141 CALIFORNIA STATE COLLEGE, BAKERSFIELD CALIFORNIA ODYSSEY The 1930s Migration to the Southern San Joaquin Valley Oral History Program Interview Between INTERVIEWEE:
Hadley Leon Yocum
PLACE OF BIRTH:
Branch, Franklin County, Arkansas
INTERVIEWER:
Stacey Jagels
DATES OF INTERVIEWS:
June 2, 1981
PLACE OF INTERVIEWS:
Hanford, Kings County NUMBER OF TAPES:
2
TRANSCRIBER:
Doris I. Lewis 141 PREFACE Mr. Hadley Yocum is the classic story of the poor boy who
makes it rich. Mr. Yocum came to California as a migrant
with nothing and now owns, with his sons, some 5,000 acres
of prime farmland, rental properties, a restaurant in
San Luis Obispo and other investments. He has not changed
much because of his wealth - he is a friendly, hard-working
farmer. Mr. Yocum who is in his seventies had some
difficulty hearing and tired easily. There were several
interruptions in the interview when his wife and other
relatives arrived. Mr. Yocum did not seem to think that
his story was all that unusual - he was just a hard worker
who had a little luck.
Stacey Jagels
Interviewer
14lsl
CALIFORNIA STATE COLLEGE, BAKERSFIELD
CALIFORNIA ODYSSEY
The 1930s Migration to the Southern San Joaquin Valley
Oral History Program
Interview Between
INTERVIEWEE:
Hadley Leon Yocum
INTERVIEWER:
Stacey Jagels
DATED:
June 2, 1981
(Age: 79)
S.J.: This is an interview with Hadley Leon Yocum for the California
State College, Bakersfield CALIFORNIA ODYSSEY Project by
Stacey Jagels at 14976 Seventh Avenue, Hanford, California on
June 2, 1981 at 9:30 a.m.
S.J.: I thought we would start first with when and where you were born.
Yocum: I
S.J.: Could you tell me a little about your childhood?
Yocum: I was raised in a log cabin and we was poor.
woman's son, but we always had plenty to eat.
terrible but we made out.
S.J.: Can you tell me what your father did? Yocum: He died when
S.J.: How did your mother make a living after that? Yocum: She married again in four or five years. I happened to get a bad
stepdad. He resented me and my oldest sister so I went to live
with my grandma. Of course, their marriage broke up in three
or four years. By the time I was fourteen I had to do a man's
work to make a living--to help my mother make a living.
S.J.: So you would go out and find jobs?
Yocum: We farmed and when I was seventeen or eighteen they had started
a strip mine close to us and I got summer and winter work there
between farming. I stayed there in Arkansas till 1928. I left
Arkansas in 1928.
was born in Branch, Franklin County, Arkansas on November 12, 1901.
I
was three years old.
I
was a widow
The house was
He was a farmer.
Yocmn, H.
2
S.J.:
Do you remember very much about your childhood?
Yocmn:
I just remember we enjoyed ourselves. I remember more about back
there than I do about now. I remember having a good time. I had
cousins. I had an uncle that had eight children and I thought it
was the funniest family I ever saw. We had a good time. We
would work five and a half days if the crop was grown up--we would
take off Saturday at noon and we didn't touch it till the next
Monday. We went to church a lot too.
s .J.:
How about school?
Yocmn:
I didn't get a lot of schooling. About three or four months in
the winter and maybe a couple of months in the summer. I went
through grade school and had part of one year in high school.
S.J.:
So if it came to a choice between doing work and going to school
you would work?
Yocmn:
I had to drop out of high school to help mom make a living.
had a pretty good living--about all we needed.
S.J.:
How many brothers and sisters did you have?
Yocmn:
I had three sisters--one sister and two half-sisters.
S.J •:
Could you tell me a little bit about your parents?
born in Arkansas too?
Yocmn:
I think mom was born in Texas and my dad was born in Arkansas.
S.J.:
Were they from farming families also?
Yocmn:
Yes. My father had three or four brothers. They farmed a pretty
good farm there then--120 acres. They thought that was a pretty
good farm.
s .J.:
You said you were poor but you always had enough to eat when you were
a child.
Yocmn:
Yes, we always had plenty of food. Of course, we didn't get many
clothes but we took care of what we did get. The house was the
worst part about it. It was log with planks in the floor with
cracks in them.
S.J.:
Probably an outdoor toilet?
Yocmn:
No toilet. I think there was only one in the country that I knew of
among the country folks.
S.J.:
How about the other people around--how well off were your neighbors
We
Were they
Yocum, H.
3
and friends?
Yocum:
There were same of them in better shape than we were because they
had a man. All of the bouses weren't as bad as ours but I don't
think anybody was any happier than I was. I enjoyed playing with
the boys--swimming and baseball.
S.J.:
You didn't feel tben that you were deprived or anything like that?
Yocum:
No! I sure didn't. I was always big and strong so I thought I
bad a lot over same of them that way. I'm still in pretty good
sbape.
S.J.:
You said you went to church a lot.
family?
Yocum:
Yes. We had country churches in Arkansas. There were lots of
churches out in the country. We nearly always went to Sunday
school and church. They didn't work Sundays in Arkansas when I
was growing up.
S.J.:
Do you remember the revivals that they would have during the
summer?
Yocum:
We used to have them out in the woods in brush arbors.
That was important in your
Do you remember much about the revivals?
Yocum:
No, only that nearly everybody went to them. Most evetybody went
to them. If they had a baptizing they took them to the creek.
S.J.:
What other kinds of things did you do in your leisure time?
Yocum:
When I was growing up we done more work--chores we called them-­
morning and night than kids do nowadays all day long. We had to
help with the cows and we had to get wood. We had a pretty good
bunch of chores at night and in the morning before we went to
school.
S.J.:
At that time did you feel that that was a lot of work, or did you
think that was just the way things were?
Yocum:
No, it was just a way of life. Everybody that lived out in the
country on farms did the same thing. There wasn't no rich people
--only a few in town were better off.
S.J.:
Had your father left some land when he died?
Yocum:
We had 41 acres that he left my mother.
s.J.:
Then your mother actually owned that land.
Yocum., H.
4
Yocum:
My mother and us kids together. My oldest sister and I just sold
it., by the way., a few years back. I wish I had kept it. We
are getting a little bit of gas royalty off of it. They got gas
all through that country there. But I wish I had kept it and
bought her out.
S.J.:
You were farming that land yourselves.
you?
Yocum:
We all worked. My mother went to the field and my sisters went
to the field. They cut sprouts. We had to cut the sprouts off
of the land every spring. They carried rocks off of it. My
oldest sister was married after a time. She married young--at
fifteen--but the two youngest ones worked just like boys.
s .J. :
Did you ever have the help of neighbors during this time?
