Martha Dovie Craft Tucker : School Days

Martha Dovie Craft Tucker: School Days

As told by Martha Dovie Craft Tucker on tape and transferred to paper by her daughter Nancy

I have often thought of my life in the terms of decades: from birth to the age of ten, then

the next to the age of twenty, etc. For the moment I’ll dwell on the first ten.

I have written and talked elsewhere in my “memoirs” about the circumstances of my birth

– on the little ole homestead in the Indian Territory (which later became the state of

Oklahoma) – then the move to California when I was just past the age of two and things

that happened through those first few years before I started to school. So now I’ll

reminisce a bit about the school years.

The family moved from Wible Orchard (near Bakersfield, California) to the little

community of Famoso (also called Famosa) about 20 miles from Bakersfield. My dad

had just been sent there as the railroad foreman – and just then I had a flashback of that

move. I vaguely remember the ride on the train and the stay overnight in Bakersfield at

the home of the Kelsos. Mr. Kelso was the Superintendent of that branch of the Southern

Pacific Railway which supervised the Famosa territory. I don’t know why our whole

family was housed there enroute to Famosa, but we were, and the Kelso family was most

hospitable, as I remember. How they managed to find beds for all our tribe, I don’t

know, for there was my dad and mother, my brother Earl, sisters Catherine and Bessie,

then Clarence, John, myself, Birdie and the baby Billie. Anyway, that memory just

flashed by as I thought about going to Famosa. We moved into the section house, which

was always provided for the foreman, and always painted yellow. How I hated that

particular shade of yellow and the smell of new paint when a house was painted. You

see, we had lived in Coalinga before that, and while there the house had been painted and

I had to endure that awful smell of that awful yellow paint. I think that is why I never

enjoyed being around when a house was being painted – or anything to do with fresh

paint. Of course in due time so much improvement has been made in the manufacture of

paint that anyone who didn’t live in those days could even begin to know how fresh paint

smelled then. Now you don’t have to suffer from that horrible odor. I don’t mean it was

a stench kind of smell but a strong aroma that, to me at least, was most unpleasant. Do

older people ever imagine or understand what kids go trough as they grow up and

become aware of their surroundings – the impressions being made on their young minds

as they are introduced to the many, many things they have to deal with? (I remember

how I hated the smell and taste of canned pineapple as a child, and now it is one of my

favorite fruits.)

Anyway, we moved into the new section house in Famosa and how I loved that place. It

was like an oasis in a desert. (Famosa is located in a desert type area). The yard was

fenced in by a beautiful fence comprised of long iron railings which were round and

apparently hollow. Then the yard was filled with beautiful flowers, mostly

chrysanthemums. Perhaps I remember those particularly because it was toward the fall of

the year and they were the flowers blooming at that time – but how I loved them – long

hedge-rows of yellow mums – and I loved the smell of them, and still do like the smell of

mums. There was a little brook – or it was probably a man-made ditch – running through

the yard and under the mum bushes – and it was filled with tiny frogs which chirped or

did whatever little frogs do. They never seemed to grow into big frogs so they must have

been some specie of frog that remains small. I loved to watch them hop about. We

became acquainted with a family named DeWolf who came often to visit and they had

one little girl named Martha, who was younger than me but much bigger, who became

the plague of my life as long as we lived in Famosa – and this little brat enjoyed and

indulged in mashing those little frogs with a stick, which left a most disgusting feeling in

my mind to this day. Anyway, with the brook, the flowers and the lovely shade trees, I

have a lovely memory of our first home in Famosa.

It was here in Famosa I first became aware of the Spanish language. The workers whom

dad supervised spoke only Spanish – they were from Mexico and were called peons (or

Cholos) and dad had to learn to speak their language in order to oversee their work,

building tracks, keeping the tracks in good condition for the trains to safely run on them.

