By Barbara

ABE Student

Hoboing

My husband and I were in Little Rock, Arkansas. Bob was out of work, so we were at the mission to eat. People there told Bob about hoboing. I was young and adventurous, and catching a freight train meant I would see all the country I wanted to see. Because I could not read, I had to see it for myself.

The first time we walked into the working train yard it was dark and cold. Train whistles were blowing and the trains were being separated, so it was loud and noisy. The campfires made the air smell like smoke. I had heard of hobo jungles, but I had never seen one. There were men standing around the campfires. I was surrounded by strangers, and was never so nervous in my life. God was looking out for us and led us to a man who taught us how to survive on the streets. The old man taught us that America is becoming a throw away country, and if you go behind the food stores they throw away a lot of good food. All you have to do is get it and prepare it back at the hobo jungle. From there it was hard, but fun.

Men who worked for the freight company would help you by telling you where the trains were going. We found a train going to the west coast with an empty boxcar. I was happy and on my way to the west coast.

When I first looked at the Sierra Mountains I thought I was in heaven. I never thought of how I was going to live or survive. We landed in a small town called Keddie, a railroad town where they build the first railroad going across the country. It was named for a surveyor, Authur Keddie, who surveyed the railroad that cut through the Sierra Mountains in Plumas County in the early 1900s. The town only had a grocery store and a post office. It was originally made up of Chinese people who were working for the railroad. They laid the first tracks, build trestles and dug tunnels for the Western Pacific Railroad as different railroads were racing across the country over time.

When we arrived we found this little shack were we camped for the night. We later learned that two years earlier a brutal murder had occurred in a campsite nearby- a mother, two children, a teenage boy and a family friend – all killed.

Bob and I lived in Keddie for a month or two We talked to the troops and found out that the trains from all directions came through here, so we decided to go to Salt Lake City for a while on a sidetrack. We lived in the middle boxcar, Mexicans lived in the first one, and the old man lived in the third one. In Salt Lake we picked up cans for 37 cents a pound and always found food in the city. It was fun! I met all different kinds of people that were riding the trains and working on ranches. I got tired of being in the city, so we caught a freight train in Salt Lake City, which was going to Keddie.

When we arrived in Keddie, Bob and I set up camp on Spanish Creek. People who live on the river are called “River Rats.” River rats are made up of a group that lives outside of society. Your average person would not be found there.

In the five years that I lived on Spanish Creek I learned to mine for gold, set up a working camp, and made the best biscuits on the river. I was checking the crevices beside the creek when I noticed an old miner watching me. He walked up to me and started telling me about false bedrock, but your not; and if you hammer it you will find that it will break apart, and that is where the gold is under it. It is a good lesson to know if you are a gold miner.

In the 1930s and the 1940s the gold miners came with their families and lived in the mountains. People were self-sufficient so they did not need much in the way of stores. Another old man taught me how to make sourdough starter out of potato peelings. You can see why small towns could survive with just a post office and a small grocery store.

The 2000 census says Keddie had a population of 96 people- 37 household and 23 families residing in the area of Keddie. Racial makeup was 46 percent white, 2.08 percent black, 1.04 percent native American, 3.12 percent from two or more races, and 7.29 percent Hispanic or Latino.

When people found gold the only place to sell it was in a town called Quincy. So, we left for Quincy in the Sierras about 27 miles away from Keddie around 1987. While in Quincy we met people who told us about the Feather River. The Feather River runs through the wild and scenic national park. You cannot use anything that is motorized in the park, so you use gold pans and sluices when mining for gold. I spent a lot of years floating up and down the river. By this I mean really floating in a wet suit. I could spend the entire day just floating on the river.

Our camp was 37 miles from a main road and Quincy was the nearest town. When we needed supplies, Bob and I walked about 40 miles to Quincy. Back then it was no big deal for us to walk great distances. At this time I was having trouble with my teeth. I had a friend who worked in the welfare office, and she suggested I apply for a Medicaid card to get my teeth fixed. After my teeth were fixed, I noticed my energy had not come back and I was getting worse. I still had to walk these great distances, but I just could not get motivated anymore. I finally had to go to a doctor because I had no energy to do anything. I went to one doctor who sent me to a specialist and he said I had cancer.

After my operation and six weeks in the hospital the doctor send me home with orders to take it easy, but I could not do that and survive. I stayed in bed for a month on the Carmac, which is a mining camp. I had been blessed with a good doctor and the help of friends because it is now fifteen years later and I am well. I moved back into the town of Quincy and started to learn to read from the Literacy Council at Quincy, California.

In the meantime, I left Bob because he got involved in drugs and ended up killing a man. He went to prison and I came back from California to Hendersonville and stayed with my brother for about a month. Then I go an apartment for myself on Bob’s Hill. I needed help paying rent, so I went to the Housing Authority. There I saw a poster about Blue Ridge Literacy Council. So, I called them and went out there. They introduced me to Mary who taught me how to read. I am continuing my efforts there to this day to advance my reading, and to spell and write.