Yep, another one already. Some of you may have seen part (the 2
visitors/strangers) of this before.
WEATHERSBY FARM
By Wilton Strickland
In January of 1944, we moved to the Thad Weathersby Farm in Franklin
County, NC, between Spring Hope and Zebulon. The land on this farm was red,
hard and rocky. I remember watching Carson and W. B., my seventeen and
fifteen-year-old brothers, trying to plow with, as usual, a mule-drawn,
walk-behind plow. The ground was so hard, it was very difficult to keep the
plow in the ground, and the abundant rocks made the plows bounce around
throwing the boys violently up and down and from side to side.
Early in the year, Daddy, Carson and W. B. were in the woods cutting
wood to be used to cure the year's tobacco crop. They were using a long
crosscut saw and an ax to fell trees and cut them into sections for the barn
furnaces. Daddy was using the ax when W. B. stepped in front of it and
received a severe cut on the leg above his kneecap. Daddy carried W. B. to
the house in his arms, and Carson drove them to a doctor. W. B. recovered
completely, but he was out of school for several days and used crutches for
several weeks.
In the yard near the house was a small wooden building used as a shop of
sorts. The shop did not have many tools, but I spent a lot of time in the
building tinkering, building bird houses, toy boats, etc., from small pieces
of scrap lumber and learning to saw with a dull hand saw. In early spring, a
nice pile of new, rough-sawed, pine lumber was delivered to the farm to use
in building a new tobacco-curing barn. Much of the lumber was 1" X 12"
boards. I freely used these boards and the nails provided with them to make
three or four long flower boxes for our front porch. I never asked
permission to use this lumber. When I had an idea for a project, I just
"scrounged" (took) what I "needed" from the pile. Neither Daddy nor the
landowner ever said a word to me about taking the lumber and nails. Daddy
was there with me every day, and the landowner came often. They both knew
what I was doing, though we never discussed it. They probably thought the
carpentry exercises were "good training" for an industrious 10-year-old boy.
Mama and I used the boxes to raise lots of petunias and other flowers I don't
remember.
One Saturday afternoon in early summer, Carson, Daddy and I were
returning home after grocery shopping in Spring Hope. We came upon two
young men in their early twenties, standing by the road trying to "hitch" a
ride. We stopped for them, and they got into the back seat with me. They
were thin, dirty & unshaven and had no luggage or baggage - no package of
any sort - that I remember. They said that they had not had a meal in
several days and had been eating green, raw corn from the fields by the
road. They told us that they were from New Jersey and just "bumming" around
the country on an "adventure." Because tobacco harvest time was just
beginning, and labor was in short supply, Daddy made a deal with them to
stay with us for the summer and help with the harvest.
They had never been on a farm before, but learned quickly, seeming to
enjoy all of it, especially when I would let them "drive" the mules pulling
the small tobacco trucks back and forth from the fields to the curing barn.
At times, however, they wanted the mules to go too fast for our safety and
the animals' good health. Once, when one of them was driving the mule
pulling an empty tobacco trunk along the side of the busy, paved highway,
and I was in the truck with him, he was making the mule run. Suddenly, the
mule bolted onto the pavement in front of an approaching Trailways bus! The
bus driver and I stared into each other's terrified eyes as the bus skidded
toward us and stopped close enough for me to reach out and touch the front
of it. Every day I've had since that day has been a bonus.
The visitors and I soon became good friends and were often "alone" -
just the three of us. Almost every time we were "alone," one of them would
ask me if I spoke German, sometimes pressing me with, "Are you sure you don't
speak German?" Of course, I, a ten-year-old farm boy in eastern North
Carolina in 1944, did not speak German. After being assured each time that
I did not speak German, they would go into a private & lengthy conversation
in German. Until a few years ago, I had never told anybody else in the
family about these conversations in German and their insistence that I not
be able to understand them. They never spoke German around others in the
family, and I was too young and naïve to suspect anything other than what
they had told us, but I now feel certain that the two young men were,
indeed, German.
