My Memorial to My Grandfather: part 11

Over the course of the ten years since their marriage, with the optimism of youth fading like the exciting dream one awakens from and wishes to never lose, they became resigned to their fate, accepting the farm life they lived.  Oscar managed some pieces of mechanic jobs here and there, but all were simply more routine work he could have performed in his sleep.  Nothing ever presented him a challenge – even if he would have known the time with which to engage it.

His entire life was farming, farming, farming; day in and day out.  That which he loathed consumed his strength, many times leaving him passed out in the middle of his living room floor.  Whenever any of his kids found him in such a state, they knew they were not to disturb.  Walk around.  Walk over.  Just do not wake your father up.

It was clear to Anna Jane her husband was not happy.  Therefore, when he, the Holt boys, and a cousin or two began erecting a new farm building to store the larger equipment they began acquiring for the farm, she suggested he carve out a portion of this new building to use as a garage.

And of the required farming?

Dean and Gene could handle the farming.  Yes they were boys, but they were managing the farm already as it was.

Such was true.  The boys could indeed handle the responsibilities of the farm.  They, in fact, already were.  And this new building?  There was room for a garage – easily.  Those clouds lingering over the horizon might be starting to finally break.

Oscar’s father passed away in 1931, followed by his brother Burt in 1932.  Burton Sexton succumbed to the condition that brought down their brother Alvin.  His appendix burst, leaving his widow Naomi to care for their children still of the home.  Their eldest Earnest and Ivan, were of age and married.  Their daughter Glenna appeared soon to follow into marriage herself.  This left the three youngest: Lloyd, Thelma, and Carl still requiring their mother’s care.

Naomi shared one unusual mother/sister-in-law trait in common with Anna Jane.  Her youngest child Carl was born on the same day as Anna Jane’s second child Gene.  While this occurrence did not initiate their agreeable relationship with one another, it did serve as an exclamation point marking approval that Oscar foresaw back on day one.  The two ladies got along, just as Oscar and his brother Burt got along. 

Family troubles were fairly well muted by this juncture in time.  Oscar’s mother, for some reason, expressed a measure of discontent with all the k ids Oscar and Anna Jane seemed to continuously be having; and Oscar faced difficulties, at times, being paid for his mechanic work by family members who argued over the cost; but nothing and no one was as egregious a thorn in his side as his brother Harvey.

There were various instances over the years where the two brothers butted heads of contention – Oscar attempting to get rightful pay for mechanic work done being one; Harvey attempting to pawn off sick farm animals being an example of another – but the most intense fight came over Harvey’s continued insistence on taking away the land which brought Oscar and Anna Jane to Kansas in the first place.

Everything came to a head one day when their mother was out of town visiting their sister Lillian in Emporia.  It was anticipated her stay would last for a month at the minimum; thus Harvey arrived at the farm one evening, believing he held the upper hand, and confronted his brother within his family kitchen. He tried, with his customary bombastic flair, forcing Oscar and his family off the land; to which Oscar grabbed a nearby butcher knife and began waving it in his brother’s direction.  Anna Jane immediately stepped in between the two, holding her husband back and demanded, with the same fierceness in her words as could be seen in Oscar’s eyes, for Harvey to leave.

He did so, never to return.

My Memorial to My Grandfather: part 10

Oscar was dumbstruck.  He knew not what to think – or how he should even react.  These revelations left him stymied into wondering, his mind meandering about as to what the two of them should now do.

It was Anna Jane who pointed out the one option available to them was farming the land.  Farm the land.  Do what your family expects you to do; and wait for other opportunities to develop.  Who knows what might happen in a year?  If one keeps their eyes open and their ears alert, anything could be possible.

She suggested he write his former partner in Greeley, and she would write her brother in Long Beach just to see if any new opportunities might have developed in the short time since they were there – not the same jobs to return to, but positions that would prove a step up from what both formerly held.  And if not, they would keep writing; they would keep asking; they would keep seeking until something came into view that would prove fruitful.

In the meantime, they would farm the land as his family and neighbors wanted; and Oscar would use whatever free time might come to work on the garage.  The horizon which offered such potential in the past was all clouded over with the vast emptiness of the Kansas prairie.  Oscar couldn’t see it himself for the first time.  He could see nothing but the manacles his family fastened about his feet.  He wanted to run, but where could he run?  He hoped these letters Anna Jane spoke of writing would amount to something; but seriously, he doubted it.  He was a farmer, after all.

