jrbakerjr  Genealogy   
 
 
 
Tales of My Dad and of my Early Years in Nevada, Missouri
 
I’m writing this for the benefit of the younger generations of our large Baker family, and I’m telling the stories as I remember them. As a genealogist, I just wish that some of my ancestors had done the same.
To put these remembrances in a time frame, I was born in 1938, so I was a child in the 1940’s. I graduated high school in 1956. I was born and grew up in east Nevada, Vernon County, Missouri.
Many of these stories are about my Dad because we were very close from the time I was little until I was seventeen and left home for the Navy. He was my hero when I was a child. He could build a house from the foundation up, including concrete, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, etc.  During most of his life he worked in a lumberyard during the week, and moonlighted evenings and weekends doing roofing, siding and concrete work. Later on, he was a full fledged contractor. After he was older, he drove a taxi.
Some may wonder why I remember so much about my Father in the early days, and so little about my Mother. Mom was a good mother, loving and caring, and was there when she was needed. She nursed me through two bouts with pneumonia when I was in grade school, as well as the usual childhood diseases, stone bruises, sunburns, etc.
She usually did what you expected, and more.
Dad did what you least expected.
 
James R. Baker, Jr.
 
 

Starting when I was five, Dad would often take me to work with him, roofing houses. As he trimmed shingles and dropped the scraps to the ground, I kept them, and the wires and cardboard from the bundles, gathered up in a pile.  He paid me a nickel an hour.  At the end of the week he would take me to the grocery store so I could spend my earnings. I soon learned that time and work meant money, and money would buy candy, etc.

People used iceboxes in east Nevada in the 1940's, not refrigerators.  In hot weather, the iceman would bring ice in a horse and wagon. We would see him coming and run down the street to meet him. Then we would climb up into the wagon and help ourselves to the small slivers of ice that had fallen into the straw when he had chipped off a block for someone.

When we were very young, John and Margaret (Baker) Chadd would often take Skeet, Donnie and me to the farm for a few days in the summertime.
John would stop at a gas station in Milo and fill up, then go inside and pay. He would come out with a box of 24 ice cream bars and tell us to eat all we wanted. Ice cream was expensive and we seldom had it. He would eat 3 or 4 himself.  He often sang Hank Williams songs as he drove and we all joined in. In those days, John farmed, worked for the railroad, often hunted wolves all night with a pack of hounds, and played semi-pro baseball on weekends. I thought he looked like Ernest Tubb.

When I was about 6, we still lived at 1313 East Cherry in Nevada and had an outside toilet. Dad hunted all over the house one day and Mom asked him what he was looking for. He had to go outdoors to the outhouse and couldn't find his cap.......

Most Bakers know or have heard of Jesse Ray's hunting and fishing skills. When he was in his late teens, we were hunting rabbits in a large open field when one jumped up and ran, quite far away. Jess said, "Watch this". He fired 4 shots and put four bullets in the rabbit before it stopped rolling, with a 22 pump rifle. I never saw anyone to match him with a rifle.

Dad was often called on to repair roofs. We went out one day to an old Skelly gas station. It was the kind built during the 1920's with a small building and a very tall, very steep roof. A shingle had blown off near the top on the back side of the building. He pulled the truck up close to the front and tied a rope to the front bumper. He then threw the rope over the building. We went around to the back and he put on his nail apron, shoved his hammer into his belt and put one shingle over his shoulder. Holding onto the rope, he walked up the wall of the building, then the roof, until he reached the right spot. He tied the rope around his waist and replaced the shingle, then worked his way back down the rope.

On a hot summer day, when I was about four, Dad took me with him to the ice plant. He had friends who worked there. While he talked to some friends, some others took me on a tour of the plant. Then they helped me to fill my pockets with ice to take home with me.............

