MEMORIES OF ROBERT

MEMORIES OF MY LIFE

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROBERT LINDAUER KIDD, 1921-2008

First thing I remember is living at the old home place where all of us Kidds were born. The home place was located south of Fort Worth and north of Everman. Our neighbor on the east about 3/4 of a mile was Will Farmer. On the west about 3/4 of a mile was George Farmer. About 1 mile to the south was where Uncle Earl Kidd [A.R.’s brother] lived. The railroad track was about half a mile to the west. Our mailbox was west about 1 mile, our house was on a gravel road on the north side and the barn and pasture was on the southside. We used kerosene lamps as there was no electricity, we used coal and wood to heat the house and cook with. We went to Forest Hills school which was about 3 miles northeast of the home place, and we had to walk most of the time.

I remember one time we were walking to school and the wind was out of the north. It started to sleet and as we were walking north it was hitting us in the face, so we started to walk backwards. I remember walking home from school and it started to rain very hard, and a lady called to us to come into her house to get out of the rain. When it quit raining I said we better be getting our tails home. She said you better get your heads in first.

I remember mama sending me to get the mail and she told me to watch for the train that came about the same time every day, so I sat down and waited a long time till the train went by before I would cross the track. Another time mama sent me to the mailbox there was a couple parked about halfway there and when I passed their car the lady got out and said, “Come here, little boy”. I ran all the way back home! [Could the couple have been Bonnie & Clyde?]
All this took place when I was five or six years old.

I can’t forget the time Fred and I got into trouble playing with matches. It was in the winter time and I think the wind was out of the north. We were in dad‘s pasture setting the grass on fire and putting it out with wet toe sacks, but it got away from us. All of dad‘s pasture and everything south of us and to the railroad track on the west burned! I think we were about to have to run away from home that time as we were in trouble with daddy! I remember Peggy and I were running away from mama down in the pasture and when she caught us she broke her big wooden spoon on us spanking us. I remember going off with Fred and his buddy Joe to a pond miles from nowhere. I did not know how to swim and almost drowned when I got out into the water over my head. I almost drowned them as they were trying to get me out! I remember Fred swinging Clarence in a steel rim swing but Clarence got scared and jumped out. But the swing came back down and knocked Clarence out.

I remember one time we were up at Uncle Earl‘s and Fred and RJ were sitting on a horse. Uncle Earl slapped the horse on the rump and the horse took off! It liked to have scared dad and uncle Earl to death. I don’t know where they stopped, but it was a long way off. I remember we was eating supper one time when a car stopped and told us our house was on fire. It was a small fire on the roof. We put it out with buckets of water from the rain barrel. I remember dad selling about 10 acres from the old home place to a Mr. Nixon. He put in a chicken farm.

Mama got blood poisoning one time and liked to have died. She was in the All Saints hospital. We stayed at grandma Kidd‘s house while she was in the hospital. When we got back home we found that someone had stole all of mama’s can goods out of the cellar. Dad thought it was the workers he had hired to chop cotton. I can remember when we got our first record player and the Jimmie Rodgers records we had. And the first radio we had, our dad would come to the house and tie up the team he was plowing with and listen to the fiddle band music. I remember in the winter we were keeping warm around the cookstove when Peggy got burned when a scalding pot of red beans spilled on her legs.

We spent a lot of time in the cellar when we had bad weather, sometimes all night. I remember when the Texas National Bank went bust, and mama lost what grandma Lindauer had given her. Grandma Kidd lost what she had also in the same bank. I remember mama making us go to church and Sunday school. There was no work on Sunday except what had to be done. Some Sundays we would all load up in the model T Ford and go to Forest Park and stay most of the day.

We was always glad to see the first good freeze because then it was hog killing time. That was work for everyone including the neighbors, and an all day job. Sure was good eating. I remember when Fred and I got caught in the attic of the house where mama and daddy had hidden our Christmas presents. We was making too much noise. Mama caught us and she was some kind of mad. She sure had some long switches! I remember when Butch was born, the neighbor ladies delivered him as the doctor was late. Mama had to have a transfusion and she named Butch after the boy that gave the blood.

Our main crops was cotton, corn and oats as that’s about all you could grow on the black land. I don’t remember this story, but mama told it to me. Mama was picking cotton when I was about seven months old she was pulling me along with her in an old dish pan. She said she could not figure out what was wrong with me as I was crying up a storm. She said it was hot weather and when she checked my diaper the dish pan had a hole in it and it had wore through my diaper to my rear! She was pulling me on the back of her cotton sack.

