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| Example of a dugout house |
Robert's
father's name was George Alexander Corder.
He was born somewhere around San Antonio on March 18, 1874. Like my own
father, Robert's father could neither read nor write but was eager for his
children to be well educated.
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| Robert's Uncle Will, a horse wrangler |
Robert
never knew either of his grandmothers and can't remember being told anything
about them. He remembered that his
grandfather Corder was a trail driver who took herds of longhorn cattle from
San Antonio and drove them north.
His grandfather told fantastic tales of storms and Indians. On one of his drives the cowboys nearly
died of thirst. Their tongues were
beginning to swell when they finally came to a water hole. Most of the drivers drank too much too
fast and came down with water colic.
An old Indian saved Robert's grandfather by pulling him away from the
water and allowing him to drink only a little at a time.
His
maternal grandfather, John Hill, lived in a dugout near Robert's family and was
a very unpopular visitor. He spat
tobacco juice in the dog's eyes; the children thought he was terrible.
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| Corder Family in Jayton, Texas ca. 1907 [L-R: James, George, John T., Robert, John, W.K. (seated), Julia, and Eugenia] |
Robert's
parents had many business interests.
Among other things, they owned a rural store where groceries and other
odds and ends were sold. His
mother managed the store and was much more interested in it and outside
activities than her home duties. Eugenia
Rebecca was out-spoken, strong-willed, an organizer, and leader in the
community as well as at home.
Robert's only sister, Julia, was responsible for the housework and
cooking.
Unlike
my own mother and sisters, neither Mrs. Corder nor Julia was handy with a
needle. Their clothes were made on
a machine; and very few, other than the long dresses that Julia and his mother
wore, were made at home — only a few nightshirts were made for his father and
the boys. Clothing was made of
cotton or wool; colors were expected to fade and the fabric shrink due to
washing in hot water and drying in the bright sunshine. Regular wash was done once a week. Just as it was in my home, washday began
at dawn and was an all-day affair.
Water was heated in a wash pot and white clothes were boiled as both a
bleaching and germicidal treatment.
Hand washing was done in a tub with a rub board.
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| Uncle Bob Corder |
Robert
and his brothers, James, John and W.K., worked in Lockney with their father in the family business, George Corder and Sons Sheet Metal Shop. There, as his
father's apprentice, Robert learned the trade which he used later to put us
both through college.
His
father also raised livestock. It
is easy to see how my future husband had became a jack-of-all-trades; he could
do a little of everything. Most of
all, however, his parents wanted him to become a Baptist minister. Robert wanted to study science. At that time, he had it in mind to
become a medical doctor.
This
was not the only point of disagreement with his parents. His mother's righteous fear of higher
education conflicted directly with Robert's plans to go to college. Since religion was the basis of her
objections, they argued about religion.
My husband always felt the greatest value of religion to be found in the
present, in the creation of a philosophy of life. His mother thought the primary value of religion to be the
means to an end — to keep us out of Hell!
Years later, I heard Robert ask a Baptist minister why he preached “Hell
Fire” sermons so often rather than stressing “our loving God.”
For
fun at home, Robert remembered playing checkers and a game called Fox and
Geese. His father and uncles took
the children to swim in a muddy pond (which, in emergency, was also used as a
source for drinking water). They
rode burros, horses and calves and hitched dogs and goats to little
wagons. Mother Corder said that Robert
and his brother, W.K. were typical brothers: “Like two donkeys they kicked,
bit, pinched, pushed and shoved.”
Christmas
holidays were the best for the Corder children. Although there was very little mention of Santa Clause and
they never received a toy, the children looked forward to treats of oranges,
apples and nuts. They always had a
sermon and a big dinner with the neighbors.
Overnight
stays with neighbors and taffy candy pulls were great fun, and on other
holidays, the boys often played pranks.
One time they took a buggy apart and put it back together on top of a
barn. Another time they took the
wheels off a wagon and hid them under a haystack. No one ever considered the need to call a sheriff in these
situations.
Compared
to other women of that day, Robert's mother was an extraordinarily adventurous
soul. She loved to travel; she
always wanted to see the other side of the next hill. Nearly every summer, the family made a trip in a wagon and
prepared all their meals on the roadside.
They could usually find a young married couple, glad to get away from
their parents, to come and stay in their home to take care of the animals
during their absence. The family
not only traveled for pleasure, often they totally relocated their
homestead. Robert remembers that
his parents moved the family home to seven other locations before he came to
Lockney where we met.
