•Part 4
The autobiography of William Price Magee, son of Jacob Wood Magee (1863-1901) and wife Mary Alice Bateman Magee (1871-1901) - a blueprint to the past - continues in his own words:
World War I started in August 1914, and this country with much shouting about the Huns, called out the National Guard in 1916. I enlisted in the famous Washington Artillery at New Orleans in June of 1916. We were sent to the Mexican Border at Donna, Texas. Woodrow Wilson was running for his second term on words like "neutrality," at all cost no war. He was elected in November, and on April 6, 1917, he asked the Congress for declaration of war.
On the Mexican border we trained for war. We were paid with three five dollar gold pieces. The Army of the Union was paid by Lincoln $13.50 at the end of the War Between the States. From 1865 to 1916, a time lapse of 51 years, the pay of the soldier had gone up one and a half dollars.
At age 20 I was First Sergeant of Battery "F" in France, but I did not go to the Front. The working with mature people gave me this edge, for to be First Sergeant in the old Army was a man's job -- no weak sister stuff. The war ended in November of 1918, and by 1919 we were home and out of the Army.
Out of work -- no trade, no work! I went to Chicago and shipped out to North Dakota and made the harvest, following it deep into Canada. Wheat was selling at a very high price as America was feeding the world. Snow stopped the wheat harvest, so I stopped off in Mason City, Iowa, and pulled corn on the way south.
My brother, Fleet, was a messenger for Railway Express and got me a job as a truck monkey handling express freight on the night shift at Jackson, Mississippi. With free daylight time I studied architecture by correspondence and got enough out of it to understand blue prints. This job paid $92.00 per month.
Willie Mae was working in New Orleans. We were married on August 23, 1922, in New Orleans. I was 24 years old.
Sister Lela was living in Shreveport. Her husband, A. U., (Uncle Pete) was a top notch plumber and a wonderful person. He got me a job as tile setter helper. I was able to get a tile setter's card in a year and began the life of a tile setter. At this point, I want to drop back to going to live with Aunt Ella. She was a wonderful person to me and kept me clean as a pen and feed [sic] me the best of food. She also had a girl orphan on Uncle Dave's side of the family. Her name was Arle Self and she worked very hard for her keep and did not go to school. She could read well and she would read books to me.
While I was going to school I worked in the garden, milked the cow, feed [sic] the chickens, gathered vegetables, and did all kinds of things like wash the buggy for Uncle Claude Bateman. The biggest job I had was janitor to the Baptist Church. This put me in the earning class, and it was my first job for pay. The job paid $4.00 per month. There was a full Saturday for me. The lamps hung on the walls. There were forty of them. They had to be filled with coal oil, wicks trimmed, the floor swept, wood for the stove was a big problem in the winter, ringing the church bell on Sunday mornings was also part of the job. But when there was a funeral [sic] I had to toll the bell, which always was depressing to me. Although I did not remember my own mother's funeral, it gave me the creeps.
One Sunday after church they had a business meeting as they called them. They had run out of money and could not pay the preacher. One of the brethren had misplaced some of it. The question was asked why the janitor had to be a paid person. He though[t] I should have enough love for God to give my labor. This was it. I went on strike and quit the job and had my first understanding why you must have unions to force people to be decent in dealing with working people.
Today we hear of the generation gap. Well, we had it then. I was moved up to an all boys class in Sunday School, and was informed I was a big boy. The teacher who was a young lawyer expected at least a quarter to go into the basket. This young lawyer was asking for one-fourth of my earnings. In those days if you had a bucket of syrup, a sack of flour and lard, you had food, so to get syrup was to have that much security. I would get syrup for our family by dropping out of school in late October and working three weeks for Uncle Jim Bateman helping make syrup. My pay was a gallon a day. The syrup was worth on the market fifty cents. A boy who has been taught to work all day could feed the mill, and that was my job. If you had cream or butter and a glass of skimmed milk, you really had food.
I wish to pick up the tile setting part of my life. This was a period from 1923 to 1935. To get tile work in those days meant go where the work was -- large hospitals, hotels, etc. We moved about quite a bit. The cities we lived in were Shreveport, Beaumont, Monroe, Eldorado, Arkansas, Mobile, Birmingham, Houston, San Antonio, Longview, Texas, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Port Arthur, and Corpus Christi, and at Houston, in December 18, 1927, our first beautiful baby, a girl, was born. We named her for my grandmother, Lozane Wood Magee. The next sugar pie baby was also a beautiful girl. She was born at Longview, Texas, August 8, 1935. We named her for her Aunt Lela. Camellia was added. The next sugar pie, beautiful baby was born at Folsom in the house she now owns. This was September 13, 1939. She was named Ellen for my Aunt Ella Self. Margaret was added.
Stay tuned for next week's conclusion of the autobiography of William Price Magee.