The old farm place was sold to the government in 1932 and we moved to Fort Worth in November 1933 to grandma Kidd‘s rent house. Then we moved to Smithfield in November 1933 to the old Hightower farm about 5 miles northeast of Smithfield where we went to Shady Grove school. I don’t know why, but we also went to Pleasant Run School some of the time while we were living at this place. It was a big house on a hill with a big barn, and it had a deep open well with plenty of water, but it was a pretty hard job to draw it out. One end of the farm was tight land and the other end was sandy and had lots of Bermuda grass. I think we had one mule to farm with and the farm had about 80 or more acres. It did not work well, so we moved to Grapevine in November 1934 to the Buckner rent house about three blocks west of Main Street.

We picked cotton on the Grapevine Prairie and then moved to Altus, Oklahoma on November 20, 1935. We moved into uncle B’s house and pulled boles for him till after Christmas, and then moved back to Fort Worth In 1936. I remember that well. We moved in grandmas rent house and then we moved to S. Main St. I remember working odd jobs cutting yards and cleaning houses. There was no jobs to be found and I walked all over Fort Worth looking for work. I remember a candy store on South Main where you could get a big sack of candy for a nickel, if you had it. I remember when they built the old Kress [department store] building. It was about the first building that had air-conditioning, and people thought it was heaven when they walked in.

We moved back to Grapevine in August, 1936 and camped out in Moreland‘s tractor shed and picked cotton. I remember Fred and I getting a bright idea as it was hot weather and we had a full moon, so we picked cotton at night. I think we had to go over it again the next day as we left too much. We moved south of Grapevine in 1937 on Moreland’s farm and I’m not sure how long we stayed there before we moved back to Grapevine Prairie. I remember us picking cotton and it came up a thunder cloud and a bolt of lightning struck right in front of us. I thought we were all killed. It did not take us long to get out of there! I think we all remember that. We moved to Horton’s place in 1938 where we went to school at Grapevine. The place was out of town about 3 miles. We moved southeast of Roanoke in 1939.

Times was tough and we lost our dad June 21, 1939 with a heart attack. I don’t know how we made it as dad did not have any insurance, and mama could not draw Social Security. I think Fred was the only one with a job. We cut wood and sold it at the Keller wood yard to make a little money. We moved back to Grapevine that Fall and picked cotton. I’m not sure where we stayed, but I remember we lived in five or six rent houses south of Grapevine. I don’t remember the years. I worked for Mr. Swenter on his dairy, and we moved into one of his houses that was in his pasture. It was on a hill. We lived there a long time. I got on with the NYA [National Youth Administration] and worked at the [Tarrant] county garage as a mechanic helper. That was in Birdville, but theyworked us out on the farm more than we did in the shop as we had too many boys to work in the shop.

Some boys helped me join the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps]. After cotton picking, a bunch of us boys joined it in August 27, 1941. We got off to a bad start, they sent us to Dallas to an army base. There were so many boys we had to set up cots between the barracks. They told us about 12 PM they would turn the fire hose on us and douse us with water. And anyone that would run they would catch them and take them to the blacksmith shop. I can’t say what they said they would do to them there. I did not get any sleep, but nothing happened that night. I guess they were just trying to scare us.

They sent us to Parkdale, Colorado which was in the western part of Colorado 7 miles from the Utah line. We were down in a valley with mountains on all sides. The town, if you could call it that, had a post office and one store. That was the first time any of us had ever been away from home. With winter coming on there were a lot of homesick boys. We did not stay there long before we moved on to Canon City, Colorado. Our first sergeant who was from Oklahoma was discharged when his time was up. He came and told me I was now the first sergeant! I could not believe it, but I was! I went from private to first Sergeant! I thought I was really rolling.

World War II had started and we moved from camp to camp closing them down as all the boys was in the draft age. I got out [of CCC] July 22, 1942. I went back to Colorado to get a job as they were building an army base there and it paid good. But I got my draft notice so I came back home and volunteered for the Air Force. I went in the Air Force with about 20 other men from Fort Worth. They sent us to Roswell, New Mexico where I went through basic training and went to aircraft mechanic school. We stayed there about three years at the Roswell Army Flying School.

I moved to Washington state for a while, but I was home on V-J Day on a delaying route to Japan from Kerns, Utah. I thought I would be sent home and be discharged, but I did not have but 38 points. When I got back they shipped me to Japan for about five months before I could get home. When we were about halfway across [the sea], they radioed out that all men with 38 points would stay in the states. I thought my luck was running out, but that was not the end of it. The ship we were on was a Liberty ship on its maiden voyage. It sprung a leak in a welded seam, but they could pump it out faster than the water was coming in, so we made it to Manila Bay [Philippines] where we had to stay out in the bay for a day. They had bombed so much we could not get to the dock. I stayed about a week there and that was too long as it was so hot there. We flew in a C-47 to Japan. We got to see a lot of the country as we could ride the electric trains. There was a lot of black market going on when I was there. They lost my records when I was shipping out, and I missed two ships home before they found them. I finally got back home and was discharged February 14, 1946.