One
of the first moves he remembered, from Stonewall County in Texas to Portales,
New Mexico, was made in three covered wagons with herds of horses and
cows. In 1914, while Robert was
living at Portales, World War One was declared. He was too young to be drafted, but he felt the effects of
the war even in Portales. Many of
his friends and relatives were inducted into service. Sugar, coffee and other foods were rationed; prices of food,
clothing and other items skyrocketed.
The family ground their own wheat and rye as substitutes for flour. Robert always considered soft white
bread a delicacy (as we all did) after his years of enforced whole grain
breads.
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| George Corder land claim and witness to claim from Kenna Record newspaper, Kenna, New Mexico 1913 and 1914 |
The
family never traveled on Sundays; they camped, read the Bible and had prayer
services. It was a day of
rest. Robert’s brother, James,
made a decision to preach the Gospel while in Arkansas. He later studied at the Baptist
seminary and had a large church near Houston.
Church
was the center of the family’s social life. The children played church, had weddings and baptizings, and
the families got together for singings after church on Sunday nights. Big revival meetings were held every
summer under arbors. Pallets were
made for the small children so that they could sleep through the long
services. Robert told me about one
particularly embarrassing church meeting of his childhood: He was too old to sleep on a pallet;
his eyelids had turned to lead and his neck to jelly. The preacher, after speaking five or ten minutes in a low
tone, suddenly yelled. Robert
jumped and fell into the isle.
The
local schoolhouse was used on Saturdays and Sundays by different denominations
for church services. They were not
only concerned about the salvation of non-members; they were greatly concerned
about the misdirection and salvation of members of other denominations. Many Sunday afternoons, Mother Corder,
holding her Bible in her hand, discussed scripture with ministers, other
denominational leaders, and anyone else seeking the truth. Religious debates sometimes lasted a
week or more. Robert remembered
that one debate ended in a community brawl. But denominational differences were completely forgotten in
time of severe drought; all denominations met together to pray for rain.
Mother
Corder’s entry into religious debates serves not only as an indication of her
strong-willed personality, but also as an indication of the progress the church
had made in the recognition of women in the first decade of the twentieth
century. In research for an
article on the history of the Baptist church, my brother Doyle’s wife, Ethel,
found an 1895 roll of church members.
It lists all of the sisters’ names on one sheet and all of the brothers’
names on another sheet. The
minutes indicate that when the congregation gathered to worship, the sisters
sat on one side and the brothers on the other. It was also clearly understood that a woman was not to speak
out in a public gathering of worship.
Special
church conferences were held on Saturdays. Very little time was used in discussing the budget. Most conference time was used in
hearing apologies for some offense against church rules or a report of a
committee who had tried to get an apology from a wayward member. If the member refused to repent, he was
turned away from the church. Common
offenses included dancing, working on Sundays, fist fighting, cursing and
drunkenness. Divorcees were not
permitted church membership. If
one married a divorcee, he was considered to be living in adultery. It was not unusual for a conference to
last four or five hours.
She
didn't reprimand me; she didn't even talk about my spiritual downfall. But she never again called on me to
read the scripture. According to
her estimation, I had lost my glory.
Still, she continued to love me and was good to me in other ways.
The
Corder children were well known by the adults of the small settlements. Therefore, a report of their behavior
often arrived at home before they did.
If the report was good, they were praised. If the report was bad, they were scolded or whipped. Along with Robert's other childhood
fears of tornadoes, snakes, skunks and rabies, he was also mighty afraid of
Hell and the wrath of the community.
It
was the same in my home; bad grades or bad behavior were never blamed on our
teachers or anyone else but us children.
Robert was always impressed with the power of the attitude of a small
community and acknowledged the great controlling influence this community’s
approval (or disapproval) had on the behavior of its younger citizens; it’s
something we've lost with so many more of us living in larger cities and in
situations where we really don't get to know each other.
These
punishments were some of the most unpleasant memories of Robert's
childhood. He felt that he was
punished unfairly at times; and at times he was punished for some of the things
that his brother, W.K. did — to an extent that hard feelings between them did
some damage to their relationship.
Food
was plentiful for Robert and his family but there was not great variety. The only store-bought foods were flour,
sugar and coffee. Both sugar and
flour were purchased in 100-pound sacks.
Meal was ground from corn that was raised on the family farm. Corn was also made into hominy. Much cornbread and mush were eaten;
milk and butter were also plentiful.
Fresh milk immediately went into a separator where cream was removed
from the top and sold, and leftover skimmed milk was fed to the hogs. Delicious soft-curd milk called
"clabber" was often part of the family meal.
With
minor variations, milk and butter were kept cool in a water trough in the same
manner of my own home. There was a
long box with a hinged top in the trough.
Water was pumped into a barrel used for drinking water. From the barrel, a pipe took the water
through the long box where the milk and butter were stored; then another pipe
took the water to a stock tank.
