Walter Singleman Jones
Photograph of Walter (Buddy) Jones taken in 1963 in Quantico, Virginia.
My name is Walter Singleman Jones. My nickname is "Buddy" and I went by the name of Walter Reid until I joined the Marines in 1953 and found out my last name was Jones. I was born at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 2, 1934. My mother was Bronis Reid my father was Walter Jones, Jr. I never saw my father in my life. I am 68 years old at the start of this project. I am right handed, 6 foot tall, weigh too much (225 pounds), my eyes are hazel and my hair is light brown or dishwater blond. It was blond when I was younger. I have worn bifocals for the past 5 years. When I was young my grandmother, Dolly Reid, and my grandfather, Gus Reid, took care of me. We lived in Marion County, Mississippi, in the Sartinville community.
Sartinville Community, Mississippi - 1934
My grandfather was a tenant farmer and very poor, but this was the Great Depression and everyone around were not too well off. Some owned their own farms, hardly any one owned an automobile. There was no electricity in the area, no running water and no bathroom in the house. I do not remember when Pearl Harbor was attacked, but I was aware of the war. Sometimes I had bad dreams about the Germans dropping paratroopers in our cornfield, but my grandfather said he would not let them get me. He bought me my first hamburger and ice cream cone in Tylertown, Mississippi. We would catch a school bus to town on some Saturdays. Granddaddy would go to town to buy flour and other staples. Grandma canned a lot of vegetables and fruit to last the winter. We had a cow that gave milk to drink and the cream from the milk to make butter. My granddaddy raised hogs for us to eat and in the fall they would kill a couple of them. Grandma had chickens and we usually had chicken on Sunday and eggs for breakfast. We had a potato house that we kept Irish potatoes and sweet potatoes for the winter. Cotton was the cash crop. I remember my Grandma would take me to the cotton field with her when she had to hoe cotton or pick it. When I was 6 I had to pick cotton too, but I don't think I was to good at it. When they dug the potatoes, we had to put them in piles then when granddaddy came with the slide put them in a wash tub on the slide. Everyone worked on a Mississippi dirt farm -- no slackers, not even little kids. A group of farmers would get together in the fall and make syrup from sugar cane. My grandfather put hay and corn in the barn for the stock in the winter. He had to cut firewood for the winter and stovewood for the cookstove all the time. My job was to keep enough stove wood in the woodbox so Grandma could cook. I also had to draw water from the well -- a bucket for the house and for her wash every Monday. You drew water by dropping this long bucket down the well and then winding it up by turning the crank on the spool. I had 2 pet dogs -- a little black mutt called Nigger and a old black and tan hound named Fido. The little mutt went everywhere with me. He just loved to kill snakes. Once he was bitten and almost died, but it didn't stop him from killing them. My Granddaddy would take me hunting and fishing with him. As I said in my story on my Granddaddy, who had white hair, people would say "Here comes big cotton top and little cotton top".
My uncle Kermit had a car and he would visit us sometimes and he always brought me a present. He gave a BB gun once and Nigger and I went rabbit hunting in the woods, which I got in trouble for because no one knew where we were. I was gone most of the day and my Grandma warmed my behind when I came home. There was a panther that lived there, but the dog and I never saw him. I think it was a good thing because I might have thought I was a big game hunter. She was going to make me go to bed with out supper too, but I guess I looked so sad she fixed me something to eat. Some men were blowing stumps up in our pasture for the war effort and a piece of wood hit this one guy in the face and broke his nose. I remember them rushing off to the doctor with him. My Granddaddy later said he was okay. We sat down at the dinner table for breakfast, the noon meal we called dinner (it was the main meal) and supper. My Grandfather taught me to say grace so I said grace before every meal. Polly and I had our children say grace before meals. We may have been poor, but we did not go hungry.
My Uncle Kermit gave me a baby billy goat then Granddaddy taught him to butt. He would butt Grandma when she bent over. He butted her one time too many and he wound up on the dinner table, but I wouldn't eat any goat. In reality I think that is where the goat was headed from the start. Granddaddy would shoot rabbits at night in the winter we would have rabbit for breakfast. It was one of my favorites. Yes, that was against the law but the game wardens looked the other way because they were killed for food not sport. There was no deer or wild turkeys around in those days . They were brought back later.
Sometimes when I was bad I would crawl under the house to get away from my Grandma and Granddaddy would say, "Throw dirt at her, son." She would yell at him to "stop teaching that boy to be mean" and if I did it the punishment was worse. When I had to start school I went the first year at Sartinville, I remember this girl would fix my milk and crackers for me. I was in love. She was 13. I can't remember her name, but she took care of me all year. The next 2 years I went to school at Darburn and don't remember too much about it. I was happy with my grandparents and I didn't know we were poor. In the fall my Grandfather would pick pecans for me. In the summer we had fruit and wild berries. I just loved my Grandma's huckleberry and blackberry pies. Sometimes she would make watermelon rind preserves. Sometimes my school lunch was a biscuit with syrup in it or with an egg or a piece of bacon. Sometimes cornbread and milk. We didn't have sliced bread or coldcuts so you made out with what you had. We went to schools that were painted with lead based paints, but we survived.
Another time Uncle Kermit gave me a little red wagon and him and Granddaddy had this great idea to hook up Fido to it. Everything was going great until Fido saw a hog across the road in a field and away we went! It was fun until we hit the ditch then I went one way and the wagon and the dog went another way. My Grandma was screaming "you killed the baby!" and even my Granddaddy was worried, but I only had the wind knocked out of me. When they saw I was all right everyone laughed except me. I was crying because it hurt.
