a trailer underneath the Bombay doors and using a cable hook to pull the bombs up through the opening, thereby eliminating the dolly and lift system. He always looked for a better and simpler approach to any job in order to save time and aching backs. 

            Pa also used his talents and skills in other ways. When the men’s watch crystals were damaged, he would take the Plexiglas from the damaged windshields of the B-17 bombers and shape them to fit their watches. He was able to make a little extra money this way. 

         The men were rationed five packs of cigarettes and five candy bars each week. Because Pa was not a smoker, he would ride his bike out to a local farm and trade his cigarettes and candy for fresh eggs and unpasteurized milk. Steak in those days was horsemeat.

            His mother sent him cookies and a pecan pie, once, which arrived weeks later . . . moldy and in crumbs.  Pa’s tent had a coke heater, a hotplate, and an iron skillet so he burned the mold off the pie and had a feast. He also shared it with some of the men—grudgingly. It seems no one cared that the pecan pie was moldy. 

            Pa saw a few sights of England while there. From Knettishall, it took three hours to arrive in London by train. He rode the “tube” (subway) and saw Big Ben and the Tower of London. He has also traveled across the London Bridge, both in London and in Arizona. 

            After VE Day (Victory in Europe), all the ground personnel who wished, were able to take a tour in one of the B-17 bombers over Holland, Belgium, and France; they also circled the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe.

            When Pa was scheduled for a month of R and R, his return trip to the States took five days. He flew home on one of his own B-17 bombers leaving from England to Wales to the Azore Islands, to Gander Field, Newfoundland, to Bradley Field, Connecticut. Everyone on the flight had to wear a parachute, which also doubled as their seat. They sat anywhere they could find a place because the planes weren’t designed for passengers, just bombs. 

            After his R and R, Pa was assigned to the South Pacific and had only made one leg of that journey when the Atomic Bomb was dropped on Japan and the war was over. He never had to leave the States again. He was discharged on July 19, 1945 at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas and returned home to his wife and daughter in Van Buren, Arkansas.

          After the war my parents migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area of California. They have lived there since 1946 and raised three daughters (Nan, Paula, Danna). Pa retired at fifty-eight to pursue his hobby—Model A Ford restoration. He has restored or helped to restore over twenty cars and is nationally known for his skill and expertise.

            Pa has always been sharp of mind, active of body, and healthy as a horse. When he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in February 2009, he slowly began to slip away from us. Pa lived to see his 89^th birthday before passing away on March 1^st, 2010.

          Mother will turn ninety-one on August 19^th, 2010 and is still mentally sharp and healthy. Even though she is legally blind and wears two hearing aids, she can still walk, dress, eat, shower, watch TV (her favorites are Jeopardy and Wheel), and read every word of the newspaper (with a magnifying glass).

             Then and now . . . two lives who have lived and loved and survived the depression, war, taxes, and numerous changes in the American culture. Will this current generation be able to survive the same?