Water from the stock tank was often used to water the garden.
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| Example of a grist mill (Barton Springs, Austin 1860) |
There
was no such thing as a "hunting season," so there were also frequent
additions to the table such as antelope, rabbit, prairie chicken, quail and
dove. Home-canned foods, potatoes
and apples were stored in the cellar.
Turnips were hilled.
Grapes
were preserved and made into wine.
Mother Corder, absolutely contrary to any Baptist image of abstinence,
began each day with her “toddy.”
There was even a story in the family that she was a bit tipsy on her
wedding day. She never believed in
prohibition but practiced it during that time because she believed in obeying
the law. Father Corder's vice was
Tinsley tobacco, which he purchased in ten-pound cases. He shredded it with a knife and smoked
it in his pipe. He never rolled a
cigarette.
Mr.
and Mrs. Corder (I would never have dared to call them George and Eugenia
Rebecca) were jealous of each other.
Robert remembered his father's jealousy of his mother's friendships with
ministers: One morning, at the
breakfast table, his father made a remark about her devotion to a particular
preacher, and his mother threatened to throw hot coffee in her husband’s face. Then there was a time when Mr. Corder
spent too much time at the house of a widow lady who lived on a nearby
ranch. He had been showing a
friend some property and stopped by the widow's place to get a drink. After their return home and the
departure of their friend, an awful argument ensued.
Robert
was always opposed to the use of liquor.
He said that adults seemed silly and foolish when they were
drinking. I’ve wondered if
drinking had sometimes figured into his parents’ volatile moods.
Robert,
much more than I, had the kind of experience that makes up our present-day
image of western pioneering. He
mostly lived in dugouts and half-dugouts.
His largest house had only three rooms; he preferred the barnyard with
its corncobs, to the outhouse toilet with the Sears Roebuck catalog. He herded flocks of sheep and goats in
New Mexico when the human population was sparse and rattlesnake population
numerous. He knew life from its
most rugged, remote and secluded aspects to the most refined and social.
Although
I never lived in one of these rooms dug out of the earth, it was not uncommon
at the time to see the low roofs of dugouts and half-dugouts across the
land. The ready materials and
natural insulation of these shelters provided quick and adequate answers to
winter storms and summer heat. In
some ways they were superior to our aboveground frame homes – until the arrival
of a relentless rain. Although
this was a land of very modest rainfall, the selection of a dugout site was
critical.
Now
there are movies on the big screen with special sound, but none will be so
impressive as that first "Magic Lantern" picture show was for
Robert: It came to his schoolhouse
around 1908. Pictures were
projected onto a bed sheet through a machine that had to be cranked by hand. (There was no electric current.) The whole community went to see the show
that night.
Cars
became a fact of life around 1913.
The first ones were hand cranked, and it was necessary to be careful, to
get the spark set just right, so that the crank would not kick back and break
an arm.
In
the summer of 1917, Robert got a paying job away from home. The first month, he worked in a general
store for sixteen dollars a month and paid twelve dollars of his wage for his
room and board. His employers
liked him so much that, for the next two months, he was paid twenty-five
dollars a month and was given his room and board free. The next summer he worked for the
railroad as an assistant agent for the same pay, twenty-five a month plus room
and board. But his dad needed him
in the sheet metal shop the next summer and there was no regular pay.
Robert's
first year in college began in the summer of 1920 at West Texas State Teachers
College (now West Texas University) in Canyon. Mr. T.C. Thompson hired him to work in his sheet metal shop
for twenty-five cents an hour. It
was the beginning of a very close relationship between them. Robert always considered Mr. Thompson a
second father to him. Throughout
our years in college, Mr. Thompson always found work for Robert.
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| West Texas State Teachers College |
Before
he had earned his first degree, Robert began his teaching career at Ramsey,
five miles east of Lockney. He was
not only the teacher, but he was also janitor, nurse and counselor for eight
grades. Twenty-eight pupils from
grade one through grade eight were enrolled. Their ages ranged from five to seventeen. He was paid ninety dollars a month for
eight months work and received no pay in the summer.
The
large frame schoolroom in which Robert taught had a front porch and windows on
the sides of the building. Two
doors swung open in front, and there was no opening in back. The room was equipped with double
desks, a blackboard, a pot bellied stove, a long recitation bench where lessons
were recited and a metal container where books and chalk were stored. Textbooks stressed the three R's. Robert had to build a fire early during
cold weather to make the room comfortable before nine o’clock, when students arrived.
From
September to Christmas he lived with a family near school and paid them twenty
dollars a month for room and board.
During this first year in his teaching profession, on December 24, 1922
on a Sunday evening, we were married.
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