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He Helped Wilson Transfer Move a Press By Judy Bargainer Staff Writer Abilene Reporter-News Sunday, April 19, 1981
CENTENNIAL
There have been a few changes around Abilene in Clarence Ellison's lifetime. For instance, he'd have a tough time moving the Reporter-News press today.
It wasn't such a bad job when he did it in 1920, but then the press wasn't the two-story, multi-ton giant we now have. In fact, it was small enough for two men to load on a flat bed wagon and light enough to be pulled by two horses.
Ellison, who has recently celebrated his 80th birthday, he was 18 years old in the spring of 1920 and was working for W.T. Wilson of Wilson Transfer. The newspaper was located in the Border Building, about 1/2 block west of Pine Street on North Second, but the brand new three-story building on Cypress and North Second was going up and it was time to move the press.
Ellison and another Wilson Transfer employee were assigned to the job.
We used some crowbars and some two-inch pipe, he said. We pried it up and slid the pipe under, then rolled it on the pipe out to the street. We had a flatbed wagon and two horses. We hitched the horses to the press to pull it up some skids onto the wagon. Then we harnessed the horses to the wagon and brought it around to the back of the new building.
I remember we had to go through the alley past the Police Department. It was in the back of the old Green Hotel then.
Unloading was easy. We just had to keep it from going too fast. The worst thing we had to move was two rolls of paper. We had to be careful not to mess up the edges of the rolls because they said it wouldn't go through the press if we did. We had to put a pipe through the middle of the rolls and carry them. They must have weighed 300 lbs. apiece. Then we moved some chairs and a couple of desks. It gook about half a day.
We were making $1.25 a day back then and it wasn't an eight-hour day if there was work to be done. It was can til can't.
The fellow I was working with turned out to be pretty notorious. I met him a few years after we worked for Wilson's and he was a deputy sheriff in a nearby county; that must have been about 26. Later about 1935 maybe, he was running a service station in Abilene. It wasn't long after that we heard he was arrested. He'd escaped from a federal pen in Ohio or somewhere like that and it took them all those years to find him.
There weren't any paved streets in Abilene then. Old Bill Middleton would haul gravel from the hills and then use a little grader that was pulled by four mules. He graveled Pine Street.
One memory leads to another when Clarence Ellison starts talking.
After Wilson's, I went to farming in Jones County for about five years, but I found out I'd rather not be a farmer. I got me a little 1925 Model T Roadster and fixed it up with a cabinet in the boot. I carried $200 to $300 worth of McNess grocery items around all over Nolan County and sold them out of the back of the car. It was great. I must have made $8 to $10 almost every day. Then the depression came and the banks closed. Farmers were selling their cotton for 5 cents a bale and every bale they sold put them deeper in debt. They couldn't even pay for the picking and ginning.
I remember you could buy all the groceries you could carry for $5. Sugar was $3 for a 100-lb. sack. You could get a 25-lb. bag for about 75 cents. We bought dried fruit in little pine boxes --- about 10 lbs. to the box.
Roads weren't so hot then. We would go from Abilene to someplace like Anson and every so often you'd have to get out and open a gate. There'd be the rancher's sign up there telling you to be sure and close the gate. They passed a law in Texas, maybe it's still a law, that it was illegal to carry wire cutters.
And I remember when it was a city ordinance in Abilene that if you were going to drive your automobile into town, you had to call first so the horses could be taken care of. They were usually lined up along the street, horses and buggies, and many's the time I've seen them go crazy when a car would come by.
Down around where the Petroleum building is now, on Pine Street, was the OK Wagon Yard. That was the travelers motel back then. They had a bunk house where, if you brought your own bedroll, you could just roll it out and sleep. The first electric light I ever saw was in the OK Wagon Yard bunkhouse.
I used to sell Maytag washers, the ones with gas motors, to folks who lived out in the country. That was when I worked for Bill Fraley out of Sweetwater. They told us to hook up the washing machines and do a load of wash to show the ladies how it worked. Well, I knew enough to know those ladies weren't going to spread their dirty clothes out there for me to wash.
What I'd do was hook up the washing machine and show them how it worked. Then I'd leave it there for two or three weeks. I had just about every washing machine Fraley had scattered around the country side and I hadn't sold a one. But in about three weeks I went back around and I didn't have to pick up a single machine. The ladies had had time to get used to having the washing machine and they weren't about to let it go back.
That reminds me: There was one old man who just couldn't stand salesmen of any sort. Wouldn't hardly let us on the place long enough to tell us to get off.
One day I was driving by his place with a washing machine and I saw this sandstorm coming. So I whipped in and drove up to the house. He was sitting on the porch. I jumped out of my car and said, "look at that norther coming." He looked and it did look bad. So I said, "I have this washing machine that I was taking to a fellow down the road, but I don't think I can make it. Could I leave it here a few days so I can get back to town?"
He agreed that I could leave it in the smokehouse. Well, while I was unloading it, his wife came out and I told her I was going to leave it a few days and she was welcome to use it while it was there. I told her to be sure and wash all her quilts while she had it. So she said, "Don't leave it in the smokehouse. Bring it on into the kitchen." Which I did, and hooked it up and showed her how to work it.
About 10 days later I met the man in town. He said, "You sure played hell! You can't get that washing machine, my old lady will kill you if you try. Now I'm going to have to sell some cows so I can pay for it."
Ellison lives in Abilene, and the good old days aren't completely gone. He'll still sell you something from McNess Home Products, if you like.
Submitted by: Vickie Davis |