The newspaper headlines, the evening radio newscasts, and theater newsreels were constant reminders that our world was at war, but for some families, the reminders were much more personal, and closer to home. As a four-year-old youngster, leaving Tulsa and adjusting to the changes affecting our family life, brought on by the war effort and my dad’s recent employment, bore little resemblance to the sacrifice of many families across our nation. Our nuclear family was left intact; there were no empty chairs around our breakfast table; there was no pins-and-needles waiting for the next letter, especially the one that never came, instead, a War Department telegram, with news that was dreaded to receive. Our adjustments were different, and at times, could be difficult, but definitely kept life interesting.

( nine )                                                 
Ridin’ the Range to Wyoming, 1944
Ol’ Frisco, Union Pacific, and Burlington

Those who say, “getting there is half the fun.” are supposedly quoting a source of great wisdom. Note that I did not say “a wise person has said”. There is no wisdom in this saying that is applicable to our trip, and not much fun that I remember. In wartime, it seems that all trains become troop trains, extremely crowded, aisles full of standing-room only riders, mostly men in uniform, crowded up at the rear of the car, waiting for a chance to get out to where they could light up a cigarette. I was aware of the train constantly moving, rocking, rattling, but as for the countryside through which we were moving, I remember nothing. It seemed as though the ones who had the ability to look out through the windows did not. And I who would have loved to watch the prairie roll by, could not. I can only guess that at that point there wasn’t much to see. The ride between Kansas City and Denver was mostly at night-time. My hours of sitting quietly, nearly motionless, providing myself with my own diversion and entertainment of a sort, too shy to audibly speak with myself, but silently speaking volumes with imagined faces that came to mind, I was reasonably content. My time in potty training was paying off, in more ways than I could have expected, upon successful completion of that phase of my upbringing. 

In the movie version of “Doctor Zhivago”, the train ride through the Urals seems long and belabored. In the book it seems worse. This is Director David Lean’s way of impressing upon the viewer how long and physically and emotionally taxing the actual trip would be. Getting from Tulsa to Shosoni, WY on a train bulging with humanity was an adventure in the same genre, leaving one to conclude, one of the most poorly thought out quips must surely be, ”Getting there is half the fun”! A 12-hour layover in Denver afforded a hotel pit-stop, a wise decision to give Mom and grimy kids a bed and bath break. Mom’s journal entry said, ”Slept all day!“ I, on the other hand, stood at the third-floor window and watched the sparkly things on top of the street cars shooting fire off of the wires below me. The whole trip was SRO for Dad; Mom could usually find a seat. Gentlemen were more chivalrous back then. I sat in her lap. I’ll bet that got “old”! My brother was parked on a suitcase in the aisle or asleep among the luggage placed between the most rearward row of seats and the door exiting the car.

The train brought us within less than a dozen miles from Shoshoni, at Bonneyville. The crew chief, Dad’s new boss, and one of the nicest people on the planet, met us there in a company sedan to take us the rest of the way. As soon as we arranged for a trunk and a couple of crates to be delivered, we loaded our stuff and our selves, he then took a bearing toward Shoshoni and drove out into the sagebrush, all the way to town without the benefit of a road. Surveyors don’t wait for someone to build them a road! The town’s population in the 1950 census was 891, the highest in its history. In 1944, when we arrived, it was probably less than half that. Tulsa probably had apartment buildings with more population! If people had “thought balloons” over their heads like cartoon characters, I wonder what my mom’s would have been saying at that moment? Our first residence in my father’s new career was a unit of the Red and White Cabins, which had a grocery store and gas pumps. Nice folks: we always stopped by for a visit when we were traveling through! He gave me my first Cherry Mash candy bar.

I believe in love at first sight! In my case, the circumstances might be a little out of the ordinary, as was the object of my affection. That does not diminish the reality or the depth
of whatever it was that I was feeling. It is true, my anticipation had been nourished and groomed by narrative accounts from my parents to stimulate my interest in discovering this new place where we were going to live. Daddy had spent some time near there in his youth and could speak from experience. With a sincere wish to have a well adjusted preschooler, whose world had been shaken, sifted, and rearranged, with some major, positive constants  boxed and shelved and replaced with unknowns, and the outcomes left to fate, who is known to be fickle, how satisfied is he likely to be with the tradeoff? It would be fun and exciting to find picture postcards to mail to my grandmothers, I was told. They would be thrilled to hear how I was doing! All I needed to do was learn to write! 

My preconceived notions of my situation, developing day by day, had grown in a fertile imagination sprinkled with vignettes of what I hoped I would find in our move to the West. Most influential to my impressionable mind was the flavor of the “B” Western and the movies I had seen. I ‘loved’ Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, in the generic sense of the word, Tim Holt, Lash LaRue, and The Durango Kid were favorites. Eddie Dean made it out of the gate but struggled to the finish, never in contention. I remember asking in apprehension, “Will there be Indians?”, and my mom assured me “They will be like your Grandfather; he is Indian”. “Will there be cowboys?”, in anticipation. Dad replied that there would be: that they would have horses, but they would not be chasing bad men and rustlers, and shooting up the place. I decided I could live with the tamer version, since peace makers had finally won the West. When we eventually arrived, there was nothing to disappoint, and plenty to excite. There were Pronghorn antelope in abundance, the prevalent bird was the magpie, the dominant foliage was sagebrush which concealed most of the cactus, and scurrying about were gophers, prairie dogs, huge jackrabbits, and  the occasional horned toad,  which became a new-found toy.