The two visitors were with us for six or eight weeks until Daddy began
to suspect that he may have been harboring "draft dodgers" and asked them to
leave. They left our lives as suddenly as they had entered. Meanwhile,
they had become part of our family - ate with us, slept in our house, wore
my brothers' clothes, etc. - a relaxed & comfortable part of the family.
Though they became such a part of the family for that short time, I do not
remember their names; I vaguely remember that one was blond and the other
darker.
Years later, after I had gained some knowledge of German, and learned
that there had been German prisoner-of-war camps in Eastern North Carolina
and German ships/submarines had been sunk near the coast, I realized that
these two were most likely escaped German prisoners of war or even survivors
from a sunken German ship. There were times many years ago, while watching
a movie with German speakers or someone speaking English with a German
accent, when I would feel that I had heard certain sounds and accent before,
finally realizing and remembering that I had heard them in 1944 from our two
visitors.
How ironic that these two lived with us in friendship while two of my
brothers were at war trying to rid the world of their maniacal leader and
his thugs - one of my brothers, Lewis, was on Omaha Beach in Normandy at the
same time the visitors were living with us. Later that year, Carson, who
slept in the same room with the visitors as "brothers," was drafted into the
army and fought in Germany the following spring. At the same time I had
such a fear and hatred of Germans as a little boy (because of the talk of
war, news on the radio, in the papers, the enemy, etc.), these two kind,
young German men lived with us and were my good friends.
(For years, I have wondered what happened to the two visitors. Who were
they, really, and where were they really from? Did they stay on in the
states after the war? Have they kept their "secret" all these years, or did
they return to Germany a year or so after they lived with us? Have they
raised families - are their families German or American? Have they told
their children and families about my mother, who cooked three full meals for
them every day and cared for them in many other ways as if they were her own
children? Have they told their families about the kind, tenant-farmer
family in North Carolina who gave them refuge, treating them as sons and
brothers during such a cruel and terrible time in world history? Can we all
take this as a good example of how even mortal enemies can live in peace,
harmony & trust if we look at each other as fellow humans in need of comfort
without all the usual "baggage" of politics and religion? I hope so.)
Several times, when trucking tobacco (driving the mule pulling the
trucks of green leaves from the fields to the curing barns) during the
summer, I'd stop by the house to get water or a snack for the men in the
field and take a few minutes "extra" to listen to "The Lone Ranger" or "Tom
Mix" on the radio. This is the only time I've ever told anybody else about
the "extra" time. 'Musta worked out OK, anyway; it has been nearly 71
years, and nobody's ever mentioned it.
My sister, Joyce, and I often went into the woods to pick wild
blackberries during the summer and ripe plums and scuppernong grapes in
autumn. We usually filled the gallon Karo syrup buckets we each carried and
almost always got heavy infestations of "red bugs" (chiggers), under our
arms and in the crotch area. Applications of turpentine or kerosene and
generous washings with box lye soap usually cleared them away. The jams and
jellies Mama made with the wild fruit were fantastic and enjoyed immensely
by all members of the family throughout the winter.
In early autumn, Mama's eight-year-old nephew, whose mother and three
siblings had recently been killed in a house fire in Ontario, came to live
with us.
Late in the year, Mama bought me a new suit, a very rare item for me -
'don't remember having another suit until I was graduating from high school
eight years later. (Whenever I needed a coat and tie while in high school,
I usually wore W. B.'s.) After church one Sunday soon after getting the
suit, Mama kept prodding me to change clothes before going out to play. She
was afraid I would mess up the new suit. I wanted to keep enjoying wearing
it. I went outside for a few minutes to show it off to a friend who lived
nearby and immediately fell into a red mud hole! 'Never wore the suit
again. Mothers do, indeed, know best.
In October, Carson was drafted into the Army, and W. B. became the
family driver. Carson was an infantry rifleman on a half-track crew in the
6th Armored Division in Germany when the war in Europe ended in May, '45.
He went back there for a year and a half or so with the occupation forces in
'46/'47.
Wilton
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