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.