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	MEMORIES OF MY LIFE
	THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ROBERT LINDAUER KIDD, 1921-2008 First thing I remember is living at the old home place where all of us Kidds were born. The home place was located south of Fort Worth and north of Everman. Our neighbor on the east about 3/4 of a mile was Will Farmer. On the west about 3/4 of a mile was George Farmer. About 1 mile to the south was where Uncle Earl Kidd [A.R.’s brother] lived. The railroad track was about half a mile to the west. Our mailbox was west about 1 mile, our house was on a gravel road on the north side and the barn and pasture was on the southside. We used kerosene lamps as there was no electricity, we used coal and wood to heat the house and cook with. We went to Forest Hills school which was about 3 miles northeast of the home place, and we had to walk most of the time. I remember one time we were walking to school and the wind was out of the north. It started to sleet and as we were walking north it was hitting us in the face, so we started to walk backwards. I remember walking home from school and it started to rain very hard, and a lady called to us to come into her house to get out of the rain. When it quit raining I said we better be getting our tails home. She said you better get your heads in first. I remember mama sending me to get the mail and she told me to watch for the train that came about the same time every day, so I sat down and waited a long time till the train went by before I would cross the track. Another time mama sent me to the mailbox there was a couple parked about halfway there and when I passed their car the lady got out and said, “Come here, little boy”. I ran all the way back home! [Could the couple have been Bonnie & Clyde?] All this took place when I was five or six years old. I can’t forget the time Fred and I got into trouble playing with matches. It was in the winter time and I think the wind was out of the north. We were in dad‘s pasture setting the grass on fire and putting it out with wet toe sacks, but it got away from us. All of dad‘s pasture and everything south of us and to the railroad track on the west burned! I think we were about to have to run away from home that time as we were in trouble with daddy! I remember Peggy and I were running away from mama down in the pasture and when she caught us she broke her big wooden spoon on us spanking us. I remember going off with Fred and his buddy Joe to a pond miles from nowhere. I did not know how to swim and almost drowned when I got out into the water over my head. I almost drowned them as they were trying to get me out! I remember Fred swinging Clarence in a steel rim swing but Clarence got scared and jumped out. But the swing came back down and knocked Clarence out. I remember one time we were up at Uncle Earl‘s and Fred and RJ were sitting on a horse. Uncle Earl slapped the horse on the rump and the horse took off! It liked to have scared dad and uncle Earl to death. I don’t know where they stopped, but it was a long way off. I remember we was eating supper one time when a car stopped and told us our house was on fire. It was a small fire on the roof. We put it out with buckets of water from the rain barrel. I remember dad selling about 10 acres from the old home place to a Mr. Nixon. He put in a chicken farm. Mama got blood poisoning one time and liked to have died. She was in the All Saints hospital. We stayed at grandma Kidd‘s house while she was in the hospital. When we got back home we found that someone had stole all of mama’s can goods out of the cellar. Dad thought it was the workers he had hired to chop cotton. I can remember when we got our first record player and the Jimmie Rodgers records we had. And the first radio we had, our dad would come to the house and tie up the team he was plowing with and listen to the fiddle band music. I remember in the winter we were keeping warm around the cookstove when Peggy got burned when a scalding pot of red beans spilled on her legs. We spent a lot of time in the cellar when we had bad weather, sometimes all night. I remember when the Texas National Bank went bust, and mama lost what grandma Lindauer had given her. Grandma Kidd lost what she had also in the same bank. I remember mama making us go to church and Sunday school. There was no work on Sunday except what had to be done. Some Sundays we would all load up in the model T Ford and go to Forest Park and stay most of the day. We was always glad to see the first good freeze because then it was hog killing time. That was work for everyone including the neighbors, and an all day job. Sure was good eating. I remember when Fred and I got caught in the attic of the house where mama and daddy had hidden our Christmas presents. We was making too much noise. Mama caught us and she was some kind of mad. She sure had some long switches! I remember when Butch was born, the neighbor ladies delivered him as the doctor was late. Mama had to have a transfusion and she named Butch after the boy that gave the blood. Our main crops was cotton, corn and oats as that’s about all you could grow on the black land. I don’t remember this story, but mama told it to me. Mama was picking cotton when I was about seven months old she was pulling me along with her in an old dish pan. She said she could not figure out what was wrong with me as I was crying up a storm. She said it was hot weather and when she checked my diaper the dish pan had a hole in it and it had wore through my diaper to my rear! She was pulling me on the back of her cotton sack. The old farm place was sold to the government in 1932 and we moved to Fort Worth in November 1933 to grandma Kidd‘s rent house. Then we moved to Smithfield in November 1933 to the old Hightower farm about 5 miles northeast of Smithfield where we went to Shady Grove school. I don’t know why, but we also went to Pleasant Run School some of the time while we were living at this