When Mama and Daddy wanted to buy the little eight acre place just north of Spur, Texas, Daddy was careful to try to do his homework. He found out the price, he checked with several nearby farmers to see how far they had to dig to find water, and, knowing there was a creek running behind this acreage and a creek about three quarters of a mile in front of it, he checked to see if those ever flooded. He checked with old timers in Spur. He checked with the farmers who lived between those two creeks. All told the same story. Those two creeks, Dockum and Duck Creeks, hadn’t flooded in any one’s memory. In fact, one guy said it had been at least a hundred years since they had flooded because he had read that in the local newspaper, The Texas Spur.
After we had bought the place, moved the one room shack from the front of the acreage to the middle and turned it a quarter turn, plus built on another room to it, Daddy started talking about building a really nice house for us.
In the evenings, as we sat by the kerosene heater, we would ask Daddy about the new house. Daddy had an enthusiastic and interesting way of describing something which made each of us know that what he told us, he could and would do.
This house was going to have a big living room, three bedrooms, a bathroom, a good big kitchen and dining room, but the thing that fascinated us most was the fireplace he told us he would build. It wasn’t the actual fireplace that intrigued us. It was the chimney on the outside that we could hardly wait to see. Daddy had drawn a picture for us. It would be cream colored brick but up on the front he would make an S for Sechrist, our last name, from darker brick right into the chimney. All the world would see our S as they drove up the driveway. Since none of us kids had ever lived in a house with a real fireplace and a chimney this was exciting and fun to visualize in our imaginations.
Mama and Daddy worked so hard on the place. They planted more fruit trees , blackberry and grape vines as well as lots of strawberries. Then the asparagus bed was completed. Huge sections of the land were turned into vegetable gardens. Cow pens and a cow shed, chicken pens and a chicken house, sheep pens, and a hog pen were all completed. Well, they were not really completed but they were usuable. Daddy was always gonna get back to finishing them.
Bermuda grass was planted around the house to keep out the mud and to make a nice lawn for us to play on. Mama made flower beds in several different places. She planted lilac hushes as well as currant bushes.
After several years of living in the two room shack, Daddy gradually started bringing home trailer loads of new and used lumber. Whenever he had any spare money he bought building supplies, whether bags of nails, tar paper, or 2 by 4s. He had placed some old boards on the ground and would stack the good lumber on it to keep everything off the ground. He stored anything that would rust in the cow shed which he gradually added on to. Everything that was outside he covered over with sheet metal so it wouldn’t ruin in the rain. When he found someone who was remodeling and changing out windows he brought those home, too. The piles gradually grew and took up more and more space in the back yard. He kept telling us he was getting very close to starting the house.
In the early summer of about 1944 Mama got very sick one day. When Daddy came home she was in bed hurting so much she couldn’t get up. Since we didn’t have a phone back then Daddy went back to town to our doctor’s house and told him about Mama. Dr. Hughes came right away. When he finished examining Mama he said she had appendicitis and would have to get to the hospital. Away we all went and the next day Mama had surgery. After a week she was allowed to come home but was told not to take a step without wearing her girdle, which back in those days was thought to keep a person more safe after surgery. She had been home about three days when there was a really big rain cloud to the northwest of us. Daddy said it must be raining hard over there. The storm gradually came our way and we did get a good rain later that afternoon. Mama was still mostly in bed during that day.
We went to bed after the 10 o’clock news. About midnight Daddy woke us all up, since we all slept in the same room, as he got his flashlight and told Mama he heard something that he couldn’t figure out. He turned on the bedroom light and went out the door. I remember sitting up on my end of the army cot bed I shared with Marilyn. We waited and waited for Daddy and Mama kept telling us everything would be all right, it was probably just one of the animals that he’d heard.
After about 15 minutes he came rushing back in yelling for us all to get our clothes on. He explained that the creek behind us was a torrent and rising closer to the house every minute. Confusion reigned, as two little girls, two teenage girls, and Mama tried to find clothes and get dressed. Mama couldn’t find her girdle. She was searching all around the bed. Daddy was yelling for her to not walk without it. Norma and Betty joined in the search. Daddy ran back outside to check on the creek. Rushing back in he yelled we didn’t have time to find the girdle, that we had to leave right then, that in the space of just a few minutes the creek had already risen closer to the house. Helping Mama, he herded us all to the old ’36 Ford we had. It had to be cranked to get it started. Having done that he jumped in and I’ll never forget the feeling I had as he turned the car lights on and started out the driveway.
We had driven maybe 20 feet when he yelled and in the headlights we could see a three foot wall of water roiling straight at us. It had already blocked our driveway entrance to the dirt road which would lead us to higher ground up in town.
Daddy quickly crammed the car in reverse and backed the car straight back to the house. Out we all jumped. There was a homemade ladder leaning against the house as Daddy had been patching a leak in the roof a couple of weeks before. He herded us all up that ladder to the roof. Mama was barely able to climb it and we were scared to death for her.
