Keith Tillotson
The Railroad (1935)
That's where Dad was [Orleans], working on a gang that was building this railroad. They'd had a flood, they say had killed about 18 people – and a lot of cows and animals and stuff – in that area, we're talkin' about. So we built this railroad by hand. Must have been a mile across – or it looked like a mile. We did it with wheelbarrows. We'd go down and dig up the dirt with wheelbarrows, pull 'em up and dump them and build up a grade up from the banks right on across the river. I got a job on there, too. It was 25 cents an hour – the most money I'd ever earned.
We're livin' in a town in some old house with all the kids and so on. One farmer right beside us said he got washed out. His whole farm just got washed away. Dad's wife had a brother that run a bakery there in town. Before I got the job on the railroad, I cut some wood for him – for his bakery, you know, chopped up some wood. They fired it with wood.
Anyway, we built this railroad. They wanted to save some of the rails. You can imagine how heavy a railroad rail is? There was a lot of people on these things – my number, I think was 78 or something like that. They had numbers. You'd go down maybe a quarter mile, and you'd get the rail. If it was attached to any of the railroad tie, you'd take those off and you carry this rail – if it was a straight one. Now that's where I had the advantage – I'm short, I'm little. All everybody else was taller than me, so I'd have to have my hands up thisaway. But I'm telling you – I wasn't pushing too hard. 'Cause your sinkin' in the sand. There's a sandy bottom, the whole thing was kind of a lot of sand. We'd carry those rails sometimes a quarter of a mile to put on this grade. 'Course you had to put gravel and stuff on there, and tamp the tie. You learned how to tamp a tie.
The straw boss – he's second in charge – he'd come around to keep everybody goin'. You'd be tamping a tie – he would pull the rocks underneath it, see, like this. Tamp it up through the rail. And he'd say, "This is the way to do that." [Gestures quickly] Nobody could work like that.
They'd bring water out from a creamery, where they made ice and so on in the town there. Has a big can, and everybody'd stop to drink water. Well, some guys started to tell some jokes, stories, you know. We're standin' around there – five of us got fired, just like that. Everyone of us – fired. For spendin' too much time drinkin' water! That was why.
Jeez, now I'm out of a job. This is 1935 – comin' out of the Depression. The railroad paid pretty good money. Then Dad got – on the hand cart that took him out there, it upset and he almost lost his thumb. So now he's disabled. And the other guy – the neighbor – got his leg broken in that accident. So, what am I gonna do? Now, that was what they called the extra gang. So I went down and signed up on a regular section gang, and got thirty-five cents an hour. Same company! I didn't tell 'em I was fired from the extra gang.
By this time, it was about time for the guy that gave me the ride to drop by and pick me up. And he took me back to Iowa. It was before November, I know that. 'Coulda been in July.
Boy, I tell you, building that railroad by hand was a job. I mean, that was ... Sometimes they'd go out in the country along a road somewhere and dig up dirt, load it up, bring it back and unload it. That was real work.