CALIFORNIA STATE COLLEGE, BAKERSFIELD. CALIFORNIA ODYSSEY The 1930s Migration to the Southern San Joaquin Valley. Oral History Program

Transcription

1 141 CALIFORNIA STATE COLLEGE, BAKERSFIELD CALIFORNIA ODYSSEY The 1930s Migration to the Southern San Joaquin Valley Oral History Program Interview Between INTERVIEWEE: Hadley Leon Yocum PLACE OF BIRTH: Branch, Franklin County, Arkansas INTERVIEWER: Stacey Jagels DATES OF INTERVIEWS: June 2, 1981 PLACE OF INTERVIEWS: NUMBER OF TAPES: TRANSCRIBER: Hanford, Kings County 2 Doris I. Lewis

2 141 PREFACE Mr. Hadley Yocum is the classic story of the poor boy who makes it rich. Mr. Yocum came to California as a migrant with nothing and now owns, with his sons, some 5,000 acres of prime farmland, rental properties, a restaurant in San Luis Obispo and other investments. He has not changed much because of his wealth - he is a friendly, hard-working farmer. Mr. Yocum who is in his seventies had some difficulty hearing and tired easily. There were several interruptions in the interview when his wife and other relatives arrived. Mr. Yocum did not seem to think that his story was all that unusual - he was just a hard worker who had a little luck. Stacey Jagels Interviewer

3 14lsl CALIFORNIA STATE COLLEGE, BAKERSFIELD CALIFORNIA ODYSSEY The 1930s Migration to the Southern San Joaquin Valley Oral History Program Interview Between INTERVIEWEE: Hadley Leon Yocum (Age: 79) INTERVIEWER: Stacey Jagels DATED: June 2, 1981 This is an interview with Hadley Leon Yocum for the California State College, Bakersfield CALIFORNIA ODYSSEY Project by Stacey Jagels at Seventh Avenue, Hanford, California on June 2, 1981 at 9:30 a.m. I thought we would start first with when and where you were born. I was born in Branch, Franklin County, Arkansas on November 12, Could you tell me a little about your childhood? I was raised in a log cabin and we was poor. woman's son, but we always had plenty to eat. terrible but we made out. Can you tell me what your father did? I was a widow The house was He died when I was three years old. He was a farmer. How did your mother make a living after that? She married again in four or five years. I happened to get a bad stepdad. He resented me and my oldest sister so I went to live with my grandma. Of course, their marriage broke up in three or four years. By the time I was fourteen I had to do a man's work to make a living--to help my mother make a living. So you would go out and find jobs? We farmed and when I was seventeen or eighteen they had started a strip mine close to us and I got summer and winter work there between farming. I stayed there in Arkansas till I left Arkansas in 1928.

4 Yocmn, H. 2 Do you remember very much about your childhood? Yocmn: I just remember we enjoyed ourselves. I remember more about back there than I do about now. I remember having a good time. I had cousins. I had an uncle that had eight children and I thought it was the funniest family I ever saw. We had a good time. We would work five and a half days if the crop was grown up--we would take off Saturday at noon and we didn't touch it till the next Monday. We went to church a lot too. How about school? Yocmn: I didn't get a lot of schooling. About three or four months in the winter and maybe a couple of months in the summer. I went through grade school and had part of one year in high school. So if it came to you would work? a choice between doing work and going to school Yocmn: I had had a to drop out of high school to help mom make pretty good living--about all we needed. How many brothers and sisters did you have? a living. We Yocmn: I had three sisters--one sister and two half-sisters. Could you tell me a little bit about your parents? born in Arkansas too? Were they Yocmn: I think mom was born in Texas and my dad was born in Arkansas. Were they from farming families also? Yocmn: Yes. My father had three good farm there then--120 good farm. or four brothers. They farmed a pretty acres. They thought that was a pretty You said you were a child. poor but you always had enough to eat when you were Yocmn: Yes, we always had plenty of food. Of course, we didn't get many clothes but we took care of what we did get. The house was the worst part about it. It was log with planks in the floor with cracks in them. Yocmn: Probably an outdoor toilet? No toilet. I think there was among the country folks. only one in the country that I knew of How about the other people around--how well off were your neighbors

5 Yocum, H. 3 and friends? There were same of them in better shape than we were because they had a man. All of the bouses weren't as bad as ours but I don't think anybody was any happier than I was. I enjoyed playing with the boys--swimming and baseball. You didn't feel tben that you were deprived or anything like that? No! I sure didn't. bad a lot over same sbape. I was always big and strong so I thought I of them that way. I'm still in pretty good You said you went to church a family? lot. That was important in your Yes. We had country churches in Arkansas. There were lots of churches out in the country. We nearly always went to Sunday school and church. They didn't work Sundays in Arkansas when I was growing up. Do you remember the revivals that they would have during the summer? We used to have them out in the woods in brush arbors. Do you remember much about the revivals? No, only that nearly everybody went to them. Most evetybody went to them. If they had a baptizing they took them to the creek. What other kinds of things did you do in your leisure time? When I was growing up we done more work--chores we called them- morning and night than kids do nowadays all day long. We had to help with the cows and we had to get wood. We had a pretty good bunch of chores at night and in the morning before we went to school. At that time did you feel that that was a think that was just the way things were? lot of work, or did you No, it was just a way of life. Everybody that lived out in the country on farms did the same thing. There wasn't no rich people --only a few in town were better off. Had your father left some land when he died? We had 41 acres that he left my mother. Then your mother actually owned that land.