A light rain was still falling. It was pitch black when Daddy hurried back down the ladder and into the house for several quilts. He covered us snugly together. The roar of that water was louder by the second. As Daddy finally sat down on the roof he explained that our creek, Dockum was coming up from the south. Duck Creek was coming from the north. About that time there was a crash as the two creeks met right at our little house. The shack shuddered beneath us. Marilyn started to cry. Our dog, Honey, jumped up on an old table that was leaning against the wall of the house. She started barking and crying trying to get to us. The mama cat was meowing calling for her babies, the cow and calf were bawling, sheep bleating, hogs grunting and squealing as water surrounded all these animals. We began to hear a noise that Daddy told us was the chickens falling off their roost into the water and that they were drowning.
Things began to bang and bump against the house. Since it was just set up on rocks at the corners the house quivered and shook. There was noise all around us up there in the dark on the roof. We could hear metal scraping as the sheet metal that had been covering the new lumber washed away. It seemed to an 8 year old child that this nightmare went on for hours, which it did. Then things began to quiet down as the animals no longer made noise, except for a few scared whines still coming from the dog. Occasionally Daddy would walk to the edge of the roof and shine his flashlight down around the house and out as far as the light would go and then would come back and report to us what he saw. We could smell gas as both the gas and kerosene barrels tipped from their wooden perches and started bobbing around on the water.
It was cold, dark, raining, and scarey.
After being up on the roof for several hours we could hear voices coming toward us. Daddy hollered and a man hollered back. There were two men in a little metal row boat who rowed right up to the house. They had come out to see if there was any one to rescue. They wanted us to climb down in the boat so they could row back to the edge of town with us. Daddy told them thanks but no, he would not put his family in jeopardy like that. One of the men was smoking a cigarette. Daddy yelled at him to put it out because of the gas all around. The men hadn’t even noticed the smell. I remember they told Daddy how stupid he was to not let us get in the boat, laughed at him and rowed away.
After they had gone, my sister, Betty, said she thought he was stupid too. Daddy had quite a temper and I remember him yelling at her that the guys were probably drunk, knowing who these two were, that the boat couldn’t possibly be big enough to carry the six of us and the two of them and get back across that creek area safely, and for her to shut up! Of course this started all four kids crying. Mama was in pain and said she felt like her stitches had started coming undone so that got us going even more. This started the dog barking and jumping around on the table top. Daddy yelled for us to “dry it up!’ which we all somehow managed to do.
The rain was still falling.
When early daylight started showing Daddy checked and said the water level had gone down quite a bit. Miraculously the ladder was still leaning against the house. He climbed down and went in the house to get the car key. Mama told him that car would never start after so much water had gone through it. Daddy went to the car anyway, turned it on, set the throttle, and got out and cranked it. It didn’t start the first few times he tried. He’d get back in to adjust the throttle or choke, get out and crank again. After numerous times that thing gave a cough, belch, and darn, if it didn’t start up. At that sound Mama directed us all to climb down the ladder. Daddy was waiting at the bottom to help or carry each of us to the car. Water was still about mid calf on Daddy. He half carried Mama and put her in the front seat of that old two door, and just as my sister Norma was trying to reach out and close Mama’s door, the dog jumped in. I have no idea why Daddy hadn’t closed the door after helping Mama in but he hadn’t. Not a one of us kids said one word about the dog being in the car.
Daddy started easing the car forward through the water. We kids started asking questions and talking. He yelled for us to shut up so he could concentrate on avoiding all sorts of stuff that was floating by or stuck in the driveway. I still remember how the water sprayed up on each side of the car as we drove through it. Daddy said he was afraid the motor was going to drown out at any minute. The road was very slick under that water and he had a difficult time keeping the car from slipping off the road or getting stuck. From the house it was probably a good mile up into Spur because of our house being located down a road before we ever got to the highway. We were surrounded by cotton fields that had sported cotton, lush and green and about two feet high when we went to bed. Now all we could see was muddy water every direction we looked. We finally reached the highway which was set up a little higher. Slick silt covered the pavement in ripples. Daddy cautiously drove along the center which was out of the water until he reached the bridge. The bridge was a little lower and water still rushed over it. Trees were caught along the guard rail of the bridge on the west side. The whole area was covered with water way up the hill on the other side. Daddy stopped the car and got out to check to see if the bridge was intact. Coming back he said he thought we could make it across. The sun hadn’t even come up at this point but it was that hazy grey with a steady drizzle still coming down. I was terrified as he slowly drove across that bridge and finally up the hill out of the water.
