Land-Leveling Tramps

Historic Oakdale

Sissy remembers the year her Aunt Joyce and Uncle Marshall Campbell moved from Arkansas to California. They had previously moved to California with Sissy's parents, Cova and Lavola Reid, in the spring of 1941, but the Campbells had returned to the Ozarks some years earlier.

When Marshall and Joyce moved back to California in the early 1950s, they brought their three children with them: Loeta, Leta, and Sherill.

"Loeta was four years older," Sissy said. "She was a bookworm. She just had her nose in a book all the time ... She didn't like to sew. She didn't like to craft. She didn't like to do all these things. All she liked to do was read. She was very smart, very educated. She could talk to you and anybody else just about anything. Politics she enjoyed. And even with all this business in Iraq and Iran and everything, she'd say, 'Don't you remember such-an-such back when? They did this and that.' And I'm thinking, 'Oh Loeta, I didn't pay any attention to that stuff in school.' And it didn't interest me, so I didn't keep it, you know?"

Next in the family came Leta.

"Leta and I were very close," she said. "We were close, almost like sisters when we were little."

Leta's full name was Leta Virginia, after their grandmother, Lela Virginia Mills.

"And see, my mother was going to name me Virginia," Sissy said. "Nobody had named their child after grandma. And she told (her sister) Aunt Joyce about it. And Aunt Joyce had Leta six months before. Actually only five and half months before, but Leta was a grade ahead of me in school, so she always thought she was a little bit older."

The cousins spent a lot of time together once the Campbells moved to California.

"See when we were real little they lived in Arkansas," Sissy said. "And then they moved to Dos Palos when I was probably in about fourth grade, fourth or fifth grade, something like that. Uncle Marshall and them came out and he worked with my dad, leveling land and whatever. And they lived in Las Banos, and we lived in a house that my dad built there. And then Uncle Marshall and Dad would go away to work."

Both Marshall and Cova worked for Ralph McEwen, who traveled around California managing land-leveling jobs. 

"We would all traipse around," Sissy remembers. "Like I say, take us kids out of school and put us in these other schools. ... So instead of being fruit tramps, I guess we were land leveling tramps. They called people who followed the fruit the fruit tramps, you know."

One time both families traveled to Patterson.

"We lived in the little hotel across the highway from the park," she said. The hotel manager was particularly memorable. 

"She drank a lot. You could always smell the liquor on her. And she had this little Pekingese dog called Stinkerpotidee."

Many of Sissy's traveling memories, however, center around the town of Oakdale.

"And then we went to Oakdale," she recalls. "And we lived in some little old Olive Grove Cabins, that had olive trees all around them. ... And Aunt Joyce and them had a little cottage right next to our little cottage. And actually, Grandma Mills came out that summer and took care of us kids. And while Mother and Aunt Joyce worked at the turkey plucking factory plucking turkeys, (the men) were leveling land."

The olive grove provided the cousins with lots of opportunity for fun and mischief.

"We played together and we went on adventures," Sissy said. "There was an old shed behind this olive grove ... there were remains of an old saw mill or molding mill, something like that. There was this old building and it had these glass panes from like windows -- these little square glass panes from windows, and all kinds of saw dust all over the floor. And then there was little broken pieces of things and whatever. And we played that the glass was like a little tray, and we took mud and we made these little pies and we coated them ... in saw dust, and they were our little cookies. And we'd set them out in the sun and let them dry."

Another time, Sissy and Leta had a little too much fun doing their chores. 

"We were polishing everybody's shoes," Sissy said. "Everybody had these white shoes. And so, that was one of our jobs -- to polish everybody's shoes. So we were out there polishing the shoes, and then we polished our shoes, and then we polished the bottom of them, and then we walked across the floor with this white polish leaving white foot prints across the floor. And then Grandma made us mop the floor."

Things weren't always harmonious between the girls, however. 

"Leta and I would play a lot together," she said. " And sometimes, we got in fights, actually pulling each other's hair fights... don't ask me what we were fighting about. But this one time we got mad at each other, you know, and so she went in her house and I went in my house, and we pulled all the blinds down in both the houses. And then we were shouting mean things to each other through the windows. And Grandma got so upset with us, and so she made us go out and sit on the porch and stare at each other for awhile. And finally we ended up getting tickled and quitting."

(Photo Credit)