6 Yocum., H. 4 My mother and us kids together. My oldest sister and I just sold it., by the way., a few years back. I wish I had kept it. We are getting a little bit of gas royalty off of it. They got gas all through that country there. But I wish I had kept it and bought her out. You were you? farming that land yourselves. Who did you have to help We all worked. My mother went to the field and my sisters went to the field. They cut sprouts. We had to cut the sprouts off of the land every spring. They carried rocks off of it. My oldest sister was married after a time. She married young--at fifteen--but the two youngest ones worked just like boys. s.j. : Did you ever have the help of neighbors during this time? Neighbors did help one another. We had a cyclone that blew the old log house away back there. We had a good deal of neighbors scattered around--german people--and they were awfully good to come and help. I know it blew our old house away and about ten others around. They just came and helped me put up another one. s.j.: So generally neighbors would help each other more California? than they do in Oh, yes. They're still a lot that way back there. Arkansas and Oklahoma., too. I still love Would you really consider Arkansas your home? Oklahoma very long? You weren't in Nine years. I was there long enough to like the state. trouble that we had was during those dust storm years. would burn up. You just wouldn't get nothing off of it real dry years. You moved to Oklahoma in about 1928? The only Our crops in those I guess it was the fall of 1928 that we went out there to pick cotton. I think I hauled twelve or thirteen more people out in an old Model T truck and we liked it so well we just stayed on. It was pretty good land but the worst trouble was that they didn't get enough rain a lot of years. I did get quite a bit of work there. I sharecropped all the time I was there. It was pretty hard to get a-hold of any land because most of it was Indian land and the old-timers already had it leased. So I sharecropped and I had a good landlord. He let me have a team of horses and all I could make in outside work. I worked around the gin hauling seed and cotton to the boxcars and I plowed nearly all the gardens

7 Yocum~ H. 5 in this little town. I followed the harvester. I got $3 a day for me and the team and wagon. I got to keep it all so that helped me survive in Oklahoma. I didn't do so bad there. At that time you were married and you had a family? Yes, I had six children. Three were born in Arkansas and three in Oklahoma--my youngest one was born out here. My first wife lived over five years after we came out here. The youngest son was two or three years old when she passed away. The reason you moved to Oklahoma was that you like it and decided there were more opportunities to work there? It looked likethere were more opportunities. We didn't do so bad there. We just wasn't getting anywhere. So after I came out here and seen the possibilities--! knew it was better for us with five boys growing up. What happened when the Depression hit in 1929? you? How did that e.ffect The team and the horses that the landlord let me have helped me survive and come out of it in pretty good shape. In fact, I came out of it in 1932 with $300--a $20 bill would buy ten times what it does now. It didn't take much money to live on then. In fact, I lived all that year off of that $300 and loaned my landlord about $90 of it. The next year we netted about $1,100 cash and I bought my first new car. I bought a new Plymouth for $600 and paid cash for it. We had enough cows and chickens by that time to buy all of our groceries--making a sharecrop I was out nothing but my labor. So you were doing fairly well? Yes. Fairly well in Oklahoma. But we would have the bad years when we didn't make anything. Like the last year that we lived there--i brought two of my second wife's sisters and their families out here. They were staying there with her father and he lived right across from me. My second wife and her [first] husband were already out here and they had work so I finally told the others I would bring them out. I had a pretty good car and I brought them out and decided to stay and work a month. I had a crop back there then. It wasn't much--it burned up. I got to making about $5 a day out here cutting grapes and picking cotton and I could do both real well--better than average--so I just decided to stay. I sent for my family after they got the crop out. By the way, we lacked same $30 paying up our grocery bill to the old grocery man I traded with for nine years. We had two cows when I left and they got some grasshopper poison in the barn and it killed them. They'd

8 Yocum, H. 6 have just about paid the grocery bill if it hadn't happened. So the second year after I was out here I sent the $30 to the old fellow to pay the grocery bill. S~J.: When you were back in Oklahoma and the Depression hit it must have effected you. I went there broke and I left there broke with three more kids. Why don't you tell me more about the dust storms.'? They were bad. Things would be going along pretty nice and one of them would come up. Of course, same of the houses were pretty good out there and same of them wasn't, but that dust would get through the house same way or another and you could just write your name on a sheet. It was just that bad. It was fine sand. It would sift in some way and it would get in your house. Wind would pick up the soil in same places. It would just pick it up down to the clay. They were bad. Was this continuous'? It went off and on for nine years that we had the drought. The real bad drought. I think we made two pretty fair crops out of nine years. The rest of them was bad. I don't think we were right in the heart of it. We were on the edge of it. It got to where there wasn't any work there like it was the first five years I was there. The first four or five years I got a lot of work. What did that do to the crops'? It blows them out of the ground or they burn up for lack of water. You just don't make anything. So the drought was part of the problem. Oh, yes. We didn't fertilize back there like we do here. One year I made 400 pounds on the land--or 40 bales on 50 acres--the next year I made four little bales off of 50 acres. It was all knotty stuff. What was left wasn't any good. If I hadn't had cows to sell off and milk we couldn't have survived. Did very many people have tractors then? They had just started with tractors when I left there. My landlord --the last landlord I had--bought a new tractor while I was farming with them. They were just starting. Had you been using horses? Yes, we used four head.

