MY SISTER WS N ONLY CHILD 1937-1945

MY SISTER WAS AN ONLY CHILD
1937-1945
There Ain’t Gonna Be Any Mexicans In The Gillespie Family.

Along around March of ’37, it seems my Mom and Dad were at a fiesta down at a friend’s ranch north of Chihuahua, Mexico when Mom stated feeling me coming to the party.

Daddy who was in the Buick business, like his Dad before him, had a new 1937 Buick 4 Door Convertible. Daddy made a bed in the back for my mother and off we all went to the nearest American port of entry which was El Paso, Texas. Mom said it was a pretty fast but bumpy trip interspersed every few miles with Daddy shouting, ” There ain’t gonna be any Mexicans in the Gillespie family” I can’t attest to that as I was holding on for dear life. Mom said later that the three of us bounced into Texas without touching the Rio Grande. A local El Pasoite dodged the big Buick as Dad slammed to a stop with Daddy shouting, “Where’s the hospital, where’s the hospital”. We were directed to the Southwestern General Hospital and about an hour later I joined the family.

My family, as previously reported was in the Buick business. My Grandfather, Henry Carter Gillespie Sr., was Vice President of the Southern Region of Buick Motor Division of General Motors. He also owned a thousand acre farm in the Tennessee Delta. He was son of Henry Carter Gillespie. Who was my great grandfather, a Lt Colonel in the Fifth Tennessee Regiment during the War Between the States. By the way my real name is Henry Carter Gillespie III. It got pretty confusing when I had a son and he had a son ‘cause we all had the same name. Only the numbers were changed to protect the innocent, III, IV, and V. Back to the story. We, the Imperial we, I didn’t have much to do with it at the ripe old age of a week, or so, as we headed back to Corpus Christi, Texas and home at last.

I was raised in the lap of luxury in those days. It got better later, but I’ve just got to stop getting ahead of myself. My first words, I’ve been told, were to my criada, that’s Spanish for nurse, and they were, “Mas gallina ‘Upe”, meaning more of that chicken Lupe. We lived in a big house, maybe the biggest in town. Swimming pool and all that out at 722 North Tanchua St.. Things were nice in those days, as much as I can recall.

The next thing I knew our President, Franklin Roosevelt, were proclaiming Sunday, December 7th, 1941 as a Day of Infamy. Now at four years old I really didn’t know what infamy was or, for that matter what a Jap was but Daddy did and he up and joined the Navy on the following Tuesday. Mom cried at the train station and so did Nina my sister. She sort of came and went in my early life but we got to be pretty good friends when she was about 70. She finally gets the credit due her in the title of this book. After all, she was 13 years older than me and that was ancient to a four year old. Dad instructed me to be the Man of House while he was away winning the War. I did my best. I remember helping Mom do something with Ration Stamps and go with her out the Navy Base, out south of town, to swim while she bought stuff at the Ship’s Stores. Stuff you couldn’t buy at stores in town. Things like sugar, and cans of preserves, and my favorite, once a week was bacon. So many things happened during that war.

I was shipped me off that summer like every summer before. Our farm 20 miles northwest of Memphis, Tennessee, Trafalgar Farms it was named, and all thousand and eleven acres were promised to me by my grandfather, Dad. I called him Dad, everybody else called him Uncle Henry. I called his wife, my grandmother, Angel while everybody else called her Mama Dear. I told you it was confusing. But Dad was a radio junkie. We listened to Walter Winchell and R. Murrow broadcasting from London. We had a board on the wall with pins showing where the war was going. It was kind of dull but where was I to go at 6 years old and no driver’s license.

Compared to Trafalgar I was roughing it in Corpus Christi. The grown folks at the farm would have breakfast early, about 7 o’clock. Will, our cook and butler and gardener, would get me up at about nine or so with some Johnny cakes and bacon from our smoke house or something like that. I would go with Will on all sorts of adventures. We’d mow the back yard. I had my own lawnmower about two feet tall and rubber wheels and all. Then some days we’d mow the big front yard. I like that the best ‘cause Will would get one of the tractors and with blue smoke belching from the smoke stack and me riding behind Will, why I was in Hog Heaven. Will taught me a lot about life. I loved Will. Will was black but I didn’t know what that meant until later on.

