[Granville-Hough] 3 July 2009 - Hoboes Coley and Dueward

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

DESPERATE SEARCH FOR JOBS--RIDING THE RAILS DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION.

       It was probably in 1933 when Uncle Coley Richardson and Brother 
Dueward Hough decided to join the hoboes and go west from Smith County, 
MS, looking for jobs.  They walked the mile down to the railroad, and as 
a train slowly climbed the Ware Cut, they grabbed the first boxcar and 
were on their way.  For those unfamiliar with the term hobo, it 
originally meant a migratory worker.  In the Great Depression, it came 
to mean a vagrant on the rail cars, usually penniless.  Coley and 
Dueward joined more than 20,000 others who were riding the rails, going 
from town to town, looking for that elusive job that was out there 
somewhere.  They rode in the boxcars, on the tops of the boxcars, or on 
the network of pipes and rods underneath the cars.  It was hazardous, 
but cheap.  The railway system fought the hoboes and hired "bulls" 
(railroad police) to keep the hoboes off the trains.  It was a losing 
battle for the railroads, just as it was for the hoboes. 
    Neither Coley nor Dueward ever talked much about their experience 
that summer or winter, whichever it was.  It is my general belief that 
they got from Mississippi to California, found Uncle Martin Richardson 
in California , picked some cotton for him, then could find no more 
work.  On their way back, they had to pass through the El Paso 
Railyards, where the meanest bull in the country was in charge.  Unlike 
more humane bulls, he would force the hoboes to jump from a moving 
train.  The engineers who knew the plight of the hoboes, would move out 
slowly, giving the bulls time to clear the cars before they picked up 
speed.  At five or ten miles per hour, you could generally jump safely, 
but beyond that speed, you got broken legs, ankles, arms or other 
injuries.  The El Paso bull started clearing the boxcars, and by the 
time he got to the car where Coley and Dueward were, the train was 
moving too fast to jump. But jump they had to do.  The bull was waving 
his loaded pistol, giving warning shots hither and yon.
    Coley jumped and put his sack of clothes and bedding out in front as 
he hit the ground and fell forward.  The rocks on the railroad base cut 
up his bag pretty badly, but he was only shook up.  Dueward was not so 
lucky.  He put his hand out in front to break his fall and the rocks cut 
it up pretty badly.  It took weeks to heal after he finally got home.  
They had to walk back to the yards with their wounds and wounded 
comrades and came out that night under cover of darkness.  They got home 
and were very quiet about their hobo experience.  I think it had 
dreadful memories for both of them.  In fact, I never found any ex-hobo 
who wanted to talk or write about his experiences
    It was Jimmie Rodgers, an unemployed brakeman, who sang sad songs 
about the hoboes.  Before he died in 1933 of TB, he had recorded all 
sorts of country songs in which he introduced yodeling and other 
innovations.  In the YouTube rendition of his songs, there are scenes of 
the hoboes in their hopeless plight.  It was these scenes which reminded 
me of Dueward and Coley's adventure in riding the rails in the Great 
Depression. 

"Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields 
which have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometime greater than 
illustrious heroes." Victor Hugo, /Les Miserables./.