Keith Tillotson
The Funeral (1932)
The strawberries were startin' to get ripe, so it must have been around May when Grandmother Dent died. So, we got the word. We had the old Ford there – it didn't have any headlights on it. So Dad had to wire up some headlights and put 'em on there. Kenneth drove – 'course he was old enough. 15, I guess – no, 16. Anyway, he drove back.
I don't know how suddenly we ended up with this Model T Ford. Was a one-seater. What they did – usually they were touring cars and people cut the back off 'em and make a little pickup truck out of 'em, you know. But it didn't have any headlights on it, so Dad put some headlights on it. I guess they had a place for 'em, but they didn't have any lights – no bulb, no wiring – nothin'. So he wired it up. I know he'd overhauled the valves on it one time. He took the engine apart and he fixed the valves. Maybe somebody just gave it to him – I don't know. I don't even know how the tires were, but he fixed it up so we could drive back to Iowa. 'Bout 120 miles, I think. 'Course Kenneth did all the driving – he wouldn't let me drive. Well, his size – he was quite a bit bigger – nobody'd stop you. So we went on – goin' through Omaha, Council Bluffs, and right on home.
We had to save gas – it was only about 120, 30, 40, 50 miles. But we figured out that the old Ford, we could make 40 miles to the gallon. Now, it was pretty flat land in Nebraska. What you'd do, see, in the Ford – the old Model T – you could cut down on the gas mixture. Just get it so it would run right. Then if you come to a hill, you'd coast down it. Probably against the law to do that. In Iowa, there's a lot of hills to coast down. You'd get a lot of mileage on a Model T.
We never had driver's licenses. No, we didn't even have cars registered. You'd get an old car that somebody abandoned beside his barn, you know – bought another one, and that car just lay there and rust away. And that's the kind that Perry and Dad – well, Perry used to buy that kind. Maybe pay five bucks for one, or somethin' like that.
I'd see Perry would put in a quart of gas rather than miss buying a pint of whiskey. He'd rather spend the money on whiskey than he would gas. You'd run dry, and put in a quart. But the only problem you had then was you had to back up a hill, on account of the gravity feed. The gas tank was right under the seat of the car. It didn't have fuel pumps – it was gravity feed. By the time you realized that, that's what you had to do – turn around, back up a hill. Kind of weird, but that's the way it went.
But anyway, we figured it out. It was 40 miles to the gallon to get back out there. We got there late. The funeral was already over with, and we were all at Uncle Leonard's house, which was practically 200 feet from Grandma's old house. They were livin' in town then 'cause he couldn't make it on the farm anymore. I guess he had a job doin' somethin' else.
I remember Uncle Leonard, he told you exactly what he thought, all the time. "You're late!" And then he says, when we arrived there, he says, "Say hello to your mother first." She was just comin' out of the house, and he was out in the yard. He was pretty sharp, but he was a wonderful guy.
Uncle Leonard was not as tall as me. They figured I was tall, back then. Jeez, I'm tall? Five foot eight? See, Uncle Lester was short. When I was back there, remember I put on a pair of his old coveralls and I couldn't even hardly do the straps on 'em? [To Neal about the 1981 trip] Uncle Lester's house was up there on the hill, next to Ralph [Dent]. Aunt Daisy lived by herself, Uncle Lester was already dead. We went there in 1964. You stayed overnight with Lynn's folks over right across the creek from the old place, where my grandfather lived and all of them were born.
Uncle Leonard built those houses himself – planted all those apple trees. And the 40 next to him was Uncle Robert, and he built that house. Then sometime during the war Lester moved someplace up a few miles north. They finally bought this place where they lived. Brian lived just across the road to the north. And Ralph lived to the south, where he still lives. Far as I know, Lynn lives in the old house there that we saw [Aunt Daisy's house] when we visited there in 1981.