Yocum:
Neighbors did help one another. We had a cyclone that blew the
old log house away back there. We had a good deal of neighbors
scattered around--German people--and they were awfully good to
come and help. I know it blew our old house away and about ten
others around. They just came and helped me put up another one.
s .J.:
So generally neighbors would help each other more than they do in
California?
Yocum:
Oh, yes. They're still a lot that way back there.
Arkansas and Oklahoma., too.
s. J.:
Would you really consider Arkansas your home?
Oklahoma very long?
Yocum:
Nine years. I was there long enough to like the state. The only
trouble that we had was during those dust storm years. Our crops
would burn up. You just wouldn't get nothing off of it in those
real dry years.
S.J.:
You moved to Oklahoma in about 1928?
Yocum:
I guess it was the fall of 1928 that we went out there to pick
cotton. I think I hauled twelve or thirteen more people out in
an old Model T truck and we liked it so well we just stayed on.
It was pretty good land but the worst trouble was that they
didn't get enough rain a lot of years. I did get quite a bit of
work there. I sharecropped all the time I was there. It was
pretty hard to get a-hold of any land because most of it was Indian
land and the old-timers already had it leased. So I sharecropped
and I had a good landlord. He let me have a team of horses and
all I could make in outside work. I worked around the gin hauling
seed and cotton to the boxcars and I plowed nearly all the gardens
Who did you have to help
I still love
You weren't in
Yocum~
H.
5
in this little town. I followed the harvester. I got $3 a day
for me and the team and wagon. I got to keep it all so that
helped me survive in Oklahoma. I didn't do so bad there.
S.J •:
At that time you were married and you had a family?
Yocum:
Yes, I had six children. Three were born in Arkansas and three
in Oklahoma--my youngest one was born out here. My first wife
lived over five years after we came out here. The youngest son
was two or three years old when she passed away.
s .J.:
The reason you moved to Oklahoma was that you like it and decided
there were more opportunities to work there?
Yocum:
It looked likethere were more opportunities. We didn't do so bad
there. We just wasn't getting anywhere.
So after I came out
here and seen the possibilities--! knew it was better for us with
five boys growing up.
s .J.:
What happened when the Depression hit in 1929?
you?
Yocum:
The team and the horses that the landlord let me have helped me
survive and come out of it in pretty good shape. In fact, I came
out of it in 1932 with $300--a $20 bill would buy ten times what it
does now. It didn't take much money to live on then. In fact,
I lived all that year off of that $300 and loaned my landlord
about $90 of it. The next year we netted about $1,100 cash and
I bought my first new car. I bought a new Plymouth for $600 and
paid cash for it. We had enough cows and chickens by that time to
buy all of our groceries--making a sharecrop I was out nothing but
my labor.
S.J.:
So you were doing fairly well?
Yocum:
Yes. Fairly well in Oklahoma. But we would have the bad years
when we didn't make anything. Like the last year that we lived
there--I brought two of my second wife's sisters and their families
out here.
They were staying there with her father and he
lived right across from me. My second wife and her [first] husband
were already out here and they had work so I finally told the others
I would bring them out. I had a pretty good car and I brought
them out and decided to stay and work a month. I had a crop back
there then. It wasn't much--it burned up. I got to making about
$5 a day out here cutting grapes and picking cotton and I could do
both real well--better than average--so I just decided to stay.
I sent for my family after they got the crop out. By the way, we
lacked same $30 paying up our grocery bill to the old grocery man
I traded with for nine years. We had two cows when I left and they
got some grasshopper poison in the barn and it killed them. They'd
How did that e.ffect
Yocum, H.
6
have just about paid the grocery bill if it hadn't happened. So
the second year after I was out here I sent the $30 to the old
fellow to pay the grocery bill.
S.J.:
When you were back in Oklahoma and the Depression hit it must have
effected you.
Yocum:
I went there broke and I left there broke with three more kids.
S.J •: Why don't you tell me more about the dust storms.'?
Yocum: They were bad. Things would be going along pretty nice and one
of them would come up. Of course, same of the houses were pretty
good out there and same of them wasn't, but that dust would get
through the house same way or another and you could just write
your name on a sheet. It was just that bad. It was fine sand.
It would sift in some way and it would get in your house. Wind
would pick up the soil in same places. It would just pick it up
down to the clay. They were bad.
s.J.: Was this continuous'?
Yocum: It went off and on for nine years that we had the drought. The
real bad drought. I think we made two pretty fair crops out of
nine years. The rest of them was bad. I don't think we were right
in the heart of it. We were on the edge of it. It got to where
there wasn't any work there like it was the first five years I was
there. The first four or five years I got a lot of work.
S.J.: What did that do to the crops'?
Yocum: It blows them out of the ground or they burn up for lack of water.
You just don't make anything.
S.J •: So the drought was part of the problem.
Yocum: Oh, yes. We didn't fertilize back there like we do here. One year
I made 400 pounds on the land--or 40 bales on 50 acres--the next
year I made four little bales off of 50 acres. It was all knotty
stuff. What was left wasn't any good. If I hadn't had cows to sell
off and milk we couldn't have survived.
S~J.:
Did very many people have tractors then?
Yocum:
They had just started with tractors when I left there. My landlord
--the last landlord I had--bought a new tractor while I was farming
with them. They were just starting.
s. J.:
Had you been using horses?
Yocum:
Yes, we used four head.
. ·. ~
'
7
Yocum, H.
S.J.:
Same people have said that because the farmers didn't have very
sophisticated methods of farming--some of them didn't rotate
their crops and they didn't terrace--that that contributed to
their failure in farming.
Yocum:
Long before I left Arkansas they had already begun to terrace
there and it saved the country. They had done some of it in
Oklahoma. They had begun doing it before I left and they got to
doing quite a bit after I left. They did bring same of that
wheat ground back that had blown away. Now it is producing pretty
good today. I have some friends there that I go back and visit
with when I go to Arkansas.
S.J.:
So as far as you knew, they were starting to use these methods.
Yocum:
Yes.
S.J.:
Could a failure to use those methods in the previous years have
hurt the land?
Yocum:
You can bring the land back. You can almost make the soil. All
this land you see out here that's bringing up to $5~000 an acre
now just wasn't nothing when we started here. It was just a few
good fields here and there--now it's all developed and growing
good stuff. You can make land.
s.J~:
Did you ever hear about any programs that President Roosevelt
had? In one of them he paid farmers either not to plant the crops
or to plow them under.
Yocum:
Oh~ yes.
