Blanchard Emerson

BLANCHARD

Grannie was washing dishes at the sink looking out the window.  She leaned forward and said, “Delbert......here comes Blanchard."   My ears perked up, who was that?  Mom came rushing into the kitchen, 

“Blanchard?  Really? He still comes by?”

“Well he hasn’t been by lately, but I would swear this looks like it could be his truck.”

Blanchard, one of my grandfather’s cousins, was part of the family folk lore. He and Papa grew up in Arkansas.   He had been a brilliant young man finishing his last year of law school, in the early 1920’s.  He was engaged to the daughter of a prominent family.  On the day of the wedding with family and friends gathered at the bride’s parents home.....the father of the bride came to the preacher and whispered in his ear, then left.  The preacher stood awkwardly for a moment before taking Blanchard by the arm and walking him to the front door.  There on the porch, he told him that his bride had changed her mind and the wedding was off.  Stunned, Blanchard walked down the steps, paused to look at the upstairs window, got in his truck and left.  Within a few days he sold all that he had, and quietly drove away.  He never finished his law degree.....he just left.

It was many years before Papa heard from his cousin.  My grandparents, Maggie and Delbert had gotten married, moved from Arkansas to Oklahoma and had four children before they saw Blanchard again. 

Blanchard had moved on with his life.  He had a line of tools, odds and ends that he sold off his truck from town to town.  He had a flat bed truck, where on the bed he had built a cabin, where he lived.  Behind the cabin was his collection of goods to sell. 

Everyone had been concerned about what had happened to him.  One dusty day, he drove up to the old victorian house where Maggie, Delbert, their kids and a host of relatives lived.  He was quiet and didn’t comment about the wedding, or what had happened but rather proceded to show Delbert some of the things he was selling that might be useful in the dairy.  In the midst of the Depression, with no money for extra things, Papa bartered with him, giving Blanchard some things he no longer used for the new tools.  

Blanchard stayed a couple of days visiting with everyone and enjoying being close to family again. During the Depression Delbert and Maggie always had several extra families staying with them who had fallen on hard times in the House on the Hill.  My mom and her cousins especially enjoyed all the attention Blanchard gave them, he had no job to go to, no cows to milk so they got his undivided attention.  When he got ready to leave he called the kids over, pulled out a roll of bills bigger than his fist and gave each one a dollar.  Then he climbed in his strange truck and took off to peddle his goods.  No one ever knew when he would come rolling into town again.   Sometimes months, sometimes years, Blanchard would always show up in a peculiar truck, to visit with family.

Thirty some years later, with Delbert and Maggie, living in a different house, on a different farm and their family now grown, Blanchard had found them again.  A funny old flat bed truck with a cabin on the back, rumbled over the cattle guard, and headed up to the house.  

Blanchard...yes, only he would have truck like that, “Delbert it’s your cousin Blanchard.”

Birth:  Mar. 1, 1895 Van Buren County Arkansas, USA Death:  Aug. 14, 1978 Arkansas, USA Blanchard B. Emerson was the son of William Sparrow Emerson and Frances Gist. Family links:  Parents:   Fannie Gist Emerson (1870 - 1933) Inscription: Pvt, U.S. Army, World War I Burial: Dennard Cemetery Dennard Van Buren County Arkansas, USA Edit Virtual Cemetery info [?] Created by: Tressia Record added: Dec 21, 2013 Find A Grave Memorial# 122018561

Added by: Peggy Paul Horn Cemetery Photo Added by: OkieBran

The Outlaw

Until I was seven my grandparents lived in Oklahoma on a dairy farm.  I loved going to the farm.  During the summer when my mother wasn’t teaching we would ride the train to see them.   Grannie and Papa would meet us at the train station to drive us out to their farm. When my dad had  a “Long Change” at the plant we would all drive up together. The farm was outside Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.  We drove over a big hill, down a long road and turned left at the Nunnery.  A short way down the road we turned at the cattle guard.  From there, down a gravel road, you could see the farmhouse.  It was a little white house with a screened porch at the front and back doors.  

I loved playing on the front porch. Grannie had toys, a small table with chairs and tiny dishes perfect for tea parties with stuffed bears.  Being an only child, all I needed was my imagination, to play for hours.  On special days my cousins, Phil and Joyce would come out to play.  I dearly loved having cousins, they were what I imagined brothers and sisters would be like. 

