Depression Days

[Marty Hunter]

     Grandma Hunter used to tell me that during the depression she would be visited on a regular basis by hoboes.   She said they would do some chore and she would feed them.   She was not sure why they came so frequently.
     The railroad track ran below our hill.   I used to explore the bridges and found a bunch of markings on the underside of the bridge that was just South of our road.   I copied them down and asked around until I found out that the hobo population had its own set of codes.   They would mark them on the rails, and it would say something like-nice lady who will feed you, or bad dog, etc.   
     The tracks were torn out in the mid-70's so the markings had to have been placed there 35-40 years earlier.   I wish I had saved what I had copied down, or better yet taken a picture.

[kdfrawg]

Be careful, Diane, or I'll have the wind drop me in Delaware!  Heh, heh.

( I must say, though, that the pun was unintentional, regardless how obvious. Shame on me.  )

Marty - Hobos had all sorts of interesting codes and habits. There is a wonderful old-time singer named Utah Phillips that has some truly amazing hobo songs from the thirties. They are lonesome, and cold, and really put you in the mood of back then.

[Janet Harrington]

Marty,

I wish you would have saved those markings also.  Hobo markings are very rare now.  I learned that the hobo's would mark the codes on the fences or on something, so a hobo could tell where to get a meal.  Kind of neat.

[Teresa]

I have always had a fascination with Hobo's and Gypsy's..
After reading about "Hobo's marks" I started snooping and came across this site.

http://www.slackaction.com/signroll.htm

It is simple.. but if you run your curser over the mark, it will tell you what that mark means.
That was a neat way for the hobo's to communicate back then.
Check it out...

[flo]

Teresa, that was interesting - always heard that they left marks for the next hobo, but had no idea "what" marks - I only remember one hobo coming to our house, but do remember the gypsies

[kdfrawg]

I could not resist posting a Utah Phillips hobo song:

http://www.genuinekansas.com/stuff/utahphillips-hewillbealittlebitlate.mp3

It takes a few seconds to start.

[frawin]

Flo, remember when the gypsies would camp out on the west side of the school grounds? 

[flo]

don't remember that, I guess, but do remember the day they robbed my grandpa of over $300.00 but that's a long story how that came about. Also remember one night a caravan of them were in Severy and were run out of town and a bunch of us kids decided to follow them.  They were going towards Howard and when we tried to pass they would move to the left, each car just a smidgon, till they had the highway blocked.  We followed them to Howard and turned around and went back home.  Would imagine Howard told them to keep on going also, don't know. That was a crazy thing to do, now that I think about it, but kids don't think about dangers, I guess. 

[frawin]

I might have been in that group!  I was with Bob & Carol, don't remember who else, but we had been down around the school yard and then as you say followed them to Howard.  You're right, it was crazy.  We didn't talk to them, do anything but follow them. 

[flo]

Bobby and Carol were in the group, cause think we were in Bobby's car, so yep, you were probably in with us.