The program that I remember very well was in 1933. I think
1933 was when I made the $1,100 to clear. We got paid for plowing
up half of our cotton--plowing it up after we had planted it.
s.J.:
And did you plow it up?
Yocum:
Yes~
S.J.:
How did you feel about that?
Yocum:
It was about the only thing that would have helped us. We would
have never have gotten anywhere back there if he hadn't put that
on. There were some other programs too. I've forgotten though
just exactly how they went but I remember that one very well
because we did get paid.
S.J.:
Do you remember how much you got paid?
we plowed it up. In fact, they let us plant feed grain in
the middle before we plowed it up. We had a certain date we had
to plow up. so they let us plant a crop of grain out there in
the middle--but we plowed up half of our crop of cotton.
Yocum, H.
8
Yocum:
No, I don't.
Of
S""'J. :
But it was more than if you hadn't plowed it and had sold it?
Yocum:
It brought the price of cotton up. We sold cotton. I worked at
the gin also. When I made the first 40 bale crop on 50 acres,
I was working at the gin for $2.50 a day and that included
cleaning all the bales off the yard even if it was midnight. I
just got $2.50. When Roosevelt went in he started time and a
half for overtime. I moved out on this ginner's ranch quite a
ways from town and he needed somebody to go in and tie out for
him for a couple of weeks through the season. They called me
down there to tie and I got as high as $6 a day for cleaning off
the yaiT.ds. It made the price of cotton go up almost double. I
sold a whole crop of cotton in 1932 for six cents a pound. I
think we got eleven or twelve in 1933. It went up considerably.
s .J.:
Roosevelt also had another program where people were paid to
slaughter their cattle.
Yocum:
Yes 7 but I didn't have any cattle.
that was.
s .J.:
You weren't familiar with that?
Yocum:
I know about what it was for. We had too many and the farmers
needed more money for what they did raise. They had something
else. I know I got a check from my landlord after I came out here.
I forget just what kind of a program that was. It was something
about the cotton though. We got so much a bale. A subsidy, I
suppose.
S.J.:
Same people have also said that because the railroads charged
such high rates most of the farmers couldn't afford that and
that helped to cause them to fail. Did you ever hear anything
about that?
Yocum:
I probably did but I don't remember just how it went.
s .J.:
How many acres were you sharecropping?
Yocum:
It differed. I had from 100 to probably 200 acres of wheat and
cotton. In 1933 I saw wheat hauled to the elevator at twenty
cents a bushel. Corn was tixteen.
s. J.:
Were any of your children old enough to help you?
Yocum:
The last years there the oldest boy was old enough to help quite
a bit and the next did some.
S.J •:
Were you able to handle that many acres by yourself?
course~
it wouldn't have been a great deal.
I don't remember just how
Yocum, H.
9
Yocum:
I would have to have some help picking it of course, but I could
farm it otherwise. It didn't require as much going over the fields
back there to raise a crop of cotton as out here. I think from
the time that you started in you made four or five trips over the
field. These boys here probably go ten or fifteen times over a
field making a crop.
S.J.:
In Oklahoma you lived in Watonga?
Yocum:
We lived out in the little town of Greenfield south of Watonga.
Watonga was our county seat.
S.J.:
Could you tell me something about the community there in Oklahoma?
Was this different than the community you lived in in Arkansas?
Yocum:
I think there was something different. I think as a rule they done
a lot more drinking out there in western Oklahoma than they did
in Arkansas. There was lots of home brew out there. Some of them
made it to sell, but they certainly had plenty of places in town
buy it too.
S.J.:
Was religion as important?
Yocum:
Not near as much in western Oklahoma as it was in Arkansas.
S.J.:
Did your family continue to go to church?
Yocum:
No, they didn't. We did some when we first lived there in
Greenfield, in the little town. We moved thirteen miles out of
town. At that time we didn't have any transportation.
S.J.:
Did neighbors help one another as much?
Yocum:
They weren't as good out there--I don't remember an occasion
coming up where they had to have any help like that.
S.J.:
Some people have told me that because money got so tight that
very few people actually had cash and that they did a lot of
bartering. Did you do that?
Yocum:
Probably so. But I always had some cash. It got pretty low in
the last year or two, but I always had some money. First, when
I lived over there by the little town I always had quite a bit
of money. In fact, I never had to charge anything at the store
because I had income most of the year with this guy's team of
horses he let me use.
S.J.:
What did you do in your leisure time in Oklahoma?
Yocum:
I played baseball a lot and that was just about it.
all we had.
It was about
Yocum, H.
10
S.J •: How about your children?
Yocum: I don't remember them having anything much to do when they wasn't
in school. Of course 7 we moved out away from town. We moved
where there was a canyon with lots of land around us and a couple
or three creeks running through it. There were squirrels and
the boys went out in the woods a lot playing and climbing trees.
There's a very different life especially out in the country away
from the little town.
s. J.:
It sounds like you were doing much better than a lot of other
people.
Yocum: I worked at it. I had ambition. If there was any work at all I
usually got it. I remember shoveling snow in western Oklahoma
for 40 cents an hour and taking scrip for it and having to wait
for a month or two to get paid. Some bf the other guys wanted
their money right off and I bought their script for a nickel.
Then when the pay came in, it came in for a nickel more an hour
than we thought we were going to get so I always had money.
S.J •: So you did more than just sharecropping.
jobs too.
Yocum: And I hit the harvest. They would cut the crop, put in the bundles
--stack it and put it in shocks--haul the bundles to the harvester
and thrash it.
You would take on odd
We'd work from sunup to sundown for $3 a day--that was for me, the
rack and the horses. But we got our feed. The horses got their
feed out of the fields and we had a cook shack that went along.
We got our meals. We slept right there in our clothes in the field
and on top of the wagon full of bundles. Yes, I had about all the
work I wanted to do when I lived there by that little town. I
heiLped put the high line in it. I helped dig the holes for high
line poles and helped put them up. When I first went to Greenfield
it didn't even have light. It was a small place. Then we got up
to a, pretty good sized little town. Now that's all gone except
an elevator. Little towns are disappearing back in the midwest.
You take where I was born--the town's nearly completely gone.
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1
S.J.:
You said that you had enough work because you wanted to work and
because you had ambition. Did you know many other people that
were not well off who were having trouble making ends meet that
just didn't seem to want to work?
Yocum:
Not too many. There were some that I knew in Arkansas. In fact,
I hauled some of them out there to western Oklahoma and they stayed
too.. They didn' t want work as much as I did or they would have got
i
Yocum, H.
11
more of it but they got quite a bit of work.
S.J.:
They did search for work?