While I did not learn to speak Spanish at that time, I did acquire, apparently, a good ear

for the language so that later, when I studied Spanish, it seemed to be natural for me to

use the proper pronunciation or accent. At any rate, Spanish people have always told me

that I do have a good accent. Be that as it may, I have always enjoyed mingling with

Spanish-speaking people and studying their language.

It was from this first home in Famosa that I started to school. My first school was a

square, red-brick building, and the word “CLEVELAND” was printed (in white bricks)

over the entrance. I learned later that this was the Cleveland District of the schools in

that area. My teacher was an older woman who was so brown I thought she was

Mexican. Her name was Annie Plummer and she had spent the summer in Guatemala

with her daughter, Gertrude. Gertrude and her husband had a coffee plantation in

Guatemala at that time and it seems Mrs. Plummer slawys spent her summers there. She

spoke Spanish, of course, but taught us in English. I don’t remember hearing her speak

Spanish to the students, even though there were many of them in the school, also French.

Famosa was in sheep country and many French people lived in and near the town. (I say

“town” loosely, because there was a country store, a jail, several saloons, with rooms

above them, and a few houses scattered here and there. There were various farms, or

ranches, in the outlying hills, and many of the students came from those homes.

My first year in that school is one I shall always remember because I enjoyed it so much.

Mrs. Plummer was not only a good teacher but a wonderful person, who became a life-

long friend of our famly. She had a special love for children and seemed to know what

they needed in their lives. She was from a German family named Fischer, all of them full

of music. One of her sisters was a music director – or at least must have been in charge

of the music department – at the San Jose Normal (which later became the San Jose

College). Another sister, a Mrs. Sybrandt, taught vocal music for years in Bakersfield.

In later years I became well acquainted with Mrs. Sybrandt, when I moved to Bakersfield

with my three little girls. But that is another story!

I’ll never know why Mrs. Plummer took a special notice of me, perhaps she did for all

her students, but she did things for me no other teacher did while I was that young. (I had

a special teacher in high school years later who seemed to take me under her wing, too,

but that story comes later, too.) Anyway, for some reason, Mrs. Plummer took a special

interest in my development, it seems, for under her tutelage I advanced very rapidly, so

much so that in the first grade I was reading at a 3 rd -grade level. That, too, may have

been because my older brothers and sisters were in grades ahead of me and I picked up

things from them, because I could read the books they were reading. One of the things I

wonder at now is that I could read the story of Hiawatha (by Longfellow) in the original

rendition. Fort sure, it was given to us in larger print, with many pictures of Indians and

teepees, etc. I loved them. I have always enjoyed Longfellow’s poems. Mrs. Plummer

not only introduced us to poetry but gave us a love of music. She was full of it and we

were introduced to good music and singing all day long. We began the day with singing

and had singing sessions at most any time she could work it in. You see, this was a giv,

one-room school, with all the grades in the same room. I don’t know how she got the

classes worked out for she had all age groups, but she did it and I’m sure everyone

learned at their own level. She was a great one for fun times and had many evenings for

the families to gather at the schoolhouse and enjoy good times with everyone singing and

the students putting on a show for their parents. We were always memorizing poetry and

songs and enjoyed every minute of it.

The next year I went to the same school, but Mrs. Plummer had taken a school in

Bakersfield, so we had a Mrs. Wiseman, whose husband had a huge orchard just a mile

from Famosa. I remember she always came with her horse and buggy, staked her horse

in the school yard where there was plenty of grass, put her buggy under the only tree in

that big yard, a big pepper tree whose shade kept her buggy cool – and we were allowed

to play in the buggy if we wanted to. I especially remember that tree because that little

Martha DeWolf (the same one who loved to kill the little frogs) became my most hated

enemy. Just as she loved to torture little creatures, she dearly loved to torture Martha

