Top Photo: Norma Shupe Clarkson with some of her children, around 1940. Left to right: Dean, Alice, Joyce, Christine (my mother).
Photo below: A different photo taken at the same time. Another son, Dale, is on the left. Look at the miserable landscape behind them. No wonder Granny wanted to leave New Mexico for Mesa!
Here is another story I liked from my Granny, Norma Shupe Clarkson Crandell's life story (reprinted on page 67 of "Have Joy in the Journey with Mother and Me" by Christine Clarkson Kelly)
"Daddy (Joe Clarkson, Norma's husband) was in Phoenix, Arizona all winter of 1939 and again 1940 at the races with thoroughbred horses he and his Dad (Ira Clarkson) had. When he returned, we talked about moving and he didn't have to insist because I was so glad.
We began preparations immediately and were on our way two weeks later on April 4, 1941. Joe was driving the 1935 Chevrolet truck we bought with the homestead money. He had built a large enclosure on it before he left to haul the thoroughbred racehorses to Arizona; he also built a 4-wheel trailer and a 2-wheel trailer. The horses and milk cows were to be loaded in the truck the last thing. We packed a 2-wheel trailer with camp equipment to be pulled behind the Model A Ford and the 4-wheel trailer would be pulled behind the truck.
See my post from yesterday, and you will see photos of these two vehicles.
Daddy let you children take almost anything you wanted including your pet rabbit and our dog. He wanted you to take your toys because his family had moved so much during his childhood and he had to leave his prized possessions behind.
I didn't know my Grandad Joe, because he died when I was 4, but this little story of how kind he was to his own children, letting them keep his prized possessions, really makes me love him.
Daddy drove the truck and on the back we had 2 horses and 2 milk cows and underneath the truck, between the wheels, he built cages for our chickens and our 2 pet rabbits. The truck pulled the 4-wheel trailer with our household belongings. My heavy piano and our blue cook stove were in it. I was so proud of these new items I had purchased with the $600 I had saved from teaching school. I drove the Model A Ford car pulling a 2-wheel trailer with camping supplies in it. I was age 36 and Daddy was 42, June age 14, Christine 11, Dale 9, Dean 7, Alice 4, and Joyce 2.
We knew it would be necessary to make the trip as cheaply as possible and probably stop to work along the way if Daddy could find work....
Albuquerque was a short stop, between April and October 1941. We lived in the back of the truck. Daddy thought he would get work in Santa Fe, but he couldn't, so we drove on to Albuquerque. There we found a place to camp by the Rio Grande River where there was feed and water for the animals. We unloaded the six kids, then all of our animals: 2 horses, 2 milk cows, 2 rabbits, and 10 chickens. We were sad we lost the dog in Santa Fe.
Isn't that amazing that a family could pull up to a spot near a river, and camp there for six months? I'm not sure that this would be allowed today.
We all helped to clean up the camper on the truck. We made our beds out at night and got some of them up during the day. We had a separate box of clothes for each person under the beds. We put up a little stove that had 4 lids on top and it had an oven so I could bake bread and cook other food. It was Easter so we colored and hid eggs and the next day Joe found a job plastering. The big trailer was left covered with a tarp except when we pulled the tarp back and played the piano.
Wow! I can hardly picture practicing the piano while camping out for six months.
June rode into Albuquerque High School with Daddy. Christine, Dale, and Dean walked to school, down the railroad tracks to a little country one room schoolhouse. There were about 20 students from first to eighth grade. The school was next to a creosote plant that covered railroad-ties to preserve them.
Daddy's thoroughbred horse, Indian Boy, had sleeping sickness and we tied him between two trees, if he lay down he could never get up and would die. His other horse, The Break, broke his leg and, with great emotion, Daddy had to shoot him.
My Grandad was always training race horses, and trying to make money at it. This must have been really hard to for him to lose these potential moneymakers.
We arrived in Mesa, Arizona, on October 7, 1941. Grandma and Grandpa (Norma's parents Kyle and Martha Shupe) were away in Carson, New Mexico, and invited our family to live in their Mesa home. We were there two months and they returned on Christmas Day and we all lived together in their home until we could rent the Misner house on April 20, when Lynette was born.
Living in Mesa was our first time to have city hot and cold water, an indoor bathroom with a white bathtub and flush toilet. We had our first electric lights at Grandma's house, but we only had an ice box and no fan or cooler in a 110 degree summer. There was gas heat for cooking and heating, so no more worries about hauling water and wood.
Life was perfect for only 2 months and then this great United States of America was bombed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and it was the beginning of World War II which affected every country of the world.
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