Yocum:
Oh yes. They worked besides making a sharecrop. But when you
made a sharecrop there usually the landlord could hire you. It
was mostly cotton that they sharecropped out. Before I worked too
much around the gin I would go work for my landlord for $1 a day
and my dinner. The landlord would usually have some extra work
for a person because they farmed wheat and other grains and had
cattle.
S.J.:
How about those lean years just before you came out to California
and you were barely making any money? How did you manage to get
through those?
Yocum:
We had a few cows and if it got down to it we would just sell a
cow. I had some hogs there that I sold off in bad years. But the
last year we still had two cows. We had just about taken care of
our grocery bill and they got into that poison and it killed them.
So I sent the money back to the grocer because he was so good to
us.
S.J.:
So even though times were tough food was never a problem?
Yocum:
Oh no. We always had plenty of food.
chickens.
S.J.:
You probably had a garden.
Yocum:
We didn't have much of a garden there in Oklahoma during the hot
dry years but we could get a-hold of a little fruit. You can't
starve anyone out if they've got some good cows and some chickens
and some garden.
S.J.:
What made you decide to come out to California to see what it was
like?
Yocum:
I was living right across the field from my second wife's father.
She and her husband had already come on out here and same more of
her folks had came out. She kept writing back bo them and her
husband was getting $3 per day and she got 20 cents when she went
to the field hoeing cotton. She got $2 a day working ten hours
a day. The two sons-in-law of Mr. Kelly were living off of him
and they wanted to come out. They talked to me for about a month
before I would bring them out. After I came out here I liked it
so well I just decided to stay.
S.J.:
Where in California did you come?
Yocum:
We came right here.
We always had cows and
About a mile down the road was a big old ranch
~
12
Yocum, H.
of cattle. They had a lot of buildings around it. She and
her husband were living there and we landed at their place and
stayed a few nights and then went over to her cousin's. They were
closer to the grapes and we hit the grapes for a couple of weeks
and when we got out of them, we came right back and cotton was
ready to pick. I just happen to be a good cotton picker. Not as
good as two of my sons but better than average. I decided that
maybe it was the place for us. I slept in an old dairy barn on
some cotton seed with a twelve foot cotton sack for a pillow.
s .J.:
When you came out that first time how many people did you have in
your car?
Yocum:
There were nine of us in a two-door Chevrolet but it was nearly
new. We were one outfit that came out with not a lot of stuff
tied all over the car. When I started I had $75 and one of the other
guys had $10. The other family didn't have any. We got out here
with $10. We stopped and ate. We ate lots of pork and beans
and bologna. I've never liked either of them since.
S.J •:
Did you stop beside the road?
Yocum:
Yes.
S.J.:
How about at night?
Yocum:
We slept right on the ground. We had our bedding inside the car.
Just a quilt underneath was about all we had.
S.J.:
Did you have any car trouble?
Yocum:
I don't think we had any at all.
almost like new.
S.J.:
How long did ib take?
Yocum:
The best part of three days. I think it was 1,300 or 1,400 miles
from where we left. We had a lot of fun coming out here.
s .J.:
And after you got here you worked for how long?
Yocum:
I worked for five years for wages.
S.J.:
I mean the first time when you came out just to see what
California was like.
Yocum:
I never did go back.
Where did you sleep?
It was a pretty good car.
It was
;·,
You just sent for your family?
Yocum:
Yes.
I sent for the family.
One of the ranch hands was going back
Yocum, H.
13
to Oklahoma and so he said he would bring them back out for the
same amount that I got from the fam~ly that I brought out so that
was an even swap. I stayed on there at that ranch and the first
year he put me over the cotton chopping crew. I got 30 cents an
hour running the chopping crew. They were all Okies and Arkies
They stayed there all the winter and I think there were 50 people
that stayed there in that camp through the winter. I was boss over
my first wife and my present wife too.
S.J.:
I wanted to go back just a little bit and ask about your family's
trip out here. Was there anything unusual about their trip? Did
they have car trouble?
Yocum:
No. The oldest boy came out on the bus awhile before they did so it
was just my wife and five children coming with this other guy. He
had a good car too. I don't remember them having any trouble at
all.
S.J.: And when you came to the border of California--do you remember having
any problems? Did they search the car?
Yocum: No. We never had any difficulties. It was a pretty clean-looking
deal. We had the quilts in between the seats. They were just even
with the seat. I don't remember it but some of them say that we
had a thin mattress about four inches tied on the top. I don't
remember it. If we did it didn't show up much. I've had the horror
of seeing same of the pictures where they had everything tied onto
the cars.
s .J.:
Did you see a lot of other cars with things tied onto them?
Yocum:
No, not many. It was hot when we came out in August. We landed
in Needle~ California and it.was so hot we couldn't keep the
windows rolled up and we didn't have any air conditioning. We
came right across that desert about 1:00 p.m.
S.J •: So you didn't bring very much with you?
Yocum: No. Just the clothes we had on. Each of us might have had two
changes but I don't imagine we had any more than that.
S.J.: How about your wife and the children when they came out?
bring very much with them?
Yocum: They couldn't bring very much. I remember we went to town and
we had a place for us to live. We had three rooms out of this big
old ranch house and there were four more families that lived in
it. We went to town and for $30 or $35 down we bought something
to keep house with. We used nail kegs and a bench to eat around
the table. We had an old cook stove. You could smell coal oil
all over the place. It was a terrible year but we came out of it
Did they
14
The old landlord took me out of there and put me over on another
place and gave us a whole house--it was just like getting out of
jail.
S.J.:
Had your wife sold all of your possessions?
Yocum:
We didn't have much.
them.
S.J.:
So you didn't came out with much?
Yocum:
No. We didn't have anything but just our clothes when we got out
here.
S.J.:
Before you came out did you ever hear anything about California?
Rumors about what it was like?
Yocum:
When I lived in Arkansas we knew several that would came out here
and they would stay a few years and came back. We knew one guy
well and I never did think I'd want any part of it. I wouldn't
have ever come if they hadn't kept asking me to bring them out
here.
S.J.:
You hadn't heard favorable things about California?
Yocum:
No, I really hadn't.
S.J.:
And you never really considered going anyplace else because those
people had sort of talked you into it?
Yocum:
No, I never considered going anywhere else.
S.J.:
Do you think you would have stayed in Oklahoma and tried to get
through those years?
Yocum:
Probably, but I don't know how I would have because it was getting
to where you couldn't even get a sharecrop. They were getting those
tractors and they had quit cotton there. I would have have had to
leave where I was at. I might have gone east. I don't know.
S.J.:
Do you remember what you expected California to be like?
people had a picture of orange trees.