Craft, namely ME! She would spend her (and my) entire recess time chasing me around

and around that big school yard, which was enclosed by a wire fence. I don’t know now

why I let her but I did and ran for my life day after day. I don’t know why someone

didn’t stop her or why I was so afraid of her, but I was never a child to fight – my mother

urged me to turn on my little sister Birdie who was always doing things to me, but I

wouldn’t fight back – maybe because I was not strong and didn’t have the wherewithal –

but I just wouldn’t. So Big Martha chased little Martha ‘round and ‘round that school

yard day after day until one day she got me cornered in that corner where the buggy was

parked – and that is when she made her mistake. You know a coyote will run from you –

until you get him cornered- then look out! Just corner a coyote and you have a fight on

your hands. And that is what Big Martha did and had. Coyote, Martha, when cornered,

came out fighting and to Big Martha’s surprise the coyote had claws. Then big sisters

tried to come to Big Martha’s rescue. Imagine that horrible little Martha Craft doing that

to OUR little sister! Poor little sister (big) Martha – look what that naughty Martha Craft

did! About that time Mrs. Wiseman came on the scene. She was a wise old owl and I

imagine knew pretty much what had been going on for she marched Big Sisters and Big

Martha into her private office, told little Martha to go wash her face and go back to her

desk – and that was the last I ever heard of that. But there were no more chasings around

the school yard. I lived in peace after that and never knew what brought it about but was

forever grateful.

I don’t remember too much about that second year except that I was promoted to the 3 rd

grade and we moved to the mountains the next year. We must have started school but we

moved to Mott (northern California, near Sisson – later called Mt. Shasta – and that story

is covered elsewhere). Mrs. Wiseman must have been the teacher that 3 rd year but it just

now occurred to me that I have no memory of going to school just before we moved.

The move to northern California introduced me into an entirely different world. I’m

going to digress here long enough to tell you about that trip north. I have a very clear

memory of that long train ride – especially that long night on the train when I couldn’t

find a place to even sit down, much less lie down. Everyone stretched out, if they could,

or lay back in the seats. I can’t remember why but I seem to recall that the red plush seats

were not divided – were so constructed that one could stretch out on them and still

movable so you could lie back in them – adjustable is the word, I guess. Anyway,

between lying down or stretching back, every seat was filled and I could find no place to

park myself. My poor mother was probably exhausted for she had two children younger

than me to take care of and apparently just gave up because she slep so soundly I couldn’t

get her awake to hear about my problems, so I appropriated a little seat I found at the

back of the car not knowing that it was a special seat reserved for the conductor. But he

was a kindly man and realized I was an abandoned child for the moment so let me sit

there. I don’t know where he found a place to park but he must have managed. I don’t

know why I didn’t fall asleep myself – maybe I did and don’t remember but I do

remember how alone I felt in a strange world with no place to sit down or lie down.

It was on this trip I first learned about the sinking of the Titanic, which had occurred in

the early part of the same year. Those who traveled on trains will remember how the

boys selling candies, papers and knick-knacks would go through the cars, hawking their

wares and tempting the passengers to buy this or that. So someone had a paper to sell

that had horrible pictures of that event in lurid colors and big headlines about the terrible

catastrophe. It was a paper that at that time would drag up some event in the past and

make a big deal of it. No doubt the event had been in all the current newspapers at the

time it happened but for some reason I never heard about it so to me it had just happened.

For years then I thought the Titanic had sunk on that October day or about that time

(October 12, to be exact). Then I remember boys selling little lanterns filled with tine

colored candies and one of our boys bought one – probably Earl, for none of us except

Earl and Catherine had “spending money.”

The next thing I remember was staying or stopping off in Sacramento. My sister

Catherine (16 years old and bull headed) took Bessie and me for a long walk – seemed

long to me anyway – around Sacramento. It probably seemed longer to me than it really

was because I wasn’t too strong and my legs got awfully tired before we got back to the

station. I seemed to remember that we got lost because Catherine didn’t seem to know

where we were and we walked and walked, down railroad tracks then streets, past houses

whose windows began to light up for it became dark before we found our way back. If

she wasn’t lost she took a long time getting back to the station and I’m sure mother must

have worried about us, wandering around in a strange city. Anyway, we stayed all night

at that station and apparently they found beds for us children at least, for I remember

sleeping in a little bed. We must have had to change trans there and had to wait for a

train the next day. I can’t imagine why because in later years we could travel straight

through – or I think so at least. I came to Mt. Shasta from Bakersfield when Diane was a

little girl and changed trains at Oakland Mole, but I think that was to get a special train

coming from Lost Angeles. Well, anyway, I’m still hazy about it but I remember we had

to change trains at a place called Lathrop on that trip to the north and I remember it well

because we had to stand out but the tracks waiting for the train and it was so windy I

thought we were going to blow away.