9 Yocum, H. 7.. ~ ' Same people have said that because the farmers didn't have very sophisticated methods of farming--some of them didn't rotate their crops and they didn't terrace--that that contributed to their failure in farming. Long before I left Arkansas they had already begun to terrace there and it saved the country. They had done some of it in Oklahoma. They had begun doing it before I left and they got to doing quite a bit after I left. They did bring same of that wheat ground back that had blown away. Now it is producing pretty good today. I have some friends there that I go back and visit with when I go to Arkansas. So as far as you knew, they were starting to use these methods. Yes. Could a failure to hurt the land? use those methods in the previous years have You can bring the land back. You can almost make the soil. All this land you see out here that's bringing up to $5~000 an acre now just wasn't nothing when we started here. It was just a few good fields here and there--now it's all developed and growing good stuff. You can make land. s.j~: Did you ever hear about any programs had? In one of them he paid farmers or to plow them under. that President Roosevelt either not to plant the crops Oh~ yes. The program that I remember very well was in I think 1933 was when I made the $1,100 to clear. We got paid for plowing up half of our cotton--plowing it up after we had planted it. And did you plow it up? Yes~ we plowed it up. In fact, they let us plant feed grain in the middle before we plowed it up. We had a certain date we had to plow up. so they let us plant a crop of grain out there in the middle--but we plowed up half of our crop of cotton. How did you feel about that? It was about the only thing that would have helped us. We would have never have gotten anywhere back there if he hadn't put that on. There were some other programs too. I've forgotten though just exactly how they went but I remember that one very well because we did get paid. Do you remember how much you got paid?

10 Yocum, H. 8 No, I don't. Of course~ it wouldn't have been a great deal. S""'J. : But it was more than if you hadn't plowed it and had sold it? It brought the price of cotton up. We sold cotton. I worked at the gin also. When I made the first 40 bale crop on 50 acres, I was working at the gin for $2.50 a day and that included cleaning all the bales off the yard even if it was midnight. I just got $2.50. When Roosevelt went in he started time and a half for overtime. I moved out on this ginner's ranch quite a ways from town and he needed somebody to go in and tie out for him for a couple of weeks through the season. They called me down there to tie and I got as high as $6 a day for cleaning off the yait.ds. It made the price of cotton go up almost double. I sold a whole crop of cotton in 1932 for six cents a pound. I think we got eleven or twelve in It went up considerably. s.j.: Roosevelt also had another program where people were slaughter their cattle. paid to Yes 7 but I that was. didn't have any cattle. I don't remember just how You weren't familiar with that? I know about what it was for. We had too many and the farmers needed more money for what they did raise. They had something else. I know I got a check from my landlord after I came out here. I forget just what kind of a program that was. It was something about the cotton though. We got so much a bale. A subsidy, I suppose. s.j.: Same people have also said that because the railroads charged such high rates most of the farmers couldn't afford that and that helped to cause them to fail. Did you ever hear anything about that? I probably did but I don't remember just how it went. How many acres were you sharecropping? It differed. I had from 100 to probably 200 acres of wheat and cotton. In 1933 I saw wheat hauled to the elevator at twenty cents a bushel. Corn was tixteen. Were any of your children old enough to help you? The last years there the oldest boy a bit and the next did some. was old enough to help quite Were you able to handle that many acres by yourself?

11 Yocum, H. 9 I would have to have some help picking it of course, but I could farm it otherwise. It didn't require as much going over the fields back there to raise a crop of cotton as out here. I think from the time that you started in you made four or five trips over the field. These boys here probably go ten or fifteen times over a field making a crop. In Oklahoma you lived in Watonga? We lived out in the little town of Greenfield south of Watonga. Watonga was our county seat. Could you tell me something about the community there in Oklahoma? Was this different than the community you lived in in Arkansas? I think there was something different. I think as a rule they done a lot more drinking out there in western Oklahoma than they did in Arkansas. There was lots of home brew out there. Some of them made it to sell, but they certainly had plenty of places in town buy it too. Was religion as important? Not near as much in western Oklahoma as it was in Arkansas. Did your family continue to go to church? No, they didn't. We did some when we first lived there in Greenfield, in the little town. We moved thirteen miles out of town. At that time we didn't have any transportation. Did neighbors help one another as much? They weren't as good out there--i don't remember an occasion coming up where they had to have any help like that. Some people have told me that because money got so tight that very few people actually had cash and that they did a lot of bartering. Did you do that? Probably so. But I always had some cash. It got pretty low in the last year or two, but I always had some money. First, when I lived over there by the little town I always had quite a bit of money. In fact, I never had to charge anything at the store because I had income most of the year with this guy's team of horses he let me use. What did you do in your leisure time in Oklahoma? I played baseball a all we had. lot and that was just about it. It was about