Times were hard for most of the families in east Nevada during the 1940's and early 1950's, especially during the winter months. My uncle, Jess Baker, was the hunter and fisherman of the family.  He was an excellent marksman with a twenty-two rifle. If he only had five bullets, you could count on him to bring home five rabbits. As a teenager, he kept most of the Baker families and much of the neighborhood supplied with wild rabbits for meat. With a foot of snow on the ground, I often saw him bring home a sled piled high with rabbits and distribute them around the neighborhood

My grandfather Baker owned a large lot, with his house on one end of it. When my dad married, he split the ground and gave my dad half. They built a house on that property and that's where I was born. I lived there during much of my childhood. There were only three houses on the block. Our house was the only house on the block with an address on that street. The  two on the corners faced the cross streets. Naturally, Dad put 1313 E. Cherry St. on his house. My Dad and Grandad built the house, out of mostly scrap materials, and dug the well for water, by hand.

 My dad's youngest brother Jack Allen (Skeet), was only eleven months older than I was, so we grew up more like brothers than as uncle and nephew. I remember my mother making "Indian outfits" with fringe, for both of us when we were about six and seven.

I remember my dad's sisters dancing the dances of the 1940's in their living room, while their dad told them to "act like they had some sense".

During the depression, Dad ran coal trucks in Nevada. They would shovel coal out of railroad cars and into the trucks, then haul it to a factory or hospital, and dump it, or shovel it out. He said he paid his drivers nine dollars a week, and after expenses, usually cleared twelve himself. Since the truck beds were too wide to see arm signals and turn signals weren’t invented yet, they painted a large white arrow on the inside of each door. When they wanted to turn they just kicked open the proper door. If a truck engine blew, they pulled it out, took it to the Ford dealer, and traded it for a rebuilt one for seven dollars, exchange. That was a Sunday job.

Dad was proud of the fact that he was never on “Relief”, during the depression, as many in the family were.

Christmas was near, times were hard, and we were walking around the square on Saturday night, window shopping. I was about six. We stopped in front of the Western Auto store and I saw a large metal, toy trailer truck. It was red and white and looked like a real one. The door on the back of the trailer even opened. This was before plastic toys and it was expensive. Dad said, "He needs that for Christmas." Mom answered, "You know we can't afford something like that." He said, "I don't give a d----, I'm going to buy it anyway." He did, and it was under the tree for me at Christmas. It was my favorite toy for years. 

An old man who lived down the street drove a horse and wagon. He worked all week, but went to a “beer joint” every Saturday night and eventually passed out drunk. They would put him in the wagon and turn the horse loose. The horse would take him home. His wife would get him into the house, and then put the horse away.

When I was about thirteen, Dad had a contract to shovel sand from railroad cars. That meant a crew of about six men were in the car, shoveling sand over the top onto the dock, until it was empty. I worked side by side with him (Maybe that's why I have a bad back).

He had one man who insisted on getting paid every night. Dad obliged him. When Dad said it was time for a break we took a break. One night a new man kept on working. Dad repeated, "I said it's time for a break!"  Still shoveling, the big muscled giant said, "I don't like to stop, my muscles tighten up." Dad said, "You're fired then, when I stop, everybody stops."

Mom was a great cook, considering what she had to work with. She made great “salmon” patties, better than any I’ve eaten in a restaurant, but she used mackerel with fillers, because it was much cheaper. Brown (pinto) beans and butter (large lima) beans were the staples, along with potatoes and homemade bread or rolls. Meat was often rabbit or squirrel. She made great meat loaf, but told me after I was grown that it contained more spices and fillers, like cracker crumbs, than hamburger. Meat was very expensive. She usually had a garden for fresh vegetables.  

One time I saw Dad really angry, and there was nothing he could do. We roofed a house for an old lady. When we were done, she said, "I'll pay you when it rains." About three weeks later it rained and she called him the next morning. She told him to come over and pick up his check, and commended him on doing a good job on the roof.

I remember Dad telling me about my great uncle Elmer Love buying a mule and cart to use to take the kids for  rides. The mule balked and refused to move. He became angry and built a fire under the mule. The mule moved forward just far enough to put the fire under the cart. He had to unhitch the mule quickly and move the cart before it burned up.