The next thing that stands out in my mind about that trip was coming through Red Bluff,

because I wondered what kind of bluff we were going to find. As the train moved along,

the banks on each side of the tracks were reddish so that is where the town got its name, I

guess. I’ve been in Red Bluff many times since then and never saw any red bluffs so

never knew of any other explanation. Then came the biggest thrill of all the trip. As we

traveled northward, through the famous Sacramento Canyon, a new world opened up to a

handful of kids who had never known anything but dry prairie country – at least one of

those kids – me – for I had never been anywhere but southern California and had lived all

over that part of California that was covered with sagebrush and had seen only a few trees

here and there. Now we rode through a beautiful section of country, covered with tall

pines, firs and cedars, with waterfalls cascading down mountainsides into a winding river

as we threaded our way up the canyon.

The train stopped at a place called Shasta Springs. At that time it was a tourist attraction

along the Shasta-Cascade route. It had been developed as a rich man’s summer resort.

There were natural springs brought into attractive fountains and the train stopped long

enough for everyone to get out and sample the nippy waters that had a sting to them as

they bubbled right out of the earth. The favorite one was called Shasta Spring water and I

never tired of drinking it so long as I lived where I could get it. There were several kinds

of these mineral waters, all of them rich in iron but each different because of the different

minerals they contained. The Southern Pacific had developed a lovely resort at the

Shasta Springs location, reaching from the railroad stop-over to the top of the

mountainside. They had built trails protected by artistically constructed railings, which

climbed the side of the mountain and were so arranged that all the beauty of the

surrounding vegetation, ferns, flowers and trees, portrayed nature’s wonders in that area.

Waterfalls and springs graced the entire mountainside and fed the plants and flowers that

grew there. Among these were the lovely tiger lilies, wild roses, azaleas and myriads of

other varieties of flowers and ferns provided by Mother Nature. At the top of the

mountain many summer homes had been built, either by the Southern Pacific Railroad

Company or those wealthy people who occupied them during the summer months. It was

a beautiful spot. In later years as I grew up and lived in that area, this placed was opened

to the public and became a recreational area which we all enjoyed. They had a large

swimming pool and a restaurant and many parties were arranged there by the people

living in Mt. Shasta and Dunsmuir. I remember our 1923 graduating class from Mt.

Shasta High gave a swimming party there and at one time the Eastern Star group which I

belonged to (Sisson Chapter, O.E.S.) had a lovely afternoon party there, with a

sumptuous luncheon and lawn party. I have many wonderful memories of outings at

Shasta Springs – many hikes from the level down to the railroad tracks along those

beautiful trails, then along the tracks down to Moss Brae Falls and even as far as Shasta

Retreat, another summer resort in that area. Unfortunately, years later this beautiful area

fell into the hands of a religious sect that invaded the Mt. Shasta area – some kind of

group that believed in an unearthly tribe of some kind of beings who lived on the slopes

of Mt. Shasta. I don’t know if they still hold sway there but it was a sad day for the

people of Mt. Shasta and Dunsmuir when they got possession of Shasta Springs for that

was an area that should have been set apart as a state park, available to all who lived in

that area or who might visit it from time to time.