12 Yocum, H. 10 How about your children? I don't remember them having anything much to do when they wasn't in school. Of course 7 we moved out away from town. We moved where there was a canyon with lots of land around us and a couple or three creeks running through it. There were squirrels and the boys went out in the woods a lot playing and climbing trees. There's a very different life especially out in the country away from the little town. It sounds like you were doing much better than a lot of other people. I worked at it. I had ambition. If there was any work at all I usually got it. I remember shoveling snow in western Oklahoma for 40 cents an hour and taking scrip for it and having to wait for a month or two to get paid. Some bf the other guys wanted their money right off and I bought their script for a nickel. Then when the pay came in, it came in for a nickel more an hour than we thought we were going to get so I always had money. So you did more than just sharecropping. jobs too. You would take on odd And I hit the harvest. They would cut the crop, put in the bundles --stack it and put it in shocks--haul the bundles to the harvester and thrash it. We'd work from sunup to sundown for $3 a day--that was for me, the rack and the horses. But we got our feed. The horses got their feed out of the fields and we had a cook shack that went along. We got our meals. We slept right there in our clothes in the field and on top of the wagon full of bundles. Yes, I had about all the work I wanted to do when I lived there by that little town. I heilped put the high line in it. I helped dig the holes for high line poles and helped put them up. When I first went to Greenfield it didn't even have light. It was a small place. Then we got up to a, pretty good sized little town. Now that's all gone except an elevator. Little towns are disappearing back in the midwest. You take where I was born--the town's nearly completely gone. END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1 You said that you had enough work because you wanted to work and because you had ambition. Did you know many other people that were not well off who were having trouble making ends meet that just didn't seem to want to work? Not too many. There were some that I knew in Arkansas. In fact, I hauled some of them out there to western Oklahoma and they stayed too.. They didn' t want work as much as I did or they would have got

13 i ~ Yocum, H. 11 more of it but they got quite a bit of work. They did search for work? Oh yes. They worked besides making a sharecrop. But when you made a sharecrop there usually the landlord could hire you. It was mostly cotton that they sharecropped out. Before I worked too much around the gin I would go work for my landlord for $1 a day and my dinner. The landlord would usually have some extra work for a person because they farmed wheat and other grains and had cattle. How about those lean years just before you came out to California and you were barely making any money? How did you manage to get through those? We had a few cows and if it got down to it we would just sell a cow. I had some hogs there that I sold off in bad years. But the last year we still had two cows. We had just about taken care of our grocery bill and they got into that poison and it killed them. So I sent the money back to the grocer because he was so good to us. So even though times were tough food was never a problem? Oh no. We chickens. always had plenty of food. We always had cows and You probably had a garden. We didn't have much of a garden there in Oklahoma during the hot dry years but we could get a-hold of a little fruit. You can't starve anyone out if they've got some good cows and some chickens and some garden. What made you decide like? to come out to California to see what it was I was living right across the field from my second wife's father. She and her husband had already come on out here and same more of her folks had came out. She kept writing back bo them and her husband was getting $3 per day and she got 20 cents when she went to the field hoeing cotton. She got $2 a day working ten hours a day. The two sons-in-law of Mr. Kelly were living off of him and they wanted to come out. They talked to me for about a month before I would bring them out. After I came out here I liked it so well I just decided to stay. Where in California did you come? We came right here. About a mile down the road was a big old ranch

14 Yocum, H. 12 of cattle. They had a lot of buildings around it. She and her husband were living there and we landed at their place and stayed a few nights and then went over to her cousin's. They were closer to the grapes and we hit the grapes for a couple of weeks and when we got out of them, we came right back and cotton was ready to pick. I just happen to be a good cotton picker. Not as good as two of my sons but better than average. I decided that maybe it was the place for us. I slept in an old dairy barn on some cotton seed with a twelve foot cotton sack for a pillow. When you came your car? out that first time how many people did you have in There were nine of us in a two-door Chevrolet but it was nearly new. We were one outfit that came out with not a lot of stuff tied all over the car. When I started I had $75 and one of the other guys had $10. The other family didn't have any. We got out here with $10. We stopped and ate. We ate lots of pork and beans and bologna. I've never liked either of them since. Did you stop beside the road? Yes. How about at night? Where did you sleep? We slept right on the ground. We had our bedding inside the Just a quilt underneath was about all we had. car. Did you have any car trouble? I don't think we almost like new. had any at all. It was a pretty good car. It was How long did ib take? ;, s.j.: The best part of three days. from where we left. We had a And after you got here you worked for how long? I worked for five years for wages. I think it was 1,300 or 1,400 miles lot of fun coming out here. I mean the first time when you California was like. I never did go back. You just sent for your family? came out just to see what Yes. I sent for the family. One of the ranch hands was going back