When Uncle Dee's wife had my cousin Jessie Walter my Grandfather hooked up the mules to the wagon and we set off to see the new baby. It was about 5 or 6 miles and it took us about a half of a day to get there. I remember going to a funeral for another cousin who was a baby when he died. That was my Uncle Dewey's son. I visited my Aunt Ned for a week or so when she lived in Fluker, Louisiana. Uncle Kermit got in a fight with her husband and they were throwing big pieces of lumber at each other, but they all missed. I saw my first train there. That was really exciting to this farm boy. Pat and I even found a buzzard's nest and brought a baby to the house, but the baby wasn't welcomed there. He did stink a little so we had to take him back to the nest.
My Granddaddy had a battery-powered radio that we listened to the news and the Grand Ole Opry and heavy weight championship fights. The one I remember is when Joe Louis beat Billy Conn in the first fight. My Granddaddy made me popguns that I could shoot china berries as bullets -- something else to get in trouble with. The house we lived in wasn't much just an old shack. It had 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room and living room. There was a bed in the living room too. Plus some wooden chairs. We had kerosene lamps to see by at night, but we went to bed early. In those days you had to get up early to go work in the field. I walked behind my Granddaddy while he was plowing. My job was to bust clods if there were any. I didn't know it was work. I thought it was fun. I followed that man around like a puppy will follow you. Every step he took I was right behind.
I remember on holidays my mother came to visit and my aunts and uncles. Some stayed only the day, others stayed a few days. My mother always stayed awhile. One year she took me to New Orleans before Christmas. I remember meeting Mrs. Singleman and her parrot Polly. I had never seen a bird that could talk and Polly really impressed me saying "Polly want a cracker" and other things. I never knew I would see Polly again but I did. Mama took me to a thing they had in New Orleans where they give poor kids a toy. I received the biggest toy firetruck I had ever seen. I remember my mother visited when I had the measles and whooping cough at the same time. I didn't remember all most dieing but later in life she told me that the doctor told her that I could have died. After I got well she stayed for awhile because I remember going to church with her and her thanking God for sparing me. Then she went back to New Orleans to get another job because the money was all gone.
Little did I know but my happy world was about to fall apart as I started school in the third grade. Not long after school started in September, I got off the school bus where my grandparents where picking cotton. My grandfather said he was having chest pains. We walked to the house from the cotton field about a half mile. My grandfather went to bed. I knew something bad was going on and I went out back and sat by the chinaberry tree crying. My grandmother yelled for me to get Jab Harvey, so I ran to his house and he told me to run to Mr. Bracey's because he had a car and could take my grandfather to the doctor. When we got back with the car it was too late he was dead at 62. My world was destroyed that day. I cried and cried. That was the first time -- the last time was when my darling Polly died and I am still crying over that. I got over my grandfather's death, but I don't think I will ever get over Polly's.
My whole life was shattered. My hero was dead. My Grandma and I moved in with my Uncle Dee and his family he had 2 boys then, both younger then me. They lived in a small house in the Enon community in Walthall county but we got by. Uncle Dee was a tenant farmer too. I went to school at Enon School that year. I don't remember too much about that year except we lived back in the woods and it was about a quarter of a mile to the bus stop. I was in Mrs. Magee's class. She had taught my mother and my uncle Dee. She told me about the time she told him that the water wouldn't hurt him that he could wash his face with it and if he was afraid of it to sneak up on it. When I told him that at supper he didn't think it was funny but Grandma did. She said she remembered Mrs. Magee telling her that when he was a boy. After school was out my mother came and got Grandma and me. We moved to Mobile, Alabama, with Aunt Ned and her daughter, Pat. Aunt Ned had left her husband WP because of his drinking and abuse.
Mobile, Alabama - 1943
We lived on Blakely Island in some apartments built for the war effort. Not very well either but it was shelter. They even had indoor plumbing with a toilet inside the house and electric lights. They had washing machines on the bottom floor like a laundramat -- you inserted coins. That was something else I had never seen. They even built a school so we didn't get out of that. They had a big store there too but that was about it. Anything else you had to catch the bus and go to Mobile. I don't remember too much about this time. I did see my first movie there. We went just about every Saturday. Grandma wouldn't go after the first one. We saw "Snow White", "The Song Of The South", "A Wing And A Prayer" and a real scary movie about a catwoman. It gave Pat bad dreams. We stood in line for a couple of hours to see "The Song Of Bernadette". It was about this young girl seeing Mary, the mother of Jesus. There was lots more, but I can't remember them all. After seeing "A Wing And A Prayer", I either wanted to be a Naval Pilot are an aerial gunner in one of those SBDs. I ate Kellogg's Pep because they had a model airplane on the box. I never did like that stuff, but I had to eat it to get the plane.
My Uncle Kermit lived In Chicasaw which was near us and sometimes he would come get us and take us by his house. He was married to my Aunt May then. I always liked her very much as she wasn't that much older then me. Pat and I went to our first Halloween party there. We dunked for apples and pinned the tail on the donkey. It was something. My grandmother was very unhappy there. She wanted to go back to the country. Mama and Aunt Ned starting saving their money to buy a place in Mississippi for her to live. After school was out we moved back to Mississippi. They had bought this farm there and Uncle Dee was going to farm it and Grandma and me was going to live with him. We were both glad to be back in the sticks.
Written by Walter Singleman Jones, August 2003, in Kenner, Louisiana.