To keep on with my trip – we went from the Shasta Springs stop on up to Cantara,

another resort area which was really just the home of an early settler who saw

possibilities in providing a mountain place for tourists. At that time it was the mail stop

(or Post Office), where settlers in the area could pick up their mail. From Cantara the

tracks wound back and forth to the top or summit of the mountain, called the Cantara

Loop. It was a switchback, winding back and forth three times to make the climb. The

Southern Pacific Railroad Company advertised it as one of their wonders of the “Shasta

Wonderland,” which, of course, included the Shasta Springs attraction. At any rate, as

the train wound back and forth up this incline, those riding in the coaches ahead could

look out and see the trail-end of the train coming along behind them even down to the

third track. I always enjoyed that ride, which I experienced many times in later years as I

rode and forth between Mt. Shasta and San Francisco - before the bus companies made

traveling quicker and easier. To add a note to this, I’ll have to tell of something I just

learned recently – Sept. 1986. I have found a cousin, Jay West, my Uncle Henry’s son,

who lives in Klamath Falls, Oregon – who is a retired engineer who was once employed

by the South Pacific Railroad Company and who for years engineered trains up that grade

that I’ve just described – and he told me with a grin that he never went up that grade with

an engine but that he had his heart in his mouth. Knowing, as I do, that the tracks are not

so carefully watched as they were in the days when my father was the section foreman

who supervised that particular stretch of track from Dunsmuir to Mott, I can understand

his reason to fear. An accident on that steep grade would have been disastrous. The last

time I rode up that grade on Amtrak, I, too, held my breath and had a prayer going

upwards that we would make it for they have had some bad wrecks along that area, even

in Mt. Shasta itself. I recall seeing a wreck just along the track north of town when I was

visiting there some years after moving away. Oddly enough, my cousin, Jay, who was

here visiting recently recalled the same wreck and told how he was injured at the time.

He wasn’t in the cab of the engine that jumped the track but was taking a “helper” (a lone

engine that goes along to help the regular engine up a bad grade.) to the next station

(Weed, I guess). Anyway, he saw what was going to happen so he jumped and was badly

injured when he fell among some junk along the track. His engine didn’t leave the tracks

but several cars followed the first engine, which did jump the tracks. When I saw the

wreck, the engine and cars were still lying where they jumped the tracks and they lay

there for a long time.

Now you can see why I never succeeded in keeping a diary – I get tangled up in my

thoughts and try to tell it all at once. That is why I used to get discouraged when I tried

to keep a journal. I write everything I am thinking about – and suppose I talk the same

way – as I digress a lot when telling anything. So, if you who read this can bear with me

and my digressions, I eventually get it all told, I hope. But, if I don’t tell these things as

they come to mind, I lose them, only to remember later that I meant to say such and so

when I was discussing a certain happening.

For instance, I wanted to explain, in telling about living in Famosa California that the

name is a Spanish one and ordinarily it is used as an adjective because it means

“famous.” I can’t imagine anything in the history of Famosa that made it famous –

thereby might “hang a tale” (who said that?) But the word is said and spelled according

to the noun that it modifies. In Spanish, nouns are either feminine or masculine and end

either in an “a” or “o” depending on their gender. For that reason, if the original name

was “famous city or cuidad famosa, the ending would be “a” because ciudad is a

feminine word in Spanish. (How’s that for a quick lesson in Spanish?)

Well, we finally reached Mott – a deserted “ghost” town which had at one time been a

thriving community in the midst of the logging industry. It still had several very nice

homes left as they were when the occupants moved away, but when we arrived there

were only one or two families remaining besides the Craft household. Of course, we

occupied the usual two-story, yellow house reserved for the foreman and his family.

Next door was a two story brick house, used by the Italian men who were employed by

the Southern Pacific as laborers to keep the tracks in working order. This was a new

experience for my father, for he had never supervised Italian workers before and he found

they were not the meek peons from Mexico who submitted to his abusive ways. That

was one of the reasons he didn’t last long as the foreman there. Anyway, across the road

from our place was an old abandoned warehouse now used as a store, where the

Crumpley family held sway. I don’t know if they owned the place or were left there by

the owners to sell the ware still remaining to be sold. Id do know my father purchased

furniture – those items needed to supplant