They wrote the letters; and Oscar was right that nothing would come of them.  The jobs both of them held were, of course, filled; and the only jobs available elsewhere were similar jobs of same pay and status.  He knew Anna Jane was right, and they just needed to play the hand they were dealt to see where it might lead.

As time progressed, things began to settle down.  Anna Jane gave birth to their first child in March of 1925, a son by the name of Dean Olen.  She conceived a second time, two years later, in April of 1927, to a second son, this time named Gene Oscar.  Three additional children followed over the course of the next seven years with Rosalie in 1929, Naomi Lu in 1932, and James Burton in 1934, the namesake for Oscar’s father whom his mother expected one of her children to name.

Emma Ann Holt Sexton gave birth to seven children; and from those seven children, she was given twenty grandchildren, none of whom were named after her husband, who was named after his father, until this final child of Oscar and Anna Jane.

My Memorial to My Grandfather: part 9

In the meanwhile, as their plans for the garage began to take shape, the two did manage to acquire a few trappings of typical farm life: some chickens and a couple of cows, a pig or two here and there - just enough to make life on a Kansas farm interesting.  Oscar would also handle a few routine mechanical jobs, both with maintenance for automobiles, which were growing in number, and the machinery farmers used to plant their crops.  It was a means to spread his name farther, the more work he did, for people to know where to come when their machines faced problems the next time.

One day, an inquiry was made.  Oscar was asked, point blank, whose tractor he would be borrowing, since he had none of his own yet, to plant his first crop.  Also, when would he be buying his seed?

Sensing some argument could ensue, yet not willing to back down from his stern resolve, Oscar set himself with the same fortitude which kept him on those trains, hoboing it from Greeley to Long Beach and from Long Beach to Abilene.  He explained to the people, quite clearly and quite frankly, he would not be planting any crop.  He was not using his deceased brother’s former land to continue as a farm.  He was in the process of building a garage to service the maintenance on all the farm machines in the county, as well as all the automobiles people were beginning to purchase.  It was something he was doing for his family, which he looked forward to seeing grow very soon.

No one to whom he spoke these words uttered as much as a syllable of response.  Most were trying to digest precisely what the man was telling them; others stood simply dumbstruck the land would not be used to farm any crops.  What else was that amount of land to be used for?  The real onslaught hit the following day when word spread and wave after wave after wave of family members and farmers in the area relentlessly argued with him, some reasonably; others peppering their words with anger.  What he proposed just wasn’t done.  Farmland was for farming, not for some foolhardy venture that would never get off the ground.  How did he ever expect to raise a family?  If he wanted to open a garage, start one in town.

These arguments were nothing new.  Oscar had heard them all before then.  They were the same arguments his family threw at him when he showed his initial interest in engines and an aversion for farming.  They were thoughts and ideas he mulled over within his own mind the succeeding years; giving credence to what carried merit and tossing aside what he viewed argument simply for arguments sake.  He knew how to answer every challenge posed him; even the one of a garage should be located in town.

To this he agreed, and it was an idea he foresaw as several years down the road; but as the land he owned was the farmland on which he and Anna Jane lived, and as its location served as more ideal for farmers to bring him their tractors, their implements, and whatever equipment might need attention, this land was where all would begin; it was the place where he would be setting up his shop.

It was at this juncture where his brother Harvey chimed in his two cents.  The land was not Oscar’s to do with as he pleased.  He did not own it.  It still belonged to their parents.  Oscar could not simply do with it as he pleased.  It was farmland, and a farm was what the land would always be.

When Oscar looked into this contention by his brother, confronting his parents directly on the issue, he learned that Harvey was indeed right.  The land was not his and Anna Jane’s.  It belonged to his father and mother still – and he was renting, not owning, land that would only belong to him upon their deaths.

Harvey was wrong on one thing though.  Oscar could still build his garage; but the land had to be farmed first.  The farm took priority over all else. That much he was required to do.