Yocum:
I had an uncle that came out here years and years ago when I was
a teenager. He was up in the timber country. JI had an idea what
it was like. Most of the Arkies where I was raised went to
Ventura, Santa Paula and Oxnard. Nearly all of them worked for
wages and a few of them got their own businesses. We still have
an annual Arkansas picnic down at Ojai--between Ojai and Santa
Paula. I love this country. It has been good to us. We've had
same tragedies. I've lost three grandsons, my mother and a son
Probably we got a little something out of
Same
15
Yocum, H.
about a month ago. He was fifty-some years olfi and died from
cancer. But the good things that have happened to us outweigh
the bad.
S.J.:
So you haven't been disappointed.
Yocum:
No. We have accumulated an awful lot of stuff. My friends say,
"Well, Hadley, how did you do all of this?" I say, "Hard work
and ambition." That's all it took when I came out here to get
started. The sky was the limit.
S.J.:
When you first came out here you probably came over the Tehachapi
Mountains into the Valley. Do you remember what ~our first
impression was?
Yocum:
I remember that was a terrible road coming over the Tehachapis
with little crooked hairpin curves. We never saw any good
country till we came down the Tehachapis.
s .J.:
You were describing your first year out here and it was pretty
tough.
Yocum:
It was pretty tough because we didn't have anything to keep house
with and wages were so cheap, but fortunately my wife made all
she could. She picked cotton and hoed cotton and the oldest boy
was big enough to make money and bring it in. The next boy came
along and then they both would bring their money home. They would
make much more working piece work than I was making by day or by
the month. They would bring their money in and give it to me
and their mother. They got $5 back a week for spending money.
I'd like to see you try that on these kids nowadays.
S.J •:
But your children were also going to school then?
Yocum:
My three oldest boys didn't go through high school. They went
some in the ninth grade but all the rest of the kids graduated.
And another boy, Ray, went to the service.
S.J.:
The three oldest sons went to work to help the family?
Yocum:
Yes. We started a partnership--me and the three oldest boys--and
it just grew. We would rent a piece of land and buy a piece. We
got up to 5,000 acres and it was just a little bit scattered
too much. About half of it was leased and we dropped down to
3,500 for a few years and then I fixed to buy it but I waited just
a little too long and it got away and the last few years we had
3,000 acres and we made more off of the 3,000. We've just done
a better job and it just worked out better.
s .J.:
You described that first home that you had when you came to
16
Yocum, H.
California.
Yocum:
It was just a big old ranch house. It had a lot of roams in it
and there was five families that lived in it. I think two of the
families just had two roams apiece and one had a roam and service
porch. we had three roams on the south. It was just a big old
ranch headquarters and there were lots of buildings and shops.
They filled up everything and then they had a bunch of tents
around there. There was 50 or 60 people that wintered there the
first winter or twcr-all Okies and Arkies.:
S.J •:
What was the name of that ranch?
Yocum:
They called it the Dougherty. And we finally bought part of it
and I sold it for three or four times what we paid for it. I
worked for J.B. Freeman and Son and the most I got was 50 cents
per hour.
s.J.:
Can you go back just a minute?
you eventually •••
Yocum:
We bought it.
s.J.:
You bought it?
Yocum:
Yes.
s .J.:
Years later? Yocum:
Yes. About ten or fifteen years ago we bought it and I sold it
for a couple of million. You said that the Dougherty Ranch
A long time after that though.
That must be a story to tell. Yocum:
It is. It's fantastic.
50 cents an hour.
Sc.>J.:
At the Dougherty Ranch?
Yocum:
Yes. The old guy was a big old Irishman and he was aWful high
tempered but had a heart as big as a mule. And his temper just
lasted a little bit. Heliked me. We hit it off good right at
the start. He advised me to get some land and start farming.
I had that idea all along, of course. My first wife then got hurt
in a car wreck and she just lived two years and same after that.
She died of a blood clot all of a sudden. We had already bought
64 acres over there on Kansas Avenue.
s .J.:
About how long was it after you came here that you bought land?
Yocum:
Five years.
Yes, I worked and the most I got was
When I started farming I had a team of horses.
Yocum, H.
17
S.J.:
That was five years after you came out here. So the first five
you were at the Dougherty Ranch and then you worked for Freeman?
Yocum:
Yes.
S.J •:
Were you just saving your money?
Yocum:
We got some money out of the wreck that hurt my wife and then with
the boys bringing home their earnings I think we'd saved about
$4,400. I bought that little 64 acres for about $7,000 or $8,000
and so we paid a down payment and went from there.
s.J.:
After that first year on the ranch you said you moved to another
house. Would you tell me about that?
Yocum:
Yes. Freeman got another lease and it had a house on it--a pretty
good house--and he asked me one day if I would like to move over
there and I said, "Yes, it would be just like getting out of jail."
So we moved over there and he gave us a cow to milk and bought
a dozen chickens for eggs and plenty of garden. Of course then
if you wanted to get fruit you could just go pick it or pick it up
off of the ground. You could get peaches and stuff. We thought
we had just hit the jackpot.
S.J •:
It sounds like you had very good luck with your employers--that they
were very nice people.
Yocum:
Yes and we treated our hands nice too. I don't know how much money
I've handed to them and loaned to them and never did get it back.
I'd feel sorry for them--they werer good workers.
s.J.:
That house you moved in was like getting out of jail.
tell me about that?
Yocum:
It was a four-room house. I believe it had a little side room.
I think it was modern inside. The first modern house I guess I
ever lived in. We lived there two or three years then I moved
out and in a little while we started farming.
s. J.:
It sounds like that house was a fairly nice one.
Yocum:
Yes. We've still got it. When I sold this $2,000,000 ranch down
here I reserved the house. They all made fun of me--the boys and
the auditor--and I said, "Well, they'd give just as much money
without it." And I fixed it up a little and we had to get something
done on it and they appraised it at $27,050~-that wasn't bad--to
get it for nothing. So we've still got it in the family. I'm
going to move it on one of the ranches.
s .J.:
So when you were working you had permanent jobs.
J.B. Freeman.
And the highest wages I got was 50 cents.
Could you
18
Yocum, H.
Yocum:
Yes, except for the last six months before I started farming.
I wasn't one of these kind always looking for greener pastures.
I've always been pretty well contented anywhere I've been my whole
life.
S.J.:
When you worked for Freeman were you doing whatever work< that needed
to be done?
Yocum:
Yes.
S.J.:
And you had people working under you?
Yocum:
Yes, I ran a crew the first year. But I didn't have anybody working
under me after that until we started farming and I've had a lot
of them since.
S.J •:
And you were still working for other people?
Yocum:
When we bought the little place.
s .J.:
You said your wife worked in the fields.
Yocum:
Both of my wives have worked in the fields.
