[Granville-Hough] 20 Jun 2009 - Foreclosure Consequences

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:49:14 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: ForeclosureConsequencies - 20 June 2009

In the depths of the Great Depression, I was 10 years old and my younger 
brothers were 8, 6, and 5.  The talk in my family was about a merchant 
in Magee who had a mortgage on a relative's land in the New Sardis 
Baptist Community.  In the good times of the 1920 decade, the father of 
the family had built a nice farm home, and he had mortgaged the family 
land in order to obtain the building materials.  This done, he was hard 
hit by the Depression, and he could not pay the debt.  After a few 
years, Bob Everett, the merchant in Magee, foreclosed.
It was similar to banks taking over family homes in recent months in 
California.  And, much as today, there were consequencees. 
    We got involved because we had furnished the family one or more milk 
cows, in exchange for it providing pasturage for 2 or 3 others.  We had 
more cows than we needed, but there was no market we knew about for 
them.  That is, no one had money with which to buy a cow.  We learned 
that the family had to move and that the house and barn would be cleared 
on a certain day; so we went that day to recover our cattle, about five 
head.  I cannot remember a thing about the trip to the home.  It was 
probably by wagon, as I knew the way back home, about 4 miles by back 
road and through pastures and woodland..
    We arrived at the home, and all was in turmoil there.  The father 
and children had left the previous day and the mother was preparing to 
leave.  Items were being moved by neighbors and relatives right and 
left.  So far as I ever knew, there was no representative of Bob Everett 
in sight.  There was plenty of profanity about anyone who would 
foreclose under the economic circumstances.  My father saw it was no 
place for children, so he got our cows out and we headed them down the 
road.  He stayed to help with the final clearance and told us he would 
catch up with us on the road.  So we left with the cows, expecting our 
father to show up at any time.  . He did not show up. 
    After we got out of sight,  we looked back and there was a cloud of 
black smoke in the sky.  We did not know what it meant, but  I knew from 
previous experience that  such a cloud  meant trouble for someone.  
However, I had to concentrate on keeping the cows  going down the 
correct road.  I recall two intersections where we had trouble.   I sent 
my brothers, Clifford, Donald, and Roland,  to the first intersection, 
to turn the cows on the correct road as I drove them from the rear.  
This done, we had a long downhill walk to Clear Creek and then across 
the Mize-Saratoga railroad.  I was afraid of the railroad as it had 
cattle guards on each side of the road, and I had no idea when the next 
train would come by. 
    Just beyond the railroad was the old abandoned road in Mr. Jim 
Meadow's woodlands.  I had to undo the barbed wire holding the gate, and 
then we had to get the cows through the gate.  Meanwhile the cows had 
continued to move up the road toward the Allen farm houses.  I got the 
gate opened, and we finally got the cows turned around and back through 
the gate.  Then I fastened the gate back in place and followed the old 
abandoned wagon trail through to the old town of Low and then to the 
other Jim Meadows gate.  This time the cows seemed to know where they 
were and headed straight home, about 1/2 mile.  We got them into our 
barnyard, gave them some water, and then had to tell our worried mother 
that we did not know what had happened to our father.
    Soon afterward, our father arrived, looking very distraught and 
alarmed.  He had started after us, then happened to look back and saw 
the cloud of smoke.  As he went back, he saw the dwelling house in full 
flames.  By the time he got there, there was no hope of saving 
anything.  The place was deserted, and any onlookers kept their 
distance.  (In those days there were no fire departments, nor volunteer 
fire fighters, nor county assistance.)
    Some onlookers who saw the fire claimed there was a strong smell of 
gasoline.  I did not hear my father mention anything like that.  Years 
later, there were some guarded comments about seeing people with cans of 
gasoline.  My father was deceased by then.
What I did hear him say to my mother was that he was going to tell Bob 
Everett everything he saw and knew; that he had gone to recover his 
cows, and that he had left soon afterward.  When he was out of sight of 
the house, it was apparently set on fire.  When he went back, no one was 
still there that he had seen earlier; and the onlookers were people who 
had seen the smoke from afar and had come to help..  The people who had 
been there were long gone.  Bob Everett had the land, which he rented to 
various people through the years.  He finally sold it to one of my grade 
school classmates.
    When banks foreclose in California, they have to establish guard 
over the houses.  Strange things happen to and in foreclosed 
properties.  Losing one's home is a psychic shock which reveberates and 
smoulders.  People lose their bearings even though they have followed 
the ten commandments all their lives.  We ask forgiveness for those 
people, and we ask banks and bankers if they understand what they are 
doing to future customers.  We never again intentionally dealt with Bob 
Everett.  I believe my brother, Clifford Hough, finally bought some land 
from his heirs, but not the land of our relative.
    Foreclosures have consequences.  Please, God, give us forebearance, 
consideration, and guidance.  Grampa.