15 Yocum, H. 13 to Oklahoma and so he said he would bring them back out for the same amount that I got from the fam~ly that I brought out so that was an even swap. I stayed on there at that ranch and the first year he put me over the cotton chopping crew. I got 30 cents an hour running the chopping crew. They were all Okies and Arkies They stayed there all the winter and I think there were 50 people that stayed there in that camp through the winter. I was boss over my first wife and my present wife too. s.j.: I wanted to go back just a little bit and ask about your family's trip out here. Was there anything unusual about their trip? Did they have car trouble? No. The oldest boy came out on the bus awhile before they did so it was just my wife and five children coming with this other guy. He had a good car too. I don't remember them having any trouble at all. And when you came to the border of California--do you remember having any problems? Did they search the car? No. We never had any difficulties. It was a pretty clean-looking deal. We had the quilts in between the seats. They were just even with the seat. I don't remember it but some of them say that we had a thin mattress about four inches tied on the top. I don't remember it. If we did it didn't show up much. I've had the horror of seeing same of the pictures where they had everything tied onto the cars. Did you see a lot of other cars with things tied onto them? No, not many. It was hot when we came out in August. We landed in Needle~ California and it.was so hot we couldn't keep the windows rolled up and we didn't have any air conditioning. We came right across that desert about 1:00 p.m. So you didn't bring very much with you? No. Just the clothes we had on. Each of us might have had changes but I don't imagine we had any more than that. two How about your wife and the children when they came out? Did they bring very much with them? They couldn't bring very much. I remember we went to town and we had a place for us to live. We had three rooms out of this big old ranch house and there were four more families that lived in it. We went to town and for $30 or $35 down we bought something to keep house with. We used nail kegs and a bench to eat around the table. We had an old cook stove. You could smell coal oil all over the place. It was a terrible year but we came out of it

16 14 The old landlord took me out of there and put me over on another place and gave us a whole house--it was just like getting out of jail. Had your wife sold all of your possessions? We didn't have much. them. Probably we got a little something out of So you didn't came out with much? No. We here. didn't have anything but just our clothes when we got out Before you came out did you ever hear anything about California? Rumors about what it was like? When I lived in Arkansas we knew several that would came out here and they would stay a few years and came back. We knew one guy well and I never did think I'd want any part of it. I wouldn't have ever come if they hadn't kept asking me to bring them out here. You hadn't heard favorable things about California? No, I really hadn't. And you never really considered going anyplace else because those people had sort of talked you into it? No, I never considered going anywhere else. Do you think you would have stayed in Oklahoma and tried to get through those years? Probably, but I don't to where you couldn't tractors and they had leave where I was at. know how I would have because it was getting even get a sharecrop. They were getting those quit cotton there. I would have have had to I might have gone east. I don't know. Do you remember what you expected California to be like? people had a picture of orange trees. Same I had an uncle that came out here years and years ago when I was a teenager. He was up in the timber country. JI had an idea what it was like. Most of the Arkies where I was raised went to Ventura, Santa Paula and Oxnard. Nearly all of them worked for wages and a few of them got their own businesses. We still have an annual Arkansas picnic down at Ojai--between Ojai and Santa Paula. I love this country. It has been good to us. We've had same tragedies. I've lost three grandsons, my mother and a son

17 Yocum, H. 15 about a month ago. He was fifty-some years olfi and died from cancer. But the good things that have happened to us outweigh the bad. So you haven't been disappointed. No. We have accumulated an awful lot of stuff. My friends say, "Well, Hadley, how did you do all of this?" I say, "Hard work and ambition." That's all it took when I came out here to get started. The sky was the limit. When you first came out here you probably came over the Tehachapi Mountains into the Valley. Do you remember what ~our first impression was? I remember that was a terrible road coming over the Tehachapis with little crooked hairpin curves. We never saw any good country till we came down the Tehachapis. s.j.: You were tough. describing your first year out here and it was pretty It was pretty tough because we didn't have anything to keep house with and wages were so cheap, but fortunately my wife made all she could. She picked cotton and hoed cotton and the oldest boy was big enough to make money and bring it in. The next boy came along and then they both would bring their money home. They would make much more working piece work than I was making by day or by the month. They would bring their money in and give it to me and their mother. They got $5 back a week for spending money. I'd like to see you try that on these kids nowadays. But your children were also going to school then? My three oldest boys didn't go through high school. They went some in the ninth grade but all the rest of the kids graduated. And another boy, Ray, went to the service. The three oldest sons went to work to help the family? Yes. We started a partnership--me and the three oldest boys--and it just grew. We would rent a piece of land and buy a piece. We got up to 5,000 acres and it was just a little bit scattered too much. About half of it was leased and we dropped down to 3,500 for a few years and then I fixed to buy it but I waited just a little too long and it got away and the last few years we had 3,000 acres and we made more off of the 3,000. We've just done a better job and it just worked out better. You described that first home that you had when you came to