Dad and I were on a four-lane street in downtown Kansas City, Missouri in a two-ton flatbed truck loaded with roofing shingles, when I was about eleven. Dad was driving somewhere around the speed limit, but he was weaving from lane to lane, passing cars. I said, "Aren't you afraid some one will hit you?" He grinned and said, "They're not gonna' hit this truck. They're gonna' do everything they can, not to hit this truck!"

 We once poured and finished a new concrete sidewalk for a man while he was gone. When he came home, he was angry and refused to pay for it. The sidewalk was level with the street, as required by city code, instead of sloped as his yard was. Dad tried to explain but he refused to listen. The next morning we arrived at his house with a jackhammer and dump truck. Dad told him we were going to jackhammer out the sidewalk and haul it away. He paid.

During the latter part of World War Two, Dad was draft exempt for three reasons, he was over the age limit, had too many kids, and worked in a defense plant. He quit and joined the Navy, serving in the SeaBees in the Pacific as a twenty-millimeter anti-aircraft gunner on a merchant ship.

Dad once drove an old pickup for quite some time with no brakes. When he had to stop, he would gear it down, then pull the emergency brake. Later, when work was low and he had time, he fixed it.

Dad had one new vehicle in his life, a 1939 Ford 1 1/2 ton straight truck with a flatbed.

My Granddad Baker sometimes went with Dad and me when we took the lumberyard truck somewhere to pick up a load of roofing or lumber. He had grown up in Johnson Co., Mo., during the 1880’s. On one occasion we passed a chimney that was the only thing still standing where a farmhouse had burned. He said, “They call that a “Jennison Monument”. I don’t know why.” I found out why later, when I was involved in genealogy. During the civil war, Jennison’s Kansas guerillas had raided Johnson Co., Mo. often, burning homes. The county was filled with “Jennison Monuments”.

Dad had a Ford station wagon that had a wheel well for a spare tire under the carpet in the back. I came home from Navy Boot Camp for two weeks, and he said it wouldn't start. We pulled it around the block and the engine refused to fire. He went on to work in the pickup. I checked under the hood and found that the glass bowl on the fuel pump filled with water. I checked farther and found out why. He had washed out the inside of the wagon with a garden hose. The wheel well had filled up with water. He had then used a screwdriver and hammer to punch a hole in the bottom to drain the water out.....right into the gas tank.

 I went home to visit once and found Dad with shoulder length white hair, a handlebar mustache, and wearing western clothes. He was driving a beautiful, black, 1963 Impala, with red wheels and baby moon hubcaps. I bought him a new Stetson cowboy hat.

Dad and I were walking around the square when I was a preteen. We passed a hippie, wearing sandals, beads and a wide, bright colored headband. Dad said, “Hey, Chief, you lost your feather!” A little farther down, we passed a young couple, walking hand in hand. He said, “What’s the matter, boy, is she blind?” He was in rare form that day. I wondered if we would make it home alive. They just ignored him.

Another time when we were walking on the square, we passed a very old man. Dad spoke, but the man looked at him and glared, then looked away. I asked, “What was that all about?” Dad said, “ When I was a kid, I had a souped up Model T and I outran him in his new Model A. He’s still mad. Of course, I used to rub it in once in a while.”

My younger brother, Donnie, would get angry easily. When he did, his face and large “Baker ears” would turn red. Dad loved to tease him, just to see the reaction. One time, when we were in grade school, Donnie mentioned the holiday, George Washington’s Birthday.  Dad: “Me and George went to different schools together.”  Donnie: “George Washington is dead!”  Dad: “I didn’t even know he was sick!”  Donnie gave up in frustration. Dad usually called it “George Birthington’s Washday”.

Dad understood hotrods, but not custom cars. When I went into the Navy I left at home a 1940 ford, lowered, dechromed, teardrop skirts, etc. Later, since I would be in the service for four years, I wrote and asked him to sell it for me. He did, to a junkyard for twenty-five dollars. When I complained, he said he figured nobody would want an old “junker” like that.