How could he build a garage when farming would always take precedent?  He was only one man.  Farming the land would consume all his time.  Such stood as the quandary now facing him and Anna Jane.  How could they proceed forward with any of their plans?  Should they even try?  Returning to Long Beach, or even to Greeley, was never an option, as neither he nor Anna Jane believed in stepping backwards through life, retreating in the face of hardship.  Yes, their move to Abilene could be interpreted by some as a retreat.  They were returning, after all, to familiar ground Oscar knew well.  Yet in their minds, when they assumed at the time the land would be theirs, land to do with as they pleased, it seemed a clear and certain step forward. 

My Memorial to My Grandfather: part 8

When Anna Jane arrived in Abilene, Oscar took her first to the farm so she could see the “fine little cottage” of which his mother wrote.  The disappointment was palpable.  There was no need for Oscar to even ask.  He felt it in the grip of her hand upon his; the change in her countenance from the joy of being together again to the utter astonishment over what they had done.  Why did they leave behind California?  How could see have been so foolish to even suggest it?  Anna Jane was still a farm girl at heart, so she knew the “cottage” would not be the fanciful pictures of an idyllic setting her imagination conjured for her.  But this?  She anticipated something a step up from her father’s Colorado farm – not what her eyes were showing her now.

Sensing her disillusionment and noticing her hesitation for stepping any further onto the land, any closer to the “fine little cottage” before them, Oscar started directing Anna Jane’s attention about the property with his plans of what was to come.

Initially, he would need to depend entirely upon the buildings Alvin left behind.  They were crude, but strongly built; and though they were suited more towards the operations of a farm than an automobile garage, he believed he could modify their structure enough in order to begin.  As time progressed, improvements would be made, and additional mechanics could be hired as they expanded and became better known across the northern regions of the state.  Who knows?  Maybe one day they could even begin selling automobiles along with repairing them.  Anything and everything was possible.  Nothing should ever be discounted.

Anna Jane’s initial dismay quickly evaporated with Oscar’s impassioned vision of what laid possible on this land now theirs.  She even adopted a measure of his farsightedness when he led her into the house for her first impressions.  The inside exhibited little difference to the outside: a dilapidated farmhouse neglected for too long.  However, the faith she also held, faith akin to Oscar’s own, revealed to her the possibilities for how it could be turned into a home.  The bottom floor consisted of four rooms, all the same basic size and shape.  One room would be their bedroom – most likely, the room to the rear of the house, to the left of the door facing the road.  This room was separated by a set of stairs leading to another two-and-a-half rooms on the second floor: clearly, rooms for children, though storage in the interim.

The remaining three rooms of the bottom floor were a kitchen/pantry, a dining room, and a living room.  There was a door between their kitchen and bedroom leading out to the back.  Certainly, this would serve as the primary source of entrance and exit from the house.  Oscar’s future garage lay within easy sight.

Call it the foolish optimism of youth.  Call it the blind faith of the true believers.  Call it whatever you so choose.  Just don’t denigrate the hope that compels any soul to work hard for the rewards they know by faith will arrive.

That same day, the 8^th of April in the year 1924, Oscar and Anna Jane were married by a local Justice of the Peace in Abilene.  Afterwards, Oscar took her around to meet the members of his family: his parents and his siblings, save his sister Lillian, who lived in Emporia with her new husband Everett Rich.  The two had married a month earlier in Valley Center; and when everything settled down a bit, Oscar planned on a visit, not just to Emporia, but also to Junction City so as to introduce Anna Jane to his sister-in-law, Sarah, Alvin’s widow.

Things at the moment, though, were far from being settled.  The meetings introduced to Anna Jane a family that showed themselves standoffish and aloof.  Everyone was cordial.  They spoke to her and acknowledged her presence as a new factor in Oscar’s life; but no one gave out the “welcome to the family” speech.  No one embraced her with a tender affection Oscar anticipated.  Like with himself, no one asked a word about California; who her family was; how she and Oscar met.  None of it.  She was simply the “movie star” gal Oscar Sexton brought back with him from California, who sashayed about wearing makeup (which Oscar’s mother loathed) with an air of pomposity that showed how much superior she was to these simple Kansas farm girls.

Anna Jane wished to set the record straight that she also was a simple farm girl, a simple Colorado farm, who picked up a bit of knowhow on makeup and nice dresses from a few people in California; but Oscar held her in check.  They needed to retain their focus on their plans of him building a fine garage, and she creating a warm and loving home.  If his family sought to be a part of their lives, they were welcome; but neither of them should begin to stumble all over themselves trying to seek approval they would never be offered.