The back screened porch was long and narrow.  When Papa came in from milking the cows he would change clothes and put his work clothes in a laundry bag hanging on a hook by the washer at the far end of the porch.  On the back wall of the porch was a large, long freezer.  The whole top of the freezer lifted up, I imagined that was so little kids couldn’t get into it. Inside was ice cream, pies and all kinds of things my grandmother had made and frozen for our visits.  My parents stayed in the garage apartment but I slept in the guest room in Grannie and Papa’s house.  Each morning when I woke up I could smell bacon and homemade biscuits baking.  There would always be fresh strawberries Grannie and I had picked the day before.

One morning though, I woke up to the loud voices of my grandparents and parents.  They were having a serious discussion which was not the normal morning routine.  Papa was saying that they never locked the back screen door. Then Grannie said that the freezer could have burned up.  I jumped out of bed thinking there must be some kind of fire.  They didn’t even notice me come into the room. Breakfast wasn’t ready and wasn’t even started yet.  They all turned and walked out into the back yard to look at the “Marks”.  There was line in the back yard where something had been dragged through the grass smashing it down, as we stood in the yard, a police car pulled up. Papa had just had a calf butchered and put in the long freezer on the porch.  All of the meat had been wrapped in white paper with the name “Emerson” on it . The butcher and Papa had unloaded it and placed it in the freezer.  Everyone  had been awakened that morning to the screen door slamming in the wind, they found the freezer lid had been left up, with all the beef gone.  The laundry bag that hung on the hook had been left in the driveway.  They were baffled at who could have come through the gate and stolen the  meat.  It had to be someone who knew their routine.   We left for home that weekend with the mystery unsolved.

A month went by with no news about the meat.  Mom and I had once again ridden the train up for our monthly visit.   We heard Papa’s old truck drive up, the door slam and him yell, “Maggggie.....Magggggiee!!!”  Grannie heard him and went running out into the yard.  

“What?? What are you doing all the yelling about?”

“It’s Guy....that damn Guy. “

“What about Guy?  Did you see him today?”

NO!  And it a good thing I didn’t I would have beat his sorry ass!  No you wanna know what I would have really  done to him?”

“Delbert calm down, Jan, Faye....they can hear you.”

Guy was my grandfather’s younger brother.  He was a bum.  He never worked and was always asking family to give him things.  Papa had no use for him because he was lazy.

While Papa had been in town, a friend of Papa’s had come up to him and said, “Well I see Guy is finally working. I saw him today and he was selling some beef he had butchered, his name was on it and everything.  I bought about 50 lbs from him.” Papa fumed, got back in the  truck and took off in a cloud of dust. 

It was the beef that had been stolen from the freezer. Stolen by Guy, Papa’s own brother.  Papa called the police and turned him in.  That was my first experience with an outlaw......

After the meat incident, none of the family would have anything to do with Guy. Not even his children. I don’t remember if he went to jail for stealing the meat, but he did spend time in jail for something.  Guineth, his real name, was a bad seed.  His poor wife bore the brunt of his thefts and debts.  He had six or seven children and then abandoned his wife.  My grandfather and his other brothers helped Guy’s wife raise his children.I  never met him, this was my only association with him.  He was from a family of very honorable hard working people. When he died no one would claim his body and he was buried in a pauper’s grave.

Juneteenth

The neighborhood where I grew up backed up to a bayou.   The bayou was the line between where the white people lived and  the black people lived...seems silly now, but that’s the way it was back then.  It was as if we lived in two different countries.  The black kids went to different schools, churches and in some instances even stores. In our town, I think Bogatto’s Grocery store was probably one of the first to break that barrier.  We could go in and see literally everyone from all parts of town.  

Oak Park had streets that went in circles and all ended up eventually at the entrance to the subdivision again.  I always had strict orders to “Never leave the neighborhood”....and I didn’t.  As a result my friends and I would spend the afternoons riding our bikes in those circles going past everyone’s houses a dozen times.   Susan lived across the street from me.  To break the boredom of riding in those constant circles we would ride on the newly graded dirt streets where the neighborhood was soon to expand.   

On a June afternoon we were on just such an outing when we heard singing.  Getting off our bikes, we walked through the weeds to the very edge of the bayou.  The  embankment was about 20 feet above where the water stood.  Through the tangle of trees, honeysuckle, ferns and ivy, we could see the side and back of a white clapboard building.  The windows were pushed open as high as they would go.  From inside came the sound of voices singing praise songs.  Some we had heard at our church, some unfamiliar, but all were joyful.  The place seemed like a church but it wasn’t Sunday, and it wasn’t even a morning.  We couldn’t figure out why all these people were singing so joyfully without stopping.  We sat listening and watching until we couldn’t stand the mosquitoes anymore and headed for home. 

As we drove up the driveway my dad was just getting home from his seven to three shift at the plant.  We told him what we had heard and where it was.  He smiled and said, “Well that’s because it’s Juneteenth.”  