Dad was deathly afraid of snakes. I usually had one that I had caught, for a pet. We went to a job out in the country one day and I had a garter snake in a tobacco can in my shirt pocket. I checked on it on the drive home and it was gone. I started looking around and he asked what I was looking for. I made the mistake of telling him. He pulled to the side of the road and almost dismantled the car. He even pulled out the seats!  I said, “Snakes won’t hurt you.” To that he replied, “They don’t have to. They’ll make you hurt yourself!”  We never found the snake.

Thinking that my parents might need money while I was in the service, I had an allotment sent to them. They received a small check every month. When I went home, four years later, the money was waiting for me. They wouldn’t cash the checks, whether they needed the money or not.

Dad had little artistic talent but taught me to draw stick figures of people and animals when I was very little. Seeing that I had some talent, he and Mom encouraged me. By the time I was ten, I was lettering trucks for people for money. Dad had an old black 1939 Dodge pickup that he drove for years. When I came home on leave from Navy Boot Camp, I waited until he was gone to work, and then painted flames on the front of it. They were red and orange flames, with yellow pin striping. When he came home, he hit the ceiling.  Then he found out that it attracted attention and his attitude changed. He called it his “Striped Jenny” (a female mule), and had me paint his company name on the doors.

From the age of four, I would lie on the living room floor on Saturday nights and listen to the Grand Old Opry. Dad got me hooked on his favorite, Jimmie Rodgers, The Singing Brakeman, at an early age. I still love the old “hillbilly music” from the 1930’s and 1940’s.  When Bill Monroe came to town and set up a tent show, Dad took me to see him.

One of Dad’s early heroes was Tom Mix. One of his proudest accomplishments was in being able to roll a cigarette with one hand (his left), starting with the Bull Durham sack and papers in his shirt pocket. Of course, Tom Mix would have been using his right hand to hold his horses’ reins. For those who didn’t know, Tom Mix was a movie cowboy star, but he was also a real cowboy.  

On a trip to Coffeyville Kansas, Granddad Baker told us about living in Coffeyville and being on the street, a schoolboy, when the Dalton Gang was wiped out. He said he hid behind a horse-watering trough. When we got there, he described the shootout and pointed out where different men were shot. We went to look and found plaques confirming what he had said. I later verified by the Kansas State Census that the family did live in Coffeyville at the time of the Dalton raid.

Dad didn’t like it when a house faced northeast, southwest, etc. He thought that all buildings should face north, south, east or west. Otherwise they weren’t “square with the world”.

Dad was quick witted, usually winning a battle of wits, and always winning a friendly battle of insults. He said many interesting things, but it was sometimes difficult to determine if he was joking, philosophizing, or just making a point. He was frank and honest, and really didn’t care what other people’s opinions of him were.

Some Quotes from my Dad:

"Sure he's tough, you got to be tough when you're stupid!"

"If you walk down the street and pass ten people, you can figure that nine of them are first class S.O.B.'s."

 He visited me once when I was in West Virginia. His comment on the curved West Virginia roads:  "I ran my battery down honking my horn at my own taillight."

"Don't ever live in a one horse town, unless you own the horse."

His reply, when offered a job at very low pay: "If I'm going to starve to death, it will be at home sitting on the front porch, not out working for some S.O.B."

When a visitor arrived unexpectedly at mealtime, he would turn toward the kitchen and yell; "We've got company, put some more water in the beans!"

Mom: "The motor on my car is making a noise."   Dad: "Turn up the radio."

“You know the gal, she’s the one that’s about two and a half axe handles across the rear.”

 “I always figured if you can’t say something bad about somebody you might as well just keep your mouth shut.”

“My Mom put a necktie on me once and I stood there for three days. I thought I was tied up.”

 Commenting on an ugly new shirt a friend was wearing: I had a shirt like that once when I was a kid, then my Dad got a job……………..

"If I had the money, I'd open a restaurant right across the street from that high school and sell nothing but cornbread and pinto beans.  I'd make a fortune.  Anybody would rather have cornbread and beans than hamburgers and junk like that."

 
James R. Baker, Jr.

[email protected]

 
 
   jrbakerjr  Genealogy