S.J.:
Was that fairly
Yocum:
Oh, yes. Back there women always went to the fields and worked.
Most of them would rather go to the fields than stay at home.
I don't think all this wealth would have impressed my first
because she liked to get outside and work with her hands and hoe
in the fields. We didn't have anything to keep house with.
S.J •:
Was the work difficult as compared to what you had done back in
Oklahoma and Arkansas?
Yocum:
It was easier out here. When we had to pick cotton there we had
to run it down and that was hard on your back and knees. Out
here it was thick enough that you could get down on your knees
and crawl. I had to pick on my knees nearly all the time. I
think my two oldest boys are the best white cotton pickers I
ever saw in my life. They've picked over 800 apiece.
s .J.:
Do you mean white people as opposed to black people?
Yocum:
Mexicans. For shorter hours Mexicans are usually the best
pickers in the world. They are quick with their hands and
they bend over good. I think my two oldest boys are the best I
ever saw.
S.J •:
How about the people that you were working with the first few years
you were here? Were most of them settled or were these people
General farm work.
common~
19
Yocum, H.
\.
travelling migrants who were looking for work? Yocum:
we had a lot of migrants of course~ I think scnne of the people
thought that we were too but they evidently got fooled. At that
time there were lots of migrants.
Do you remember any problems?
j,
Yocum:
No, I don't remember any problems at all.
S.J •:
Do you know how they knew where to go to find work?
Yocum:
No, I don't.
Did they just go asking for work?
Yocum:
Most of them worked under a contractor and of course that was his
business to find work for them and so that's the way they knew
where to go for it.
s .J.:
Did you ever have an off-season? You were a permanent employee
but when it was raining was there something for you to do?
Yocum:
Mostly 1 :yes. I lost very little work from rain. Foggy mornings
we did fencing work and odd jobs. When the sun would come out
and shine we would go to the cotton field. The cotton was all
picked. This cotton used to stay in the field until March some
years when they handpicked it. Now with these modern machines
we pick over 200 bales a day with ten machines. In fact, we made
6,000 bales the year before last and they had that crop out by
the middle of November. It used to be they would drag on all
through the winter. Besides, if we'd had had to pick 6,000 bales
by hand we'd have had to have had 1,000 or 2,000 pickers to pick
that much cotton.
s .J.:
Before you owned land did you have much free time?
Yocum:
Not a great deal.
S.J.:
Were you consciously trying to save money to eventually buy the
land?
Yocum:
Yes, we tried to save a little all along. We couldn't save very
much on the wages we were getting but I think we got about $1,800
out of that wreck that finally took my wife's life and then we
had about $4,400. We had saved about $1,600 and that took about
two or three years to do that. Maybe longer.
S.J.:
You said that at the first two places you worked at, all the workers
were Okies and Arkies.
20
Yocum, H.
Yocum:
Practically all of them except at picking time. They used Mexicans
at picking time. Usually a contractor would came in and you'd
pick under him.
S.J.:
Do you remember the economic situation that most of the other
Okies and Arkies were in?
Yocum:
Same of them had it pretty rough. There wasn'.t much relief. You
couldn't go and get any help. Same of them did get groceries
and stuff. We never did get any help. Never needed it. One time
we thought we would because we had to have four of the children's
tonsils taken out and they wanted $50 apiece. They wanted $200
and I was working for low wages so I found a doctor that would
taken them out for $80 with $30 down and we could handle that-­
than pay him when we could. But that's the only help we got if
you would call that help--! don't know.
S.J.:
But you were aware that other people were a lot worse off than
you were?
Yocum:
I don't think a lot of them tried as hard as I did. We used to
have a truant officer and we called her the Green Hornet. We'd
want to let the kids come in and pick what they could. My kids
especially could pick a lot of cotton in a few hours. They were
going to school right up here. We had a school by the house and
Friday evenings after dinner they just had exercises--maybe a
spelling outfit--and I kept them out a time or two. She was right
onto me and me and her had a few words. And I said, "Well, I was
just trying to make a living for the family to keep from having
to get any help or anything,"--that didn't set good either so she
won out. It was better that way--I'll have to admit.
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2
S.J.:
In the late 1930s did you ever see any government camps that they
had for farm workers?
Yocum:
No.
S(.,a.:
Did you hear about them?
Yocum:
Yes but I don't know too much about it.
S.J.:
How about the ditch camps? People who were migrants would just
pitch tents or build old shacks.
Yocum:
I didn't see any of them but I've heard about them and I've heard
of people even living in cars. But we didn't have to do any of
that. I've heard quite a bit about them, but as far as seeing
anybody--! don't think I saw anybody. I was too busy to see
anything like that.
zy,
i
21
Yocum, H.
'
S.J •:
Did your children have any problems in the schools? A lot of
people have told me that when their children would go to school
people would recognize the Oklahoma accent and make fun of them.
Yocum:
They probably had a little. In fact, they used to have a little
trouble at the dances they'd go to. Seemed to be mostly between
the Portuguese people and the Okies. They got that thrashed out
and they've married one another till that's no problem anymore.
In fact, we have two Portuguese daughters-in-law.
S.J.:
So you don't think that was really a big problem there?
Yocum:
Yes. Of course, they must have had a little problem about the
kids that lived here that were maybe better fixed.
S.J.:
Did you ever have any problems when you went into town?
Yocum:
No.
S.J.:
Were most of the people you were associated with also from
Oklahoma?
Yocum:
A good deal of them.
the natives.
S.J •:
In the late 1930s did you hear anything about organizing unions?
Yocum:
No.
S.J.:
Did you hear about strikes?
Yocum:
I don't believe there were any in the 1930s.
s .J.:
Maybe you could tell me about your farming operation--how it started
when you bought acreage in 1943.
Yocum:
In 1943 I bought our first land. It was a little 64 acre block.
I bought a team of horses and farmed it with a team of horses
the first year. Then next year the boys were working in the
shipyard and they came down and helped me pick this cotton. I
only made 50 bales and after we got it picked we picked out the
neighbors. I asked the two oldest ones if they ~muld like to
go in with me and farm and they agreed to it. We leased this
half section right out here that corners this place and 80 up the
road. We didn't even have a tractor--we just had one team of
horses. The guys had been doing such a bad job farming it--they
just farmed the spots that were good--so he said, "Well, I'm going
to take a chance on you. I can't do any worse." So we managed
to get a-hold of a small new tractor--they were rationing tractors.
I bought another team of horses and we started out. The ground was
We've made lots of friends, though, with
I didn't hear anything about that.
.';<
22
Yocum, H.
in such bad shape that we had to burn it off before we could do
anything it. I told the boys it would take a strong back and
a weak mind to tackle something like that.
