Contributed on November 23, 2007
By: bwatkins
Threads: Growing up in the Great Depression
Lawrence, KS

Memories of growing up, childhood discipline, and upward mobility

 I, Morris Evans, was born in 1918 in Lawrence, Kansas. I was initially raised by my grandmother, a former slave, at 418 Locust. I attended the all-black Lincoln Elementary School.  I later lived with my mother at 765 Locust. I have been a life-long member of the First Regular Missionary Baptist Church. After graduating from high school, I worked for Ship Winter, a local car dealer.  In World War II I served with the Tenth Calvary, the Buffalo Soldiers, in the Pacific islands. After the war, I married Doris Williams and went to work in California. After living 22 years in California, I retired and we moved back to Lawrence. We have 6 children.

Recreation

I made my own scooter. I'd get that old skate that's all bad and take the wheels off of it and put it up on a board and make a scooter. I'd take a two-by-four, cut it and take a what-you-call-it and put up there and put a padlock there, put some front wheels up here and back there, put a handle, and I flew up and down the street.  That was my fun.  That was my play.  

And, you know what?  I'm not trying to make no racial stuff up but when I finally started doing that, come to find out a whole lot of white guys were doing it too.  The boys didn't want me to play marbles with them; my uncles didn't want me to join in with that.  So I had to get something to do.

Childhood Discipline

When I was coming up [the rule was] "Children, you go here and play, family, you talk over there." You don't be listening to what they're saying.  You couldn't repeat grown stuff. You were not supposed to be listening to what they say.  You had to go out there to the barn or go out doors. If it was cold, you'd go in that room. [They thought] children should be seen, not heard.  Well, that was the rule of the day, that children just obeyed their parents.  My mother whipped me; don't get me wrong, I needed it.  Because if she'd tell me, "Morris, come here," and I'd holler, "Wait a minute," that was it.  I'd get a whipping.

But, you know, basically I'm proud of what my mother, my grandmother, my sisters and brothers did for me. Because it brought me a long, long way.  I scrambled eggs and cooked toast because my mother worked hard.  She was washing clothes for people.

Upward Mobility

I worked for a while at that plant over in North Lawrence at FMC.  I worked for them and then the money wasn't right, and I went on vacation and then I bought an Oldsmobile from Ship Winters.  Brand new.  I went on vacation out to California and one of my kinfolks out there asked me, "How much you making, man?"  I told him.  He said "You ain't making no money."  I'm going to take you job hunting tomorrow.  So we went to a machine shop where there was a Japanese and a crew, and my wife's brother-in-law asked him, "You have any openings?"  He said "Yeah." He told me, "If you can get out here in a couple or three months you got a job."  So I drove out. I wanted to work where the white folks give you good bucks. And I had a good foreman, a little Japanese.  He and I was the only nonwhite friends.