Claude LaVern Cripe, born 1892 - Part 2

[ NOTE - The following is transcribed from an audiotape recording made by Claude LaVern Cripe on July 4, 1967.]

[ PART 2 OF 6 ]

1900

We arrived in South Bend. I don’t remember exactly whose house we went to but I had 2 Aunts there, and I do remember of leaving our bicycles at my Aunt uh, Lena’s - uh check that - not Aunt Lena but - Aunt Alice’s house in South Bend. We went to North Liberty by train and several weeks later I was sent to South Bend by train alone to bring back the 2 bicycles. I was to ride one and lead the other on gravel roads.


I don’t remember how I got out of South Bend, but I do remember going up Ginger Hill, trying to lead a bicycle on a gravel road. When I got to the top of the hill I was so all in, and all fired tired, I set down beside of the road and bawled and balwed and - I called my father everything I could think of, and I remember, I thought how dumb must a man be to send a kid no bigger than I was to South Bend to ride a pair of bicycles back down on the farm on a gravel road. (shut her off )


This episode of this bicycle riding from South Bend to North Liberty, uh, must have been in the year 1900. Because, I went to school a little while there at North Liberty when I was staying with my grandfather, and my father disappeared, and, I didn’t hear anything of him for several months and he had went to Caseburg Illinois.

And uh, the next Spring he sent for me, and my grandmother and grandfather put me on the train at North Liberty with a little lunch in my – in a sack, and sent me to Chicago, where I was transferred from the Wabash to the CB&Q. And then I was started for Caseburg Illinois. And on the train when I left Chicago some lady kept a watching me and wondering where in the world I was going. She got in a conversation with me and wanted to know what I had in the little brown paper bag. And, uh, I showed her. I had eaten my lunch, and the papers and the banana peelings and whatever else was left in the sack I didn’t know what to do with. And she took it and disposed of it for me, and that’s all I had when I got to Caseburg, was my bare hands.


Uh, here at Caseburg it was 19 hundred and One, because, uh I got there in the spring of the year, and that year, I remember very distinctly of a great flood that we had on the Mississippi river and Caseburg downtown was flooded. The store - store basements - was full and possibly a foot or foot and half of water on the first floor. The stores was all closed and the only way you could get in was to make an appointment with the man up on the hill and they would wade down to the store with their rubber boots on and you took what was left on the shelves, to eat.


And the sidewalks was all made of, uh, of wood. They were all wooden sidewalks, uh, out of 2-inch material. Uh, nailed down to uh, four by fours. And then a wire stapled acrost each side. Well this flood had tore up these side - these sidewalks floated and it tore em up into lengths, different lengths. It bust the wire and us kids had a wonderful time that spring riding these, uh, rafts, these wooden sidewalks was a good raft for us kids. We rode em all over town.


And that Fall I started the school in Caseburg. And there in the few months - I don’t know just exactly how long it was - that I went to school I had the best teacher that I ever had in a school. She was a woman, and apparently she knew my problem, and she helped me more than any other teacher I ever had. But… Father didn’t stay very long and so I had to leave that school and we went out in the country in the woods and he took a job of cutting cord wood for a dollar and a half a cord, and he had a tent and I lived in the tent and cooked for him and he put up cord wood. I didn’t go to school the balance of that winter.


The next spring we went to over to Monmouth Illinois. And uh, I had an uncle over there. He was in the uh, uh machine shop business and Dad went to work for him there. And uh, shortly after that, he, uh - automobiles begin to appear on the scene and he went into the automobile business - but not while I was there, only some time later.


And then after we left Monmouth I don’t remember where we went and therefore from then on, from the time we left Monmouth on until the year of 19 hundred and 6 for various reasons I will leave an absolute blank.