We tore into it'though. Every year after that we would buy a
place and expand a little. We would rent a place till we got
up to 5,000 acres. It's kind of scattered over a ten or fifteen
mile radius. The boy that was helping me run it didn't like it
much. We didn't have too good a way of moving these big tractors
in so we got down to 3,500 acres. We farmed that up till about
five years ago and sold it. I let it get away and we got down
to 3,000--we've been on that for quite awhile. Then the three
oldest boys got to where they didn't want to work anymore. They
all had troubles with their legs and their backs. All are over
50--nearly 60. The other two boys were farming some. we sold
them 400 acres I believe and sold them our equipment which is
worth about a million dollars. I set here and sold two places
without a broker Christmas Eve a year ago. I sold a place that
we bought for about $450,000 for about $2,000,000. It will bring
in $3,600,000 in 20 years in interest and payments. We sold
about another million and a half. What we've got left, though,
is going to bring in more than what we've sold because it's value
almost doubled in the last two years.
S.J.:
And you just started out with •••
Yocum:
A team of horses and 64 acres. I paid about $125 an acre. We
lived over there for thirty years. We've been here about seven
years.
S.J.:
Do you know any other people that were like yourself that came out
here able to buy a home?
Yocum:
A few. My two sisters have done pretty good and I know of a
Tennessee man that came out here and worked 25 years for two
brothers and then he got a chance to lease it. We thought he
gave too high. He bought the old machinery and he took in his
son. He quit a good job here in Hanford and they're both
millionaires and they've done it in a short time--fifteen years.
I have a neighbor right up the road who's an Okie and he and his
son are both worth a million apiece or more. Anybody who has
300 acres in this Valley anymore is a millionaire. Of course, a
million is not worth as much as it used to be.
S.J.:
And you don't really think that luck or chance had much to do with
that? It was just that you worked very hard?
Yocum:
Chance might have had something to do with it. We were in the
right place at the right time and the opportunity came along and
we jumped on it.
23
Yoctml, H.
S.J.:
But once you had that you worked very hard.
YOCtml:
Oh yes. The boys are broken down at fifty years of age--worse
than I am and I'll be 80 years old in November. I expect to go
quite a few yet--have to.
s .J.:
What was it like to become the landowner and be the boss and do the
hiring?
Yoctml:
I'm glad I've done both. I know how to treat anybody. I treat
them like I'd like to be treated and that's always been our policy.
And if we ever had a man that could leave us to better himself-­
regardless of how much we liked and wanted him--we were all for
him bettering himself.
S.J.:
You said you helped people out and gave them loans?
YOCtml:
Sure. We helped them out money-wise and otherwise. And we're
in the position of helping some of our grandchildren who are having
a time paying this high rent. This boy who died not long ago
left an estate of over $2,000,000 himself. Clare and I are worth
almost a third more than either of the boys because we have this
place and the old home place. We had it and some other stuff
that they didn't have.
S.J.:
We talked about people who have no ambition and probably would
have been on welfare.
Yoctm1:
Oklahoma used to have a lot of people on WPA in the Depression.
They wouldn't have been any different if they had been out here.
S.J.:
For people who worked hard and had the ambition to succeed there
were opportunities here in California.
Yoctm1:
Lots and lots of them.
S.J •:
A lot of people have complained that there was no land to buy.
They say they carne out here and there were only big farms.
YOCtml:
Listen! I remember the time around here when some of them could
have bought 40 or 80 acres for little or nothing. If they had
bought it and held onto it do you know what a good 80 acres would
bring now? $300,000 probably. This man right out here bought
this little old 40 acres that's got a nice little house on it.
He was a carpenter. He could get $150,000 or $160,000 out of that
little old 40 acres. Now you can't tell me there wasn't opportunity.
He bought that thing for $4,000 or $5,000.
S.J.:
So there was land here and there were plenty of opportunities?
YOCtml:
There was land.
Up till the last two or three years you could get
Yocum1 H.
24
a-hold of it.
Up till then there were all kinds of opportunities.
S.J •:
Did you see The Grapes of Wrath?
Yocum:
Yes I did and I didn't like it.
S.J •:
What was it that you didn't like?
Yocum:
I just didn't think it was that bad. I know it wasn't that bad
back in Oklahoma. I can vouch for that. We never had no dozers
go in and doze houses down like they did in The Grapes of Wrath.
I don't know how bad it was out here but I don't believe it got
that bad out here. If it did it had to be down there in Bakersfield
or somewhere.
S.J.:
You didn't experience anything like that?
Yocum:
No.
S.J.:
How about the way Steinbeck depicted Okies? The people in his
movie and his book were very crude and used very bad language.
Yocum:
The Okies did?
s .J.:
He made it look like everybody from Oklahoma talked like that.
Yocum:
That's the reason I've never liked it and wouldn't give two cents
to see The Grapes of Wrath or any show like it anymore. I did see
it though but I'm disgusted with it.
s. J.:
Do you think very many people believed it?
Yocum:
There probably was a lot of people that believed it. But I know
the Okies and I know the shape they were in. I know quite a bit
about california after I came out because I came out right in
the middle of it. I certainly didn't see any of that stuff. There
were people who slept in cars. They still do now. People came
out here from some state and they can't find nothing and they may
sleep in cars. I don't know about that. I read about it.
s. J.:
Do you think the Okies kind of got a bad deal after that?
Yocum:
I sure do.
I never heard of it either.
How about the word "Okie"? In the late 1930s would it have caused
a fight if someone called another person an Okie?
Yocum:
I imagine it caused a few out here but I'll tell you one thing-­
the native Californians weren't no match for the boys coming from
Oklahoma when it came to fist fights~-and they did have them.
They used to have an Okie stomp dance over here or some kind of a
Yocum, H.
25
dance over at Tulare. My boys have been over there and they
have come back once or twice and you could tell they'd been in
one. But it all died down and they seemed to all forget about
the Okies. They still call them Okies, 'though.
S.J.:
What did the word mean then?
What connotation did it have?
Yocum:
It was just short for Oklahoma.
S.J.:
Didn't it have some other meanings too?
Yocum:
It probably did.
S.J.:
Some people would say that the Okies were lazy.
Yocum:
I don't agree with that.
majority weren't.
S.J.:
But do you agree that they might have used the word Okie in that
way meaning a person who was lazy?
Yocum:
They could have.
S.J.:
How about now when people use the term Okie?
Yocum:
Oh that's just short for Oklahoma I think.
S.J.:
It doesn't seem to mean anything more than that?
Yocum:
No.
S.J.:
When World War II came how did that change things for you?
your sons old enough to go into the service?
