Fighting Family History & Genealogy

HUB'S RULE FOR HIS KIDS WAS, "I DON'T WANT YOU TO EVER START A FIGHT, BUT IF YOU GET IN ONE, YOU'D BETTER FINISH IT." HUB'S KIDS KNEW THAT IF THEY DIDN'T FINISH IT, THEY WOULD HAVE TO ANSWER TO HIM.

The folowing is an excerpted article out of the chapter, "Pecking Order in the Chicken Coops."

FIGHTING WAY OF LIFE FOR OKIE CHILDREN OF WASCO,

"GLORIFIED CHICKEN COOPS"
Just glorified chicken coops was what Jim called the cabins where the Cole family lived for nine years. The year was 1943 when the Herbert (Hub) Cole family moved to California and into the Wasco Labor Camp. Hub had to rent two rooms, each at $8 per month. One room was the kitchen/living room; it also served as Hub and Iva’s bedroom. The other was the bedroom for their six children — Jim, Bill, Kerin, Lowell, Sharon, and Judy. Sandra was born in 1948 while they were still living in the camp,and I was born in 1952, the year they moved out of the labor camp and into their first house. My oldest brother, Jim, decided the rooms were not much better than chicken coops — hence the name of this article. After moving into the labor camp, the Cole kids had to establish themselves with the other kids in camp and get respect. Right away, the Cole kids had to fight and show that they weren’t going to be pushed around. There were fights sometimes between the kids in the camp, and the Cole kids had their share.

DON'T MESS WITH BILL
Just as there is a general pecking order in real chicken coops, with the strong picking on the weak, so it was with the human coops. As the new Okies, the Cole boys started wandering around camp getting to know the place. There was one little group that was sort of a gang, and that group couldn’t help but notice the new kids. The leader of the gang was a little short kid, but Bill could tell by his strut and gestures that he was in charge. After deciding to pick on Bill, the chosen one, Ross, began to box Bill. Instead of boxing, Bill lunged, grabbed Ross by the waist and threw him to the ground .Jumping on top of Ross, Bill began to beat him with his fists. The boy, being about 8 to 10 years old started crying. Bill got off. stood up and looked over at the little short kid, who immediately ran for home as fast as he could go. After that introduction, Bill was never bothered by the gang again.

LOWELL LEARNS TO FIGHT
One day, Kerin was outside playing, and the Eskew girls kept flipping Kerin’s dress up. When they wouldn’t stop, she coiled up her fist and hit them. Wallace Eskew saw Kerin hit his sisters so he jumped up, came over and punched Kerin. Lowell, witnessing the whole event, came over and socked Wallace back. Seeing that Wallace was a lot bigger than him, Lowell started running for home. His daddy had just gotten home and walked in the door when Lowell came racing around the corner of the building. Hub saw Wallace running right behind Lowell, and when Lowell tried to run into the cabin, Hub put out his leg, preventing Lowell from going into the house. “Get out there and fight,” he ordered Lowell. After Wallace and Lowell had been skirmishing for a little while, Hub thought it was enough. He stepped out the door and said, “That’s enough, Wallace.” So Wallace left and Lowell came over to his daddy, still standing in the doorway. Hub told him, “Don’t let me ever see you running from a fight again.” After that, Lowell never did, no matter how big the kid was.

KERIN AND THE CRAWFORD GIRLS
Hub’s rule for his kids was, “I don’t want you to ever start a fight, but if you get in one, you’d better finish it.” Hub’s kids knew that if they didn’t finish it, they would have to answer to him. One family that lived next door to the Coles during those years was the Crawfords. The Crawford girls decided to see how tough Kerin was. So, one day while Kerin was walking around she went into the showers and suddenly found the Crawford girls and their friend standing behind her. As Kerin turned around, one of them said, “We’ve got you cornered and you can’t get out now. We’re going to fight.” Kerin, not having anything against them, said, “I don’t want to fight you.” The oldest girl said, “Oh, yes you are,” and then proceeded to call Kerin all kinds of names — “coward,” “chicken.” As the fists started flying, Kerin’s adrenalin kicked in and she started fighting. One of the girls had some marbles in a sock and began hitting Kerin over the back and head with them. Holding one girl down with one hand, fighting another girl with the other and kicking the third through the shower doors. Kerin was eventually stopped by someone in the crowd that had gathered. “That’s enough, Kerin,” he said. “That’s enough.”