18 Yocum, H. 16 California. It was just a big old ranch house. It had a lot of roams in it and there was five families that lived in it. I think two of the families just had two roams apiece and one had a roam and service porch. we had three roams on the south. It was just a big old ranch headquarters and there were lots of buildings and shops. They filled up everything and then they had a bunch of tents around there. There was 50 or 60 people that wintered there the first winter or twcr-all Okies and Arkies.: What was the name of that ranch? They called it the Dougherty. And we finally bought part of it and I sold it for three or four times what we paid for it. I worked for J.B. Freeman and Son and the most I got was 50 cents per hour. Can you go back just a minute? You said that the Dougherty Ranch you eventually We bought it. You bought it? Yes. A long time after that though. Years later? Yes. About ten or fifteen years ago we bought it and I sold it for a couple of million. That must be a story to tell. Sc.>J.: It is. It's fantastic. Yes, I worked and the most I got was 50 cents an hour. At the Dougherty Ranch? Yes. The old guy was a big old Irishman and he was awful high tempered but had a heart as big as a mule. And his temper just lasted a little bit. Heliked me. We hit it off good right at the start. He advised me to get some land and start farming. I had that idea all along, of course. My first wife then got hurt in a car wreck and she just lived two years and same after that. She died of a blood clot all of a sudden. We had already bought 64 acres over there on Kansas Avenue. About how long was it after you came here that you bought land? Five years. When I started farming I had a team of horses.

19 Yocum, H. 17 That was you were five years after you came out here. So the first five at the Dougherty Ranch and then you worked for Freeman? Yes. J.B. Freeman. And the highest wages I got was 50 cents. Were you just saving your money? We got some money out of the wreck that hurt my wife and then with the boys bringing home their earnings I think we'd saved about $4,400. I bought that little 64 acres for about $7,000 or $8,000 and so we paid a down payment and went from there. After that first year on the ranch you said you moved house. Would you tell me about that? to another Yes. Freeman got another lease and it had a house on it--a pretty good house--and he asked me one day if I would like to move over there and I said, "Yes, it would be just like getting out of jail." So we moved over there and he gave us a cow to milk and bought a dozen chickens for eggs and plenty of garden. Of course then if you wanted to get fruit you could just go pick it or pick it up off of the ground. You could get peaches and stuff. We thought we had just hit the jackpot. It sounds like you had very good luck with your employers--that they were very nice people. Yes and we treated our hands nice too. I don't know how much money I've handed to them and loaned to them and never did get it back. I'd feel sorry for them--they werer good workers. That house you moved in was tell me about that? like getting out of jail. Could you It was a four-room house. I believe it had a little side room. I think it was modern inside. The first modern house I guess I ever lived in. We lived there two or three years then I moved out and in a little while we started farming. s. J.: It sounds like that house was a fairly nice one. Yes. We've still got it. When I sold this $2,000,000 ranch down here I reserved the house. They all made fun of me--the boys and the auditor--and I said, "Well, they'd give just as much money without it." And I fixed it up a little and we had to get something done on it and they appraised it at $27,050~-that wasn't bad--to get it for nothing. So we've still got it in the family. I'm going to move it on one of the ranches. So when you were working you had permanent jobs.

20 Yocum, H. 18 Yes, except for the last six months before I started farming. I wasn't one of these kind always looking for greener pastures. I've always been pretty well contented anywhere I've been my whole life. When you worked for Freeman were you doing whatever work< that needed to be done? Yes. General farm work. And you had people working under you? Yes, I ran a crew the first year. But I didn't have anybody working under me after that until we started farming and I've had a lot of them since. And you were still working for other people? When we bought the little place. You said your wife worked in the fields. Both of my wives have worked in the fields. Was that fairly common~ Oh, yes. Back there women always went to the fields and worked. Most of them would rather go to the fields than stay at home. I don't think all this wealth would have impressed my first because she liked to get outside and work with her hands and hoe in the fields. We didn't have anything to keep house with. Was the work difficult as Oklahoma and Arkansas? compared to what you had done back in It was easier out here. When we had to pick cotton there we had to run it down and that was hard on your back and knees. Out here it was thick enough that you could get down on your knees and crawl. I had to pick on my knees nearly all the time. I think my two oldest boys are the best white cotton pickers I ever saw in my life. They've picked over 800 apiece. Do you mean white people as opposed to black people? Mexicans. For shorter hours Mexicans are usually the best pickers in the world. They are quick with their hands and they bend over good. I think my two oldest boys are the best I ever saw. How about the people that you were working with the first few years you were here? Were most of them settled or were these people

21 Yocum, H. 19 \. travelling migrants who were looking for work? we had a lot of migrants of course~ I think scnne of the people thought that we were too but they evidently got fooled. At that time there were lots of migrants. j, Do you remember any problems? No, I don't remember any problems at all. Do you know how they knew where to go to find work? No, I don't. Did they just go asking for work? s.j.: s.j.: Most of them worked under a contractor and of course that was his business to find work for them and so that's the way they knew where to go for it. Did you ever have an off-season? You were a permanent employee but when it was raining was there something for you to do? Mostly 1 :yes. I lost very little work from rain. Foggy mornings we did fencing work and odd jobs. When the sun would come out and shine we would go to the cotton field. The cotton was all picked. This cotton used to stay in the field until March some years when they handpicked it. Now with these modern machines we pick over 200 bales a day with ten machines. In fact, we made 6,000 bales the year before last and they had that crop out by the middle of November. It used to be they would drag on all through the winter. Besides, if we'd had had to pick 6,000 bales by hand we'd have had to have had 1,000 or 2,000 pickers to pick that much cotton. Before you owned land did you have much free time? Not a great deal. Were you consciously trying to save money to eventually buy the land? Yes, we tried to save a little all along. We couldn't save very much on the wages we were getting but I think we got about $1,800 out of that wreck that finally took my wife's life and then we had about $4,400. We had saved about $1,600 and that took about two or three years to do that. Maybe longer. You said that at the first two places you worked at, all the workers were Okies and Arkies.