place. It was a big house on a hill with a big barn, and it had a deep open well with plenty of water, but it was a pretty hard job to draw it out. One end of the farm was tight land and the other end was sandy and had lots of Bermuda grass. I think we had one mule to farm with and the farm had about 80 or more acres. It did not work well, so we moved to Grapevine in November 1934 to the Buckner rent house about three blocks west of Main Street. We picked cotton on the Grapevine Prairie and then moved to Altus, Oklahoma on November 20, 1935. We moved into uncle B’s house and pulled boles for him till after Christmas, and then moved back to Fort Worth In 1936. I remember that well. We moved in grandmas rent house and then we moved to S. Main St. I remember working odd jobs cutting yards and cleaning houses. There was no jobs to be found and I walked all over Fort Worth looking for work. I remember a candy store on South Main where you could get a big sack of candy for a nickel, if you had it. I remember when they built the old Kress [department store] building. It was about the first building that had air-conditioning, and people thought it was heaven when they walked in. We moved back to Grapevine in August, 1936 and camped out in Moreland‘s tractor shed and picked cotton. I remember Fred and I getting a bright idea as it was hot weather and we had a full moon, so we picked cotton at night. I think we had to go over it again the next day as we left too much. We moved south of Grapevine in 1937 on Moreland’s farm and I’m not sure how long we stayed there before we moved back to Grapevine Prairie. I remember us picking cotton and it came up a thunder cloud and a bolt of lightning struck right in front of us. I thought we were all killed. It did not take us long to get out of there! I think we all remember that. We moved to Horton’s place in 1938 where we went to school at Grapevine. The place was out of town about 3 miles. We moved southeast of Roanoke in 1939. Times was tough and we lost our dad June 21, 1939 with a heart attack. I don’t know how we made it as dad did not have any insurance, and mama could not draw Social Security. I think Fred was the only one with a job. We cut wood and sold it at the Keller wood yard to make a little money. We moved back to Grapevine that Fall and picked cotton. I’m not sure where we stayed, but I remember we lived in five or six rent houses south of Grapevine. I don’t remember the years. I worked for Mr. Swenter on his dairy, and we moved into one of his houses that was in his pasture. It was on a hill. We lived there a long time. I got on with the NYA [National Youth Administration] and worked at the [Tarrant] county garage as a mechanic helper. That was in Birdville, but theyworked us out on the farm more than we did in the shop as we had too many boys to work in the shop. Some boys helped me join the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps]. After cotton picking, a bunch of us boys joined it in August 27, 1941. We got off to a bad start, they sent us to Dallas to an army base. There were so many boys we had to set up cots between the barracks. They told us about 12 PM they would turn the fire hose on us and douse us with water. And anyone that would run they would catch them and take them to the blacksmith shop. I can’t say what they said they would do to them there. I did not get any sleep, but nothing happened that night. I guess they were just trying to scare us. They sent us to Parkdale, Colorado which was in the western part of Colorado 7 miles from the Utah line. We were down in a valley with mountains on all sides. The town, if you could call it that, had a post office and one store. That was the first time any of us had ever been away from home. With winter coming on there were a lot of homesick boys. We did not stay there long before we moved on to Canon City, Colorado. Our first sergeant who was from Oklahoma was discharged when his time was up. He came and told me I was now the first sergeant! I could not believe it, but I was! I went from private to first Sergeant! I thought I was really rolling. World War II had started and we moved from camp to camp closing them down as all the boys was in the draft age. I got out [of CCC] July 22, 1942. I went back to Colorado to get a job as they were building an army base there and it paid good. But I got my draft notice so I came back home and volunteered for the Air Force. I went in the Air Force with about 20 other men from Fort Worth. They sent us to Roswell, New Mexico where I went through basic training and went to aircraft mechanic school. We stayed there about three years at the Roswell Army Flying School. I moved to Washington state for a while, but I was home on V-J Day on a delaying route to Japan from Kerns, Utah. I thought I would be sent home and be discharged, but I did not have but 38 points. When I got back they shipped me to Japan for about five months before I could get home. When we were about halfway across [the sea], they radioed out that all men with 38 points would stay in the states. I thought my luck was running out, but that was not the end of it. The ship we were on was a Liberty ship on its maiden voyage. It sprung a leak in a welded seam, but they could pump it out faster than the water was coming in, so we made it to Manila Bay [Philippines] where we had to stay out in the bay for a day. They had bombed so much we could not get to the dock. I stayed about a week there and that was too long as it was so hot there. We flew in a C-47 to Japan. We got to see a lot of the country as we could ride the electric trains. There was a lot of black market going on when I was there. They lost my records when I was shipping out, and I missed two ships home before they found them. I finally got back home and was discharged February 14, 1946.

		To include your stories and other information in this site, Email us at Webmaster.
Comments, suggestions, additional info are always welcomed., Please contact: Webmaster