Fred Wells, Mushe Wells (with straw hat), Frank Evans, George Crable. Unknown Boy, Tillie Crable, Bessie Evans. Tillie, Bessie, Fred and Mushe were brothers and sisters. This photo was taken somewhere in Iowa in the mid 1930s.“The earliest president I remember? I don’t remember. Franklin Roosevelt, I guess. Herbert Hoover, I remember him. Everyone was so glad when Roosevelt won.
“We were living in Oskaloosa, Iowa. (1932). My Dad had rented a barn and he was in partners with a man named Porter trading horses and they kept the horses in the barn.
“I was born in Mason City, Iowa in 1919. My Mom and Dad were playing the fair there. I think the dates are the same because you remember when we played it with Bill Dillard Shows; we celebrated my birthday there and had a big party.
“My Grandfather came over to this country from England; I think it had to be in the 1880s. Both families (maternal and paternal grandparents) came over here.”
“Why do you think they came over here, from England?” I asked.
“Why to make a living. The whole family came. My Grandfather had an affair with a girl on the boat over and he fathered her child. He used to write to him all the time when he was growing up.”
I asked what happened to the boy.
“Oh, I don’t know. Just grew up I guess.
“My Mother and Father were both born in America. They had beautiful wagons, the fanciest wagons you ever saw. The wagons were just for sleeping in, big feather beds. You had your tent that you lived into. I remember my Mother telling me about the tents.
“And they’d travel about fifteen to twenty miles to the next spot and that was as far as they would go in a day with the horses.
“Your Uncle Ben was one of the first travelers to get a car. It could be started with a key and Mom would tell us stories about his car.
Uncle Ben and Aunt Claire“Every night when he crawled into his wagon to sleep, he run a log chain out to this car and chained it to his ankle. He wasn’t about to let anybody steal his car.
“I was one of the first women to drive. I was twelve years old and I think my Dad taught me how to drive so I could take my Mom places so he wouldn’t have to. Mom never learned how to drive.
“George (her husband) worked in the CCC Camp building brick roads in Ottumwa. We got secretly married and my folks wouldn’t have nothing to do with him. They kept on trying to get me to go back. After about six or seven months they quit trying.
“We were living in Fairfield, Iowa at George’s folks’ house. George’s little brothers used to walk along the railroad tracks and pick up coal that had fallen off the trains. It was so cold that snow blew in the cracks of the house. Upstairs was so cold that you could put your snow covered shoes on the floor and a week later they would still have snow on them.
“One time we went over to Richmond to visit some relatives of mine and to go hunting, they had invited us over. So we got all dressed up warm and drove over to go hunting and when we got there nobody was home.
“As we drove into their yard, it was just covered with chickens and two of them jumped into our car. I closed the door and told George to drive out of there, fast. We had chicken dinner that night.
“My Mom and Dad was living in Hot Springs then and they called and George and I went down there and bought a little trailer and they gave me a ball game as a wedding present. And that is how we got our start in the business.
Uncle Ben and Aunt Claire hold little Sammie, “We were in Oklahoma when Pearl Harbor happened. George had gone to welding school, so he went to Detroit to get a job working in a defense plant.
“After about three months, he called and said he had a place to park the trailer so Dad drove me and the trailer up there and he took a bus home.
“When George knew he would be drafted, he enlisted so he would have his choice of a job. He was sent to Fort Dix. My Dad came up and drove my trailer back to Arkansas. This was in 1942.
“When George got stationed in Paris, Texas and knew he would be there for awhile, I went down there and stayed three months in a hotel for women whose husbands were in the service. We’d sit around and crochet and play cards and just chit-chat.
“Remember when we played Washington, Iowa, and that woman came out to visit with me? She was one of the women who was in that hotel with me. We’d sit in the lobby when it was hot and it was always hot, until maybe one in the morning.
Tillie and friends in Paris, Texas, 1940s during the ware years.“One night, a man came in and thought the hotel was a house and told the bellhop he couldn’t make up his mind which one he wanted and one of the girls was me. We laughed about that for a long time.
“We found a spot to park our trailer and I went home and got it. My Mom and Dad and I drove it back and we got all parked in a nice little park. George’s little brother, Marvin, one of the twins, was living with us then because there was so many people to feed in Iowa. Besides, he was good company. He was about eleven.
“We’d get to see our husbands on weekends if we were lucky. One girl came down and didn’t have no place to stay so I let her bunk with me until she found a place. She was a wealthy girl, her husband was an officer. She always wanted to know if I had a girl or a boy. When Sam was born she sent a big box of baby clothes to Sota, Kansas.
“This trailer park was about six miles from the camp and about three miles outside Paris. One day, as I was driving into town, I saw an old merry-go-round and a Ferris wheel sitting in a field. The man’s name was Doc Sugar and he just town kids working his games.
“Well, I had my old ball game in the back of my pickup so I asked him if I could set it up. He says he didn’t know but he would think about it.
“I asked him what the privilege would be and he wanted a percent or $25.00 a week. That was a lot of money in those days. The first two weeks was just jam up and then it slowed off, but it still was a little gold mine.
“I paid him $25.00 a week and George came out and moved my trailer to the lot. Doc Sugar charged me for lights for my trailer but it was sure nice having it on the lot.
“Then George got TB and was shipped to Minneapolis. Some people on the show drove my trailer to Sota, Kansas, where Mom and Dad was working at the time. I gave the man, I can’t remember his name, one hundred dollars for moving the trailer.
“When the war ended we were on William T. Collins Shows and I remember the whistles blowing and the bells ringing. Everybody was so happy the war was over.
Truck with new tires“After the war was over, my Dad and George formed their own show. I remember George buying a truck just because it had good tires on it. He drove out to Salem, Oregon to Everly Aircraft and picked up the first Octopus made after the war ended. It was brand new and took them six weeks to get back.
New Octopus from Everly Aircraft, Salem, Oregon, 1945“We traveled Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and all the family would live in Pine Bluff in the winter. George had a little radiator shop there and kept the ride men working through the winter.
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Sam, Fred and Murle at the radiator shop in Pine Bluff, AR, 1946? “We all had our trailers parked in back of the shop. Mom and Dad, Brother Fred and his wife, Mushe and Britty, Cousin Nelson and his wife Jean, Naylor, all the family was there.
Mushe, Britty and baby Fred, somewhere in Iowa, 1946?“George and I were the first ones to get a TV. I had a beautiful trailer with a big front window. Every night everybody would look in the window at the TV. We got one station out of Little Rock and it only came on at night.
I asked her, “What was important to you, then?”
“Oh, I don’t know for sure. I guess having enough food on the table and being happy. Staying close to my family is important also. I think all you kids have basically the same values we had when we were growing up: trying to stay healthy and happy and to take care of your family. We have always been family people and you just take care of your own.”