22 Yocum, H. 20 Practically all of them except at picking time. They used Mexicans at picking time. Usually a contractor would came in and you'd pick under him. Do you remember the economic situation that most of the other Okies and Arkies were in? Same of them had it pretty rough. There wasn'.t much relief. You couldn't go and get any help. Same of them did get groceries and stuff. We never did get any help. Never needed it. One time we thought we would because we had to have four of the children's tonsils taken out and they wanted $50 apiece. They wanted $200 and I was working for low wages so I found a doctor that would taken them out for $80 with $30 down and we could handle that- than pay him when we could. But that's the only help we got if you would call that help--! don't know. But you were aware that other people were a lot worse off than you were? I don't think a lot of them tried as hard as I did. We used to have a truant officer and we called her the Green Hornet. We'd want to let the kids come in and pick what they could. My kids especially could pick a lot of cotton in a few hours. They were going to school right up here. We had a school by the house and Friday evenings after dinner they just had exercises--maybe a spelling outfit--and I kept them out a time or two. She was right onto me and me and her had a few words. And I said, "Well, I was just trying to make a living for the family to keep from having to get any help or anything,"--that didn't set good either so she won out. It was better that way--i'll have to admit. END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2 S(.,a.: In the late 1930s did you ever see any government camps that they had for farm workers? No. Did you hear about them? Yes but I don't know too much about it. zy, i How about the ditch camps? People who were migrants would just pitch tents or build old shacks. I didn't see any of them but I've heard about them and I've heard of people even living in cars. But we didn't have to do any of that. I've heard quite a bit about them, but as far as seeing anybody--! don't think I saw anybody. I was too busy to see anything like that.

23 Yocum, H. 21 Did your children have any problems in the schools? A lot of people have told me that when their children would go to school people would recognize the Oklahoma accent and make fun of them. They probably had a little. In fact, they used to have a little trouble at the dances they'd go to. Seemed to be mostly between the Portuguese people and the Okies. They got that thrashed out and they've married one another till that's no problem anymore. In fact, we have two Portuguese daughters-in-law. So you don't think that was really a big problem there? Yes. Of course, they must have had a little problem about the kids that lived here that were maybe better fixed. Did you ever have any problems when you went into town? No. Were most of the people you were associated with also from Oklahoma? A good deal of them. the natives. We've made lots of friends, though, with.';< ' In the late 1930s did you hear anything about organizing unions? No. I didn't hear anything about that. Did you hear about strikes? I don't believe there were any in the 1930s. Maybe you could tell me about your farming operation--how it started when you bought acreage in In 1943 I bought our first land. It was a little 64 acre block. I bought a team of horses and farmed it with a team of horses the first year. Then next year the boys were working in the shipyard and they came down and helped me pick this cotton. I only made 50 bales and after we got it picked we picked out the neighbors. I asked the two oldest ones if they ~muld like to go in with me and farm and they agreed to it. We leased this half section right out here that corners this place and 80 up the road. We didn't even have a tractor--we just had one team of horses. The guys had been doing such a bad job farming it--they just farmed the spots that were good--so he said, "Well, I'm going to take a chance on you. I can't do any worse." So we managed to get a-hold of a small new tractor--they were rationing tractors. I bought another team of horses and we started out. The ground was

24 Yocum, H. 22 in such bad shape that we had to burn it off before we could do anything it. I told the boys it would take a strong back and a weak mind to tackle something like that. We tore into it'though. Every year after that we would buy a place and expand a little. We would rent a place till we got up to 5,000 acres. It's kind of scattered over a ten or fifteen mile radius. The boy that was helping me run it didn't like it much. We didn't have too good a way of moving these big tractors in so we got down to 3,500 acres. We farmed that up till about five years ago and sold it. I let it get away and we got down to 3,000--we've been on that for quite awhile. Then the three oldest boys got to where they didn't want to work anymore. They all had troubles with their legs and their backs. All are over 50--nearly 60. The other two boys were farming some. we sold them 400 acres I believe and sold them our equipment which is worth about a million dollars. I set here and sold two places without a broker Christmas Eve a year ago. I sold a place that we bought for about $450,000 for about $2,000,000. It will bring in $3,600,000 in 20 years in interest and payments. We sold about another million and a half. What we've got left, though, is going to bring in more than what we've sold because it's value almost doubled in the last two years. And you just started out with A team of horses and 64 acres. I paid about $125 an acre. We lived over there for thirty years. We've been here about seven years. Do you know any other people that were here able to buy a home? like yourself that came out A few. My two sisters have done pretty good and I know of a Tennessee man that came out here and worked 25 years for two brothers and then he got a chance to lease it. We thought he gave too high. He bought the old machinery and he took in his son. He quit a good job here in Hanford and they're both millionaires and they've done it in a short time--fifteen years. I have a neighbor right up the road who's an Okie and he and his son are both worth a million apiece or more. Anybody who has 300 acres in this Valley anymore is a millionaire. Of course, a million is not worth as much as it used to be. And you don't really think that luck or chance had much that? It was just that you worked very hard? to do with Chance might have had something to do with it. We were in the right place at the right time and the opportunity came along and we jumped on it.