“What’s Juneteenth?”

“ Kind of a long story, but on January first, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all the slaves, but it was in the middle of the Civil War, the war had not yet been won. So after the war ended President Lincoln sent one of the generals to Texas to enforce it.  He arrived on June 19th.*  Since then, that is the day the Emacipation Proclamation is celebrated in Texas, and it became  “Juneteenth”.

“That might not even be a church where you heard all the singing,  it might just be someone’s house where they met to celebrate.  I’ll go back over there with you.”

He put his things inside. Then he got on my bike, I hopped on the back behind him, and with Susan on her bike, the three of us rode over to the bayou to listen to the music.  Dad stayed there a few minutes with us, before we all headed home again.  I heard they sang from sunrise until sunset.  That is a history lesson I will never forget.

*http://www.ehow.com/info_8582543_emancipation-proclamation-law-texas.html

On June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger of the Union forces arrived in Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, making the following statement: "The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer." Celebrations of former slaves erupted throughout the state.

70th Anniversary of D-Day

Normandy Beach 1945



I didn't realize at first that the Normandy Invasion wasn’t just on D-Day, June 6th.  It started that day but soldiers continued to come ashore under fire for the next 6 weeks.

Patton’s Army (1st Army) was under the overall strategy of Operation Bodyguard. It was a “Decoy" like the blow up tanks and jeeps.  The Nazis thought that since it was the “1st” that meant it would lead the invasion. (Stay with me here, there are some of dad’s war stories I have to set up).       


The Allies conducted this operation to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the Allied landings as part of Operation Bodyguard. A part of Bodyguard,  was Operation Fortitude.  It included Fortitude North, a misinformation campaign using fake radio traffic to lead the Germans to expect an attack on Norway.  Fortitude South’s deception was using a fake first Army Group under General George S. Patton supposedly located in Kent and Sussex in England. Fortitude South was intended to deceive the Germans into believing that the main attack would take place at Calais.  Genuine radio messages from the 21st air group were routed to Kent through a land line and then broadcast to give the Germans the impression that most of the Allied troops were stationed there.

A letter Dad wrote to his mother... the only one that remained....he burned the others when he got home.

All eyes as far as the Germans were concentrated, were on Patton.  For ten months Dad’s unit the 455th Battaltion of the 1st (to be come the 3rd) Army was in England at Snetterdon Heath RAFB.  Some of his most memorable stories as an anti-aircraft gunner were here.  Their job was to protect the planes taking off and landing.  They counted the planes out every morning and in every night, and knew which ones did not return.  One plane he told about was called the “Bad Penny”.  He recalled its many missions.  One afternoon it did not come back on time so they waited....finally about 4 hours late it came limping in, badly shot up.  It had made many missons, some quite harrowing.  For weeks it was out of commission then one day it took off again, patched up and like new....that afternoon...it never returned, Dad and the anti-aircraft gunners waited until late into the night.  It never returned and the crew was never found.  

Another time Dad and a buddy had an afternoon off.  One of the pilots saw them hanging around and asked them if they had ever been on a bomber, they hadn’t and weren’t supposed to be.  The pilot was going to test the plane after its overhaul and invited them along.  Dad had duty that evening, but the pilot assured him he would be back in time.  On the test run the plane malfunctioned and had to be set down at another RAFB. All were safe but the time was ticking away and if they didn’t back to Snetterdon in time they would be AWOL.  They got a ride from a guy on the base about half way back, then hitchhiked the other half of the way...arriving minutes before being AWOL.

Everyone on base knew the invasion was coming, just didn’t know when.  On the night of June 5th, 1944, they were all awakened, told to stay on alert, given a mop, a bucket of paint and instructions on how a stripe was to be painted on all of the plane’s wings.   They knew it was on. Many of the planes hadn’t had time for the paint to dry--it was dripping as the anti-aircraft gunners watched them take off. The Normandy Invasion started that morning,  June 6th.  The 455th, a part of Operation Bodyguard, the decoy 1st Army, still had to sit tight. He said all of the guys were itching to get a shot at the Nazis. Genuine radio messages from the 21st Army Group were first routed to Kent on a land line,then broadcast to give the Germans the impression that most of the Allied troops were stationed there.  Patton and the 1st Army, (some at Snetterdon Heath RAFB)stayed in England until July 6th, giving Hitler the impression that a second attack would take place at Calais. July 6th, 1944, the 1st Army under Patton became the 3rd Army when they landed on the beaches at Normandy, bodies were still falling on the sand.... and landings continued in to the first week of August.

