Dad built the second house we lived in along Missouri Highway 8. He bought the first place we lived there, from a friend, whose marriage had broken up and he moved away. Later he divorced and remarried, and decided he would like to live in his old house again with his new wife. So, Dad built another house for us, which was just across the road and east a bit.
During that period of time, hoboes went through the area fairly often, walking their way to somewhere; or maybe nowhere; just walking. They would usually stop by about supper time and a plate of food was always found for them. I don’t remember the details of any of them except a little of one hobo’s visit.
We had a wood picnic table with bench seats out in the back yard, and ate supper there quite often in the summer time. This time when the hobo stopped by, Mother fixed him a plate of food, and took it out to the table, where he and Dad sat talking. Dad stayed there and talked to him while he ate. Mother returned to the house.
We kids were very curious and wanted to hang around and hear what he had to stay, but we were banished. We were told to go in the house or go play somewhere else outside. Mostly, we went a little farther off from where he and Dad were talking, and watched from a distance as we played, maybe caught a word or two, now and then. Later, Mother called us to come in. I’m sure we were full of questions when Dad came in for the night, but my memory can’t recall that.
We didn’t have a barn there that the man could have stayed in overnight, but since it was on toward dusk by the time he finished eating, I imagine he stayed nearby somewhere. There was one of those big, round pipes [or whatever they were called] under the road, in front of the house. We used to run back and forth through that one when we were playing, and barring an outbuilding nearby, he might have taken shelter there. It was warm weather and he would have been protected from the wind.
A young man who lived with us from time to time, hoboed his way across the country to California, more than once. According to what he told us, he “road the rails,” on some of those trips, but the details are lost to time.
I thought hobo's were a thing of the past, but they're not. My daughter-in-law, Wendy, was just sharing with me about friends of hers who have friends who are hobo's. Her friends had recently cancelled on some event they had planned because their "hobo" friends had come to town and they never know when that will happen.
ReplyDeleteI think I've read something about a 'hobo organization' where they have a yearly get together. In the thirties, they were mostly wanderers, with little or no money. Sometimes they stopped and chopped some wood, or did other tasks to make recompense for their food, or perhaps to earn a bit of money as they moved on to the next place.
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