When we got to town he went first to Julie and Cecil Godfrey’s house. He was Daddy’s boss and they were good friends. They had been up all night worried sick over us. They took my little sister, Marilyn and me plus Norma into their house. Mama, Daddy, and Betty left and drove to Dr. Hughes’ house. They stayed there. I remember the first thing Julie did was get baths ready for each of us. She wrapped us in thick towels, fed us breakfast, then put us all to bed.
Sometime during the morning Daddy came back by. He said the water had completely receded from the house area but looked like everything was ruined. Dr. Hughes had put Mama to bed and told her she was not to move without help. He’d checked her incision and redressed it, too, and reported that all seemed to be okay with her. I recall hearing him tell Julie and Cecil this as I lay in that nice clean warm bed and then I don’t remember anything else till late in the afternoon.
Both my older sisters were working at Wacker’s Variety Store so it was decided that they should go on to work. I suppose somebody had washed their clothes and cleaned their shoes. Marilyn and I stayed with Julie. Daddy went to the store and bought Mama a new girdle. She insisted that she was going home to see what had happened out there. Mama was only 4 feet 11 inches and never weighed more than 100 pounds, but boy, could she be stubborn when she set her mind on something. They eventually let her go out to see the damage. The silt was so thick and slick in the house that she and Daddy could barely take a step without sliding. They got some clothes for each of us and came back into town. I remember how I felt when I finally got to see Mama again. She was always my source of peace and comfort.
It was decided that since the well had been contaminated so there was no safe water out there, that the silt was dangerous to walk on and was too hard to deal with wet, and because of Mama’s condition, it would be better for us all to stay where we were and let everything dry out a bit. I was so distraught that Daddy decided it would be okay for the kids to see what had happened, so when Norma and Betty got off work that day we all got in the car and drove out to the place. All the cotton in the fields leaned straight east completely bent over. Debris was everywhere. As we drove into our driveway we realized that all the lumber and supplies for the new house were gone. The fences were gone, dead trees that we hadn’t owned were scattered around our yard, belongings from somewhere else dotted the yard. Basically, the house and part of the chicken pen were all that still stood. Our bike and tricycle were gone. No animals were left but there was a terrible stench which Daddy explained was the smell of the dead chickens that had gotten caught under debris.
As I walked in I remember the silt still covered the floor and was beginning to crack into a jigsaw puzzle of pieces. The top layer of the mud was beginning to make thin curls that crunched as you stepped on them. Our beds were soaked. The bedclothes had been in the water and wicked that muddy stuff right up onto the mattresses of Mama’s and Daddy’s, and Norma’s and Betty’s beds. The army cot bed that Marilyn and I shared was on it’s side with the covers in the silt. All our toys had been in cardboard boxes under that cot. Soaked and ruined, every one! There were three of the rabbits that Daddy had found in the yard hopping around in the house. He hadn’t known what to do with them except to put them in the house. Marilyn and I had each gotten a Panda Bear for Christmas. We slept with them every night. They were laying on the floor by the cot and I was so upset to see that the rabbits had eaten the fuzzy plush off my Panda’s face. I started crying, then Marilyn started crying and pretty soon all the girls and Mama were standing there in that muddy room bawling. Poor Daddy!
He soon realized that it was time to get us all back to town. I went out several times during the next week and could see each time what Mama and Daddy had accomplished. I can still see the Panda Bears flopped over the steps to the ladder waiting to dry out. Mama had carted all the quilts and bedding out to a makeshift clothesline Daddy had put up. Some of our clothes were salvaged but most had had flood water rise at least to the hems and then soaked on up a ways. Anything that had been on the floor was ruined. We didn’t have much furniture so that wasn’t a problem. It did continue to rain every day for over a week so it was really hard to get anything to dry out. The smell of mildew stuck with me for a long time after that.
As soon as Mama could take time and write to my grandparents, who lived about 50 miles away, she asked if they would mind coming after the two little ones. They did and Marilyn and I went to spend quite a while with them while the rest of the family were still cleaning up.
The sheep were found dead in the neighbor’s fence, the hogs never returned, but the cow, Pet, and her calf were found by a guy about 4 miles from the house where they had either been swept or had swum. The chickens were all gone, but the three rabbits I assume were used for food during those clean up days. They just weren’t there when Marilyn and I got to come home. The dog, Honey, was safe, Mama Cat was safe but there were no babies left. We just knew that we had suffered such losses that it was not a good idea to even ask what had happened to them.
In the early part of August our church had a revival. Daddy was always the song leader at church and since he had such an outstanding operatic voice the evangelist asked him to accompany him on his revival circuit through Oregon and California. He promised to pay Daddy really well so Daddy agreed to go with him. Betty wanted badly to get out of Spur and begged so forcefully that it was decided she could accompany Daddy so off they went. Norma went to Abilene to college as a Freshman when it was time for school to start, and Mama , Marilyn, and I were left at the place. However, that is a whole other story in itself that will have to be written when I can get over the feelings this one has dredged up in me that I had stuck way to the back of my mind.