25 Yoctml, H. 23 But once you had that you worked very hard. YOCtml: Oh yes. The boys are broken down at fifty years of age--worse than I am and I'll be 80 years old in November. I expect to go quite a few yet--have to. s.j.: What was hiring? it like to become the landowner and be the boss and do the Yoctml: I'm glad I've done both. I know how to treat anybody. I treat them like I'd like to be treated and that's always been our policy. And if we ever had a man that could leave us to better himself- regardless of how much we liked and wanted him--we were all for him bettering himself. You said you helped people out and gave them loans? YOCtml: Sure. We helped them out money-wise and otherwise. And we're in the position of helping some of our grandchildren who are having a time paying this high rent. This boy who died not long ago left an estate of over $2,000,000 himself. Clare and I are worth almost a third more than either of the boys because we have this place and the old home place. We had it and some other stuff that they didn't have. We talked about people who have have been on welfare. no ambition and probably would Yoctm1: Yoctm1: Oklahoma used to have a lot of people on WPA in the Depression. They wouldn't have been any different if they had been out here. For people who worked hard and had the ambition to succeed there were opportunities here in California. Lots and lots of them. A lot of people have complained that there was no land to buy. They say they carne out here and there were only big farms. YOCtml: Listen! I remember the time around here when some of them could have bought 40 or 80 acres for little or nothing. If they had bought it and held onto it do you know what a good 80 acres would bring now? $300,000 probably. This man right out here bought this little old 40 acres that's got a nice little house on it. He was a carpenter. He could get $150,000 or $160,000 out of that little old 40 acres. Now you can't tell me there wasn't opportunity. He bought that thing for $4,000 or $5,000. So there was land here and there were plenty of opportunities? YOCtml: There was land. Up till the last two or three years you could get

26 Yocum1 H. 24 a-hold of it. Up till then there were all kinds of opportunities. Did you see The Grapes of Wrath? Yes I did and I didn't like it. What was it that you didn't like? I just didn't think it was that bad. I know it wasn't that bad back in Oklahoma. I can vouch for that. We never had no dozers go in and doze houses down like they did in The Grapes of Wrath. I don't know how bad it was out here but I don't believe it got that bad out here. If it did it had to be down there in Bakersfield or somewhere. You didn't experience anything like that? No. I never heard of it either. How about the way Steinbeck depicted Okies? The people in his movie and his book were very crude and used very bad language. s.j.: The Okies did? He made it look like everybody from Oklahoma talked like that. That's the reason I've never liked it and wouldn't give to see The Grapes of Wrath or any show like it anymore. it though but I'm disgusted with it. Do you think very many people believed it? two cents I did see There probably was a lot of people that believed it. But I know the Okies and I know the shape they were in. I know quite a bit about california after I came out because I came out right in the middle of it. I certainly didn't see any of that stuff. There were people who slept in cars. They still do now. People came out here from some state and they can't find nothing and they may sleep in cars. I don't know about that. I read about it. s. J.: Do you think the Okies kind of got a bad deal after that? I sure do. How about the word "Okie"? In the late 1930s would it have caused a fight if someone called another person an Okie? I imagine it caused a few out here but I'll tell you one thing- the native Californians weren't no match for the boys coming from Oklahoma when it came to fist fights~-and they did have them. They used to have an Okie stomp dance over here or some kind of a

27 Yocum, H. 25 dance over at Tulare. My boys have been over there and they have come back once or twice and you could tell they'd been in one. But it all died down and they seemed to all forget about the Okies. They still call them Okies, 'though. What did the word mean then? What connotation did it have? It was just short for Oklahoma. Didn't it have some other meanings too? It probably did. I don't know. It could have. Some people would say that the Okies were lazy. I don't agree with that. majority weren't. Same of them might have been but the But do you agree that they might have used the word Okie way meaning a person who was lazy? in that They could have. But they also call us Arkies you know. How about now when people use the term Okie? Oh that's just short for Oklahoma I think. It doesn't seem to mean anything more than that? No. When World War II came how did that change things for you? your sons old enough to go into the service? Were No, not till the last part of it. Clara had two sons go in and I had two that went into the service. And I had two grandsons since then. One came back from Vietnam a dope addict of the worst kind. He made a fine looking Marine and a good boy too but he got into it while he was over there. How about during World War II when the boys went over seas? We didn't have any that actually saw any service. I had one boy that was in the Navy who was on a mine sweeper to sweep the mines out of Tokyo Bay~-that's the closest he ever came to being in any danger. When World War II started you still hadn't bought your land and you were working for farm wages. Well we had one piece down there I think and then before the war