Dad in France, close to Calais

The story he only told me parts of was at the end of the war.  Eighty-five men from the 455th battalion were transferred to accompany General Eisenhauer.  Dad would start to tell the story and then bow his head and wipe tears from his eyes.  I later learned the whole story from Jim Chambers, the historian for the 455th.  Fifty five of the men were ambushed by the Nazis, waiting for them in the trees.  My dad was the first of his company to come upon the ambush.  He and the other guys started shooting the Germans down from the trees, Dad found one of the guys alive and called for medics to assist.  They continued on the mission....to Orhdruf concentration camp.  There General Eisenhauer liberated the first of many camps and documented the atrocities on film. He had the townspeople walk through and see what had been going on under their noses.   

Hitler’s Eagles Nest.  Occupation duty at Obersalzberg after the war.

Ed Peden was the one man who had survived the ambush.  He was only 16 years old.  Dad never knew whether he lived or died.  Ed was sent home to recover and discharged from the Army since he was underage.  It wasn’t until 50 some years later when Dad walked into a 455th reunion that he knew Ed was alive.  The two men hugged and cried....then Ed turned to me, grabbed my shoulders and said through tears.... "Your dad saved my life."  Dad told me later.....”I was just doing my job.” We would see Ed at many more reunions in the coming years and his greeting to my dad was always the same.

 Heading home, Dad on the right

Dad's experiences in WWII  became an indelible part of my life, I almost felt if I had lived through some of them.  I heard his stories every day--he said, "WWII was the best, worst experience of my life.” 

My parents did not meet until after “The” war.  In the 1940s teachers only got their pay during the school year, and if the district ran out of money sometimes no pay in May.  Teachers took summer jobs to make ends meet.  One summer during the war, my mother, Faye Emerson, worked at a Japanese internment camp for boys sponsored by the Presbyterian church.  She said on the first day of camp they had all of the little boys line up.  Some were crying because the thought for sure they would be shot--but it was just a roll call.  The Presbyterian church took care of everything the boys wanted to do, if they wanted to learn to play an instrument, the church bought it for them and supplied lessons.  My mom tutored those who were behind in school.  While the experience was by no means good for anyone, there were churches and other entities that tried to make up for the injustices these Japanese American citizens suffered.   Late that summer my mom suffered her own war tragedy, the man she was engaged to, Mulley, an Army Air Corps pilot, was shot down over the sea of Japan.  

The next summer she worked in California at a classified job for the government.   The operation was based at the Ford plant outside of Sacramento. They made the maps for the bombing runs.  A car was sent to their boarding house each morning to pick them up for work.  One afternoon Mom and her roommate decided to take the train into San Francisso to see a movie.  They got off the train in San Francisco, and walked 5 blocks to the movie theater.  Midway through the movie the lights flashed on. The announcer said, “THE WAR IN EUROPE IS OVER!!”  People jumped up and started to yell.  Mom and her friend shoved their way out to the street. There they saw the lights of the city for the first time.  People were shoulder to shoulder passing around bottles of chapagne.  Every person had the same question, “Can you believe it?  The war is over.”!!  There were people who had cimbed the light posts.  Gas stations were open for business, with cars lined up around the block, flashing their lights and honking their horns.  Men were grabbing all the women and kissing them.  It took Mom and her friend from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. the next morning to walk the 5 blocks to the train station.  It was, she said,  the most memorable night of her life.  Shortly she was on a train back to Kansas to teach.  (Note:  The Potsdam Agreement was signed on August 2, 1945, a Thursday.  It seems like she said this took place on a Friday night, all I can figure is that the news of the war ending must not have reached the states until the next evening.  It was a 2.5 hour train ride to San Francisco from Sacremento. If this did happen on a Thursday night, they must have taken the train into SF right after work and planned to come back late on the train, after the movie, since they had to work the next day.)  

She met my dad two years later, while teaching in Konawa, Oklahoma. They met in a Sunday School class at First Baptist Church....actually the first singles class, for all the young men returning from war.... and all the young ladies who were still single because of the war.  They married a year later.

The war gave my dad a desire to see the world.  Throughout my life we traveled every summer, by the time I was 10 I had been to 49 of the 50 states. They took me to Hawaii when I was 20, and we spent my 21st summer in Europe.  In their retirement my parents traveled the world, Dad, getting to retrace his WWII journey, meeting people of so long ago, and getting to be in France at the 40th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion.

My parents had been so excited about there finally being a memorial to the veterans of WWII. He and my mother had planned to go.  When he lost his eyesight and my mom, he gave up on everything.  He died on March 24, 2008.  It is on my bucket list.......