THE TORN BLOUSE
Kerin turned to look at all the men, women, and children crowding around the shower building. Leaving amid stares, Kerin looked down at her blouse where it was ripped across the shoulder. “Oh, no,” she thought as she started crying. “Mama sure is going to give me a whipping.” Kerin had torn too many clothes in her fights and she knew she was in trouble. Iva told her, “If you ever tear anymore of your clothes, I’m going to whip you.” When Kerin got home, Hub was sitting in a chair, looking at her with his dark, piercing blue eyes and smoking a cigarette. Iva was cooking supper. As Kerin fearfully walked in the door, Hub asked in his loud, gruff voice, “You been fighting again?” Someone had already come by and told him. All Kerin could say was, “Yeah.” “Who was it?” Daddy asked. Sheepishly she answered, “Dolores Crawford.” She added, “Yeah, three girls jumped onto me.” “Did you whip ’em?” Hub inquired. Matter-of-factly, Kerin said, “Yeah, I whipped all three of them.” Proudly, Hub replied, “OK, don’t go fight no more.” Kerin was sure happy that she didn’t get a whipping from her daddy. Going into her room, Kerin took off her blouse and discovered she had big bruises all over her back and head from being hit by the marble-filled sock. At first Iva was angry at Kerin, but then when she found out her daughter had been outnumbered three to one, Iva became angry at the Crawford girls. Not wanting to make trouble with the Crawfords, Iva just said, “Well, stay away from them from now on.

BANDING TOGETHER
One of the entertainments the Okie kids in the camp had was at Mill’s Skating Rink. One weekend a big bunch of kids from camp were all skating at the rink and about six kids from Shafter came in to skate. Kerin was skating around when a seemingly big-breasted girl from Shafter wearing a tight black turtleneck sweater got jealous of Kerin. As Kerin skated over to the rail and stopped, the big-breasted girl jumped up and started boxing at Kerin. As Kerin put up her fists to fight, her skate slipped back, swinging her body around and making her fist jab upward, accidentally hitting the girl’s breast. Suddenly the large bump that had been on the girl’s chest was now relocated to the top of her shoulder. Screaming as if she was hurt, the Shafter girl swung her arms up trying to cover the now flat place on her chest and the extra hump on her shoulder while running to the bathroom. In an instant, one of the boys from Shafter jumped up, wanting to fight Kerin. Lowell, seeing the commotion, practically flew over on his skates to where Kerin was. As Lowell zoomed up behind Kerin, he asked, “You having trouble, Kerin?” At that, another boy from Shafter jumped up,. Kerin replied, “Yeah, these kids want to fight me.” After she said that, Bill sped up beside Kerin and Lowell and said, “Lowell, you having problems here?” Then a third Shafter boy jumped up. “Yeah, we’re gonna fight!” he said. Immediately all the Okie kids from the labor camp came rolling over to stand behind the Cole kids. As soon as they had all gathered around, someone in the camp bunch said, “You wanna fight?” Looking at the whole crowd, the Shafter kids all said, “No, we don’t want to fight the whole bunch of you.” At that time the manager, Roy Mills, came over and said, “If you kids are going to fight, go outside.” So the Shafter kids turned around and left with all the camp kids following them. As soon as the Shafter kids got outside, they quickly got in their car and left town. The camp kids were like family, they fought among themselves, but they were also loyal to one another, standing up against anyone who would dare to threaten one of their own.

I MADE THIS MY SPACE TO PROMOTE MY BOOK.

In the early 1940's, Herbert and Iva Cole moved their large family to Wasco, California, where the poor crowded into camps consisting of thin plywood shacks originally designed to house a few mexican immigrants for the spring and summer months. But it was the Great Depression, and there was work in Wasco, so families like the Coles came en masse; they ended up living there for years. "Glorified Chicken Coops," its title evoking the living conditions of the period, tells the story of the hard-scrabble existence that led to the experience in the camp, as well as the family's eventual escape to their own house in Southern California in 1952.

An uncommonly accessible and entertaining family history, "Glorified Chicken Coops" is packed with extensively researched anecdotes and vignettes that describe not only the travails of one lineage that struggled against all odds to make it, but also this country's most formative years. Through it all is a compelling cast of characters weaved through an often humorous narrative that stretches from the backwoods of Oklahoma to the valleys of California. "Glorified Chicken Coops" merges historical research with engaging storytelling, shedding light on a period of American life that built this country's character while showing how a couple of backwoods "Okies" with little education but a lot of pluck learned to survive.

Tanya I. Cole began documenting her family's history after she began caring for her mother in 2003, when story after story about "the good old days" came pouring out. Cole, who was raised in California's fertile San Joaquin Valley, immediately recognized their importance and began recording them for posterity. The youngest of eight children, Cole conducted extensive intervies with remaining family members for this book, making it a must read for anyone interested in understanding the Great Depression and the recovery years from one family's perspective.