Back to Texas for school and then back to Trafalgar for the summer and so it went. Those trips were enough to write a book about, but I’ll just hit some of the highlights.

On one trip my little Fox Terrier was run over. She was the first thing I can remember ever losing. It was a very strange and hurtful feeling.

There was rationing of almost everything in 1945. Otis, our driver knew of a little café somewhere in Mississippi where we could get some bacon. I had bacon and hot cakes and I can still taste that breakfast in my mind.

One of the things I remember was staying overnight in hotels as there were no Holiday Inns or Motel 6s. I can’t remember any of their names but they all had staff to load and unload our belongings. Otis had to go find a place were he could stay as no black folks were allowed to stay in any of these hotels. They could carry the luggage, get the ice, make the beds, but they couldn’t sleep in them. I asked Will and Stella Mae and Otis what was the reason they couldn’t stay. They told me that’s the way it is. That didn’t make it seem any better to me.

The War was grinding on and on my sixth birthday my father came back to Corpus Christi on leave. He found out that while he was away busy being the Flight Deck Officer on the USS Lake Champlain, an aircraft carrier, Mom had bought a new house out of town on Atlantic Street The Lake Champlain was christened in Norfolk Virginia. The family decided to drive back to Virginia for the christening. I had a bed made in the back with my sister and Mom and Dad were up front. It was neat to have him back and in his uniform, life was easy. I remember something about ration stamps and gasoline. Since we were both in the automobile business and in farming we were exempt from most of that rationing. This meant we could fill up the car when ever we wanted while most others were limited to only a few gallons at a time. Long and short of it was we went pretty much where we wanted, and we wanted to go to Norfolk. .It was getting clear to me that the Gillespie’s always got what they wanted.

That ship was huge. Daddy took me all around to see planes, under the deck, the guns,, his office, everything. And everywhere we went he got a salute and sometimes the sailors gave me one too.

As I have said, the Gillespie’s always got what they wanted and what they wanted now was to get me into school as soon as we got back to Texas. My life was about to change and change radically as I entered Mrs. Blasingame’s Day School. Kindergarten was where I learned to play well with others. That included pushing Bruce Easter off the slide and breaking his arm but also included sitting on a swing and having a girl stand up and “pump” to get the swing higher and higher. It also gave me a chance to peek up their skirts. Thank you Mrs. Blasingame, you got me started on a life off looking at women and even more later on. I also met two people who stayed in my life 50 or 60 years, Ron Boyd and Skipper Critz. Ron died a few years ago and Skip is in the contracting business in San Antonio the last I heard.

After Mrs. Blasigame’s Day School, I stated a real school. It was Menger School and I could walk to school. But I didn’t walk the first day. Mom had Otis drive me. Talk about embarrassed! He also came and got me after school. Three blocks from home and here’s Otis. But that wasn’t the only time I had a chauffer pick me up or take me to school. There’s more later.

At the end of the school year I was sent back to Tennessee. This time it was on an airplane. It was a DC-3 and the name on the plane was Delta Chicago and Southern. Man, what a trip. Being a young man of six, in fact the only young man of any age, I was treated royally by the stewardesses. I think the flight to Memphis took about seven hours but what ever the time, it was filled with little pilot’s wing, drinks, lunch, ice cream and those beautiful ladies serving me. One said I looked like a little prince.

Back at Trafalgar, Dad gave me my first rifle. I was told to shoot only crows and jay birds. Before the summer was out I was shooting everything but the hired hands. I remember going into Will’s room off the garage. It smelled different and I asked him what the smell was. He said it was him. I asked him could he get the black off his face. He said I’m white inside. I loved Will.

So that’s about the size of my first seven years. The war was over, Dad was home, I kept shunting between Texas and Tennessee, and I was beginning to feel more like a like a prince, after all my name was Henry III.