A couple of exceptions did exist in Oscar’s thoughts as he considered Anna Jane’s earlier suggestion regarding extended family.  His eldest sister Myrtle gave birth to five sons.  Her husband, Walter Holt, had tragically passed away five years earlier, leaving the entirety of the farm’s responsibility on the shoulders of these boys, a responsibility they handled with great maturity, demonstrating not only a natural ability for farming, but even more so in mechanical aptitude and carpentry.  In other words, the five Holt boys knew how to fix things; they knew how to build things; they knew how to grow things.  Oscar saw a possibility, in between the duties of their own farm; he could call upon them for help when needed.

As to the help Anna Jane would need in fixing up the house, it seemed to him his sister-in-law Naomi, the wife of his brother Burt, she might become a confidant over the course of time.  Her reaction to Anna Jane was not so much one of aloof pretentiousness, as it was perplexing curiosity.  Who was this woman who stepped out of the moving pictures show?  What did she want with us poor Kansas farmers?  Oscar foresaw the possibility of a real friendship developing between the two, if they were ever permitted a measure of time in which for it to blossom.

My Memorial to My Grandfather: part 7

Thus, it became decided: Oscar would return to Kansas first; Anna Jane would follow a few weeks later.  He knew the only means for him to make the trip was to hobo it on the trains again, as there was still no money for the extravagance of a train ticket, and he did not wish to subject Anna Jane to the harshness of that experience – though, inwardly, he suspected she could have dealt with the rigors quite well.

Instead, she would borrow the money from her brother to follow later.  Eddie offered to buy tickets for them both, as his prospects shined brightly upon him over his short time in California, but Oscar did not wish to begin his life with Anna Jane in debt, even to her brother, whom he liked.  He feared accepting his brother Alvin’s home may have already place him there, and he could find himself already at a deficit when returning to his hometown.

The reception Oscar met when reaching Abilene was one hard to qualify.  He expected no brass band like a Roman general parading in triumph up to Caesar from the battlefield.  There was none.  Yet he hoped some of Anna Jane’s words might prove true, and there would be some recognition of his absence, coupled with an inquiry into all that was new in his life.

People who remembered him, those who saw him upon the streets of Abilene, they reacted like he was never gone, asking him the same typical questions of how his parents were; what his brothers were doing; what was new this year on the farm.  Etc. etc. etc. it went, with Oscar politely responding in kind, never mentioning his time in Colorado or his living in California.

The reaction from his family was somewhat similar.  Though no one asked him anything of Greeley or Long Beach, or even of Anna Jane herself, they did implicitly acknowledge his absence by enlightening him on all the happenings around Dickinson County the past few years – with a special emphasis upon the passing of his brother Alvin.

They told him the story of how Alvin died.  They told him where Sarah and the kids now lived.  She did marry William Gfeller, and now was living in Junction City – though, for some reason, her youngest child Paul, lived with Oscar’s brother Harvey and his wife.  Oscar considered inquiring into why, as it made no sense to him at all for Paul not to move with his mother and her new family, but he decided against saying anything, continuing to hold his tongue, hoping to maintain some semblance of civility for Anna Jane when she eventually accompanied him.

Instead, he turned his focus entirely onto the farm that would now be theirs.  The land was certainly good.  He knew that from growing up here.  It still remained the best of all the brothers had received, as well as some of the best farmland in the county.  He thought he might have picked up on a few wisps of resentment over this fact.  Who was he, after all, to be given such a prime piece of ground?  He was the one who abandoned his farming heritage in favor of those silly automobiles.  Now he wished to pick it up again, when others were more faithful, not to mention capable, of putting the land to good use?

Oscar could not help but wonder to himself what people would think when he never tilled the soil and never planted a crop.  The idea Anna Jane suggested of him building his garage to service all the farmers in the area, he could see how the buildings Alvin left behind could suit that purpose supremely.

These buildings were of not much to speak.  They were all typical farmland buildings of the time; and the house he and Anna Jane would live in, it remained in dire need of some improvements.  Who knows how long it may have sat empty?  Yet this stood as their beginning, and Oscar could see, as with Long Beach, great potential lying over the horizon.