Dear Garrett..

Kaydell Angus Farm was not my first experience with farming and ranching. After beginning my eighth grade year of school in Michigan, we moved to Lake Bistineau near Shreveport, Louisiana. Shortly after arriving in Louisiana, I found a job working on a dairy in Ringgold. I was hired as a hand on the Jersey Gold Dairy. My mom drove me to the dairy to help with milking before and after school each day and on weekends. I liked my job on the dairy a lot.

My dairy job lasted only a few months. Shortly after Thanksgiving, Mom met us one day when we arrived home from school and told us that we had to immediately move out of the trailer park (Julia’s Camp) where we had our 8 x 35 foot custom built trailer parked. We were not informed why we had to move out – – just that we had to move out immediately. Mom was not telling us what was placing our family in this obvious state of peril that required we move so urgently.

It had been raining a lot. After quickly hooking up our new 1960 Pontiac Station Wagon to our trailer home, we found the car could not make it up the slippery hill that led out of the camp with the trailer connected. In a scramble, Mom located a large commercial truck with a winch that was able to tow our car and trailer up the muddy hill and out of the camp. The truck just happened to be at the camp on that particular day. Mom said it was a miracle.

Later that day, we moved the trailer house into a large warehouse in Shreveport where we lived in hiding for a week. During that week, we would sneak out of the warehouse in the daytime to eat and get out, etc. During that week we (us kids) still did not know what the problem was that necessitated our sudden need to move. We did not check out of school or say goodbye to any one. We just disappeared from Julia’s Camp.

A week later, we found out what the problem was when a negro man named, Willie Wilson (no relation), showed up at the warehouse around midnight. Unbeknownst to me and my siblings, our Mom had become involved with the negro man I was working with at the dairy. It being 1960 in Louisiana was a problem for a negro man to be involved with a white woman. Mom was so scared we ended up having to go into hiding until we could sneak out of Louisiana with Willie.

We left my Jersey calf behind at the camp with a neighbor to care for. Willie and I would sneak back into the camp a couple of months later and pick up my beloved calf. I had named her, “Morning Glory”. She was the love of my life at the time.

We drove all night when we left Shreveport. I remember passing through Waco, Texas at dawn that morning. I remember thinking, “So this is Waco, Texas – – how cool.” I remembered hearing about Waco, Texas in cowboy films on television.

We drove until we reached Sinton, Texas where we found a place to park our trailer house for the time being. I guess Mom and Willie felt where we were in Texas was far enough away from Ringgold, Louisiana to be out of harms way. Actually, I don’t think Willie ever felt like he was out of harms way while he was hanging around with our family. I don’t think Texas was a whole lot safer than Louisiana for a negro man to be living with a white family in 1960. I think Willie was a nervous wreck the entire time he and my Mom lived together with us five kids.

I liked being in Texas a lot. Sinton was a small agriculture town not too far north of Corpus Christi and the Gulf of Mexico. I got a haircut in Sinton for 50 cents. I remember how amazed I was to get a haircut that cheap. The people there seemed friendly and curious. Mom and Willie were having to figure out how to begin living together under their special circumstances. As time passed and people saw Willie with our family, it seemed like they may have simply presumed that perhaps Willie might be our family chauffeur? It seemed like Willie and Mom played along with this idea which at the time was the safest scenario we could get by with, given our special circumstances.

Even though I had been pronounced the patriarch of our family with the responsibility to care for and keep my Mom and siblings safe following my Dad’s passing, Mom did not consult with me regarding what she had in mind by bringing Willie into our family.

When we left Michigan three months previously, we were told, “We are going to Louisiana to help the poor people.” Now that we had vacated Louisiana having violated its law of the land at that time with a cohabitation arrangement with a negro man and a white family, we couldn’t return there to help the poor people we had originally gone there to help so we were told. Our plans for life in Louisiana had ended. We were certainly exiled from Louisiana so now what?

After a few days of getting settled into our temporary residing place in Sinton, we all got into our Pontiac station wagon without the trailer house and started driving. The next thing I remember was looking at a 122 acre farm in Seguin, another small Texas town just east of San Antonio. Willie had farming experience. Again, unbeknownst to me, Mom and Willie had decided to buy a farm. Their plan was for Willie to farm the 122 acres and for us to live there safe and sound out in the country.