The introduction of these novel sights was an exciting addition to the scenery and even on future trips in the car these improvements would keep the Smith boys’ noses pressed to the glass counting, usually antelope or other critters, on one side of the road, and brother counting on the other. The ground was littered with new kinds of rocks, especially bits of agate that nature had tumbled and polished. Hunting agates quickly became a favorite activity during my “trail rides” on my broomstick pony. The “seldom heard discouraging word”? One occasion sticks out: a neighbors “bulldog”, (I think it was a Boston Terrier), managed to get possession of my straw “cowboy” hat and practically destroy it. Not to worry: the jury is in! I have a new infatuation: with the West, and Wyoming! 

                                                                                            
(  ten  )
Welcome to the West
Trust and Obey

There would be no more Sunday afternoon drives to Grandma’s house, at least for a while, any way. “I’ll have to look for some Wyoming flavored picture postcards”.  There will be no guitar serenades by my dad at bedtime. There was no room for anything as bulky and fragile as a guitar, and since it is one that Uncle Earl made, it is almost priceless by family standards. It will be safe at Grandma’s house. There will be no more recorded representation of the Ozark Ramblers, Gene Autry, Bob Wills, or the “Singing Brakeman“, Jimmie Rodgers: the records would probably get broken on our very first move. And besides that, we didn’t bring anything to play them on. They, too will be safe at Grandma’s. Daddy doesn’t have a car anymore. He will have to drive one that the boss gave him to work out of, but I can’t play in it like I did Daddy’s. I can’t find some of my toys. They might be at Grandma’s. Daddy said we’ll get some new puzzles“. Had I been able to transcribe the thoughts and conversations going through my head in those days this would be typical. And thus, dictated by these special times, began our specialized lifestyle, accepting extraordinary conditions, requiring  specialized efforts, learning some specialized skills, and sometimes delivering special rewards and pay-offs, and, always, the tradeoffs.

There is an expression, a poker-playing metaphor, that paraphrased, says, “Play the hand that’s dealt you”. It is only human nature to sometimes question our circumstances. When we left the railroad station and headed cross-country toward the “settlement” that we would call home, it would have been only natural for Mom to ask her husband and father of her children, “Smitty, what have you gotten us into?”  Any misgivings she might have had were well-concealed if they existed at all. I have my own theory: she did not have to look too far back, to the time when the life of the love of her life, was hanging in the balance. The consensus opinion of the medical professionals around her at the time was that, at the tender side of twenty one years old, she was staring widowhood directly in the face. Mom was a woman of strong faith, and also pretty good at “keeping her own counsel”, not one to wear her troubles on her sleeve, so she never admitted to what I am about to describe. But knowing her as I did for forty-seven of the sixty-seven years of her mortal existence, I’m guessing that during some of her fervent conversations with the Lord, during Dad’s ordeal, she did some petitioning and promising. I’m guessing a “go anywhere, do anything” promise for a “let us keep him to raise his sons” petition, and her calm poker-face expression during these unsettling times was because of seeing the fulfillment of the “desires of her heart” being played out, in accordance with the fourth verse of the thirty-seventh Psalm. She knew she was playing a winner and at twenty-four and three months, wouldn’t throw in her hand!

The term “culture shock” was not introduced in time to be applied in cases of individuals who left thriving, modern, and prospering Tulsa and moved to ghost-town-in-the-making Shoshoni, Wyoming, in 1944. Had it been, no one in our family of four showed any symptoms. The only one that came close was Mother’s “excessive concern over cleanliness“, but how could one tell?  She was always fastidious about her kitchen, her kids clothing, hair, and faces, the bathroom, her husband’s white shirts; the list could go on and on, more an end result of the way she was brought up by her mom than symptoms of a syndrome. Whatever it was, there would be ample occasion for it to come in handy over the next decade, and many other times, utterly necessary!

Shoshoni’s Red And White Cabins, our new living quarters were clean and comfortable, though small, but not cramped. Many times we would have to “make do” with much less, and worse. The proprietors were friendly and easy-going, pleasant to be around. Mother found a ladies Bible study that met in the afternoon and we would walk down the side of the road to get there. It got me out of my afternoon nap on that day, and sitting quietly on the floor beside Mom’s chair, I enjoyed the singing, and went around singing the words I could remember, “Love Lifted Me”. Mom and the boss’s wife made an instant friendship that lasted a lifetime. She had two kids, a son who was too young to be conversant, and a daughter, a few months younger than me. She also had a sewing machine and the two of them would get together for sessions of embroidery and dressmaking, usually frilly frocks and pinafores for the girl. She was an “ought to be in pictures” cherub with long blonde curls. Don’t be fooled; she was a cowgirl at heart, and even resembled Dale Evans. Her double-holstered pistol belt was much better than mine and her cowgirl hat topped her off to a “t”.

The first family excursion into the hills was led by my dad as he took us searching for agates. I can’t tell you why, but that is one of my most lasting and favorite memories of our first days in the West. I can remember how healthy he looked, striding along the top of a low ridge where the wind blown sand had exposed a gravely row of weathered stones, Some of them would probably look pretty enough to pick up and take home with us. We were supposed to be getting acclimated to the nearly mile-high altitude after leaving 700-foot Tulsa, otherwise we would have headaches for a few days. We did this often and accumulated enough “pretty rocks” to line the bottom of a future goldfish bowl. I always managed to find a few for Grandma: she already had her fish. There were also low hills behind the cabins where I could have my own little treasure hunts. I needed the diversion. By now, school had started and my brother was gone for a large part of the day. My stick-pony and I had to play “Lone Ranger”.

Well done, Ron. You've really gotten the idea of this thread. This website, hopefully, will help to carry on these memories of another time, another place. Keep writing!

A.J.

Ron, I echo A.J.'s sentiments, keep ritin, jus sayin, Rex