Yocum:
No, not till the last part of it. Clara
had two that went into the service. And
then. One came back from Vietnam a dope
He made a fine looking Marine and a good
it while he was over there.
S.J.:
How about during World War II when the boys went over seas?
Yocum:
We didn't have any that actually saw any service. I had one boy
that was in the Navy who was on a mine sweeper to sweep the mines
out of Tokyo Bay~-that's the closest he ever came to being in any
danger.
S.J.:
When World War II started you still hadn't bought your land and you
were working for farm wages.
Yocum:
Well we had one piece down there I think and then before the war
I don't know.
It could have.
Same of them might have been but the
But they also call us Arkies you know.
Were
had two sons go in and I
I had two grandsons since
addict of the worst kind.
boy too but he got into
Yocum, H.
26
was over I think we had bought the equity in another piece of
land or two.
S.J.:
Had times gotten better for you economically?
Yocum:
Oh yes. It got a little better every year. Of course, we had a
year or two or three years ago that set us back a little but not
too bad. We had a loss.
S.J.:
Did all of your family stay here in the area?
Yocum:
Yes. I kept all five boys on this farming operation and they're
still all five interested in it. We've got equity in it and we've
still got part of the land that they are farming on.
S.J.:
And so your life really has changed a lot since that first year
that you came to California. Did you ever expect anything like
this to happen?
Yocum:
No, I never really thought about getting rich or wealthy. I just
liked to do a good job--that was my hobby--buying ranches and
working them over and make good ranches. I liked to do a good
job farming. Evidently I've passed it on.to the youngest sons
because they're doing a marvelous job.
S.J.:
You must be glad you came to California.
Yocum:
Oh yes.
S.J.:
Do you have any desire to go back to Oklahoma or Arkansas?
Yocum:
Just to visit. Me and my wife managed to go back about ten or
twelve times in 30 years. We've got a lot of friends back there.
I still love Arkansas.
s. J.:
Do you have any relatives back there?
Yocum:
Yes, quite a few and lots and lots of friends.
S.J.:
Do you think your life was better here than it would have been
back there?
Yocum:
Oh yes, lots better.
S.J.:
You didn't see any chance or any opportunity like this coming up
back in Oklahoma?
Yocum:
No, not for us. I've got same good friends there that's
farmers. Cowans family--one had some land--he inherited
we were there. Of course, after the cotton farmers left
wheat farmers picked up what was left--Indian leases and
wheat
some when
the
all.
Yocum, H.
27
They're going pretty good most of them.
S.J.:
How about your kids? You mentioned all of them are either in
farming or interested in it. Do any of them have other jobs?
Yocum:
No. The three oldest boys don't have to work anymore. They are
wealthy. The girls work part-time over there on the coast property.
They've got a good manager.
S.J •:
That's in the restaurant that you built over in Morro Bay?
Yocum:
It sits out in the water. We have a cafe and a bar down here
in Hanford. Me and the oldest boys still own nine acres and two
extra buildings. It's over here on Kansas and Tenth Avenues.
We've got it leased out. We've got a lot of good homes in the
family. Nearly all as good as this one. Two boys have got bigger
homes even than this one.
S.J.:
It's a far cry from the log cabin in Arkansas.
Yocum:
I guess at nearly 80 years old I've moved about as few of times
as anybody living. But there's been a half dozen houses I've
lived in in my life that weren't very much.
S.J.:
You've changed that.
Yocum:
Yes. We're pretty proud of this one here. I love the view we've
got. In fact, the boys are farming all this land except this
east side here. I can look out and one boy has got 1,000 across
there from the corner. Ray's farming 1,500 and Gene 1,300. We
sold off a piece that we didn't get a lease back.
END OF INTERVIEW
CALIFORNIA ODYSSEY Project
141
Charlie Cliff Yocum
b. 1880, Arkansas
Hadley L. YOCUM
Mary Belle Reed
b. 1880, Texas
~/
Hadley Leon Yocum
Mamie Kyle Yocum
b. 1903
d. March, 1943
b. 1901, Branch, Franklin Co.
Arkansas
Education:
Church:
part of 9th grade
m. 1948 to
Lakeside Community
Clara B. Kelley
b. 1908, Stuart,
Oklahoma
[Her children from fovmer marriage]
Billy Joe Russell
b. 1930
Patsy Louise Russell
b. 1941
Winford Lee Russell
b. 1932
Kile Jim Yocum
b. 1924
Farmer
Ray Leon Yocum
b. 1930
Farmer
Robert Vernon Yocum
b. 1927
d. 1981
Charles William Yocum
b. 1921
Maggie Yocum
Farmer
b. 1926
(deceased)
Grandchildren:
32
Great Grandchildren:
Hadley Gene Yocum
b. 1941
Farmer
Shirley Earlene Yocum Peters
b. 1936
Restaurant owner
Gertrude Elizabeth Yocum Cliffe
b. 1932
Restaurant owner
(three deceased)
24
141
INDEX
Arkansas, 4, 26 Branch, 1 California First impression, 11, 15 Ventura, 14 Ojai, 14 Education In Arkansas, 2 In California, 15, 20 Discrimination, 21 Family Life Entertainment, 3, 10 Chores, 3 Sports, 3, 9 Cars, 4, 5, 12 Marriage, 21 Sense of community, 4, 9 Problems, 14, 15 Parents, 1, 2 Farming, 26 Income, 4, 5, 19 Methods, 6, 19 Land ownership, 3, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22 Land rental, 15 Sharecropping, 4, 8 Crops, 8 Drought, 4, 6 Dust storms, 4, 6 Gas royalties, 4 Off-farm work, 4, 10, 11 The Grapes of Wrath/Steinbeck Objections to, 24 Movie, 24 Health Health care, 20 Causes of death, 16 Housing (continued) Grower-provided, 14, 16, 17 Government-provided, 20 Impact of Experience, 14, 25, 26 Migration to California Attraction of California, 5, 14 Reasons for move, 5, 11 Transportation, 12 Shelter, 12 Belongings, 14 Funds available, 12 Cooking, 12 Mining, 1 The New Deal Roosevelt, 7, 8 WPA, 23 AAA, 7 "Okie" Definition, 25 Reactions to term, 24 Oklahoma Move to, 4 Life in, 5, 9 Greenfield, 9 Watonga, 9 Relief, 20 Religion Churches, 2, 3, 9 Revivals, 3 Work, 26 Migrant labor, 19, 20 Permanent jobs, 12, 17 Employers, 16, 17 Unions, 21 Wages, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16 During WW II, 21, 26 After WW II, 21, 26 Housing Homestead in Arkansas, 1, 2 Homes in California, 13, 14, 16, 27