Childhood Memories

 E. R. Moseley was born Raymond Moseley in Irwin, Missouri on October 17, 1897, the third of four children.  Brother and sisters included Forrest Moseley, October 14, 1894, Gladys, April 7, 1896, and baby Eula Belle, September 30, 1899.

Our mother, Laura Fretwell, died when I was three years old.  After her death, our father, James Harding Moseley, and the maternal grandfather, Addison R. Fretwell, "Grandpa Fret," did the best they could to keep the famiy together.  This wasn't an easy job, because Forrest was only six years old at the time.  Grandpa Fret took care of the children and managed the farm, which consisted of eighty acres of fairly good land.  About twenty acres of that was in a rather heavy forest.

Grandpa didn't like the winters in Missouri and when cold weather came, he took off for Mart, Texas, where his youngest son, Lawrence L. Fretwell, was a dispatcher for the I & GN Railroad.  He would stay with Lawrence until about the first of March and then go to Siloam Springs, Arkansas to stay with his eldest son, George R. Fretwell.  Uncle George was the first agent hired when the Kansas City Southern Railroad (KCSRR) opened up between Kansas City and Port Arthur, Texas, around the turn of the century.  

Grandpa would stay with Uncle George until about May.  When the weather started to get hot, we would see Grandpa walking in from the railroad station in Irwin.  It was about a four mile walk.  There were no telephones and no electricity.  We used kerosene lanterns for getting around on the outside and kerosene lamps for illumination and reading in the house.

Passes were no trouble for either Uncle George or Uncle Lawrence, and Grandpa could go most any place he wanted.  His traveling expenses were very small, if anything at all.  He carried enough lunch with him to last the entire trip, and he slept in his seat.

He was restless, his wife having died before I was born, and you never knew when he would take off, nor how long he would be gone.  The kids always looked forward to his spring trip because he always brought candy.  That was the only sweet we would have all year.  He had a candy called "jap strip" that he found in Texas and we thought it was the greatest thing ever invented.  

We never knew Grandpa's source of income, but we always believed that his two sons were bankrolling him.  They were both holders of very good jobs, and both high rollers.

Grandpa was almost blind and depended on us kids as much as we did on him.  He told us he was sitting up reading late one night and awakened the following morning blind.

During the depth of the depression, two of our neighbor boys, Jake and Harold Francis, took a trip with only two dollars in their pockets when they left.  Their father was a railroad man and secured passes for them, and their mother packed lunches to last the entire trip.  They were gone two weeks and went all the way to Seattle, Washington, and back.