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Starting
Over..
I mention the $5 loan to Ezra from Dr. Markley
again.....I don't know what specific purpose it was for....Was it
for the California trip? It occurs to me that it could have
been...perhaps just for groceries....I repeat......money was nearly
extinct....The next part of the two brothers saga......is from
vague memory, and partly from recycled stories...
My most vivid recollection is: taking the Ezra Ehrlich
family to the train in Shattuck.....the ride in the evening to
Shattuck, and the big train that carried them away. I was only six,
but Lyman was a playmate, even though he was just a bit older than
me, I was in the first grade, he was in the second.....school just
starting is the way I remember it. Anyhow, Ezra had
hitch-hiked to Fresno CA. where he found a job in a grocery store,
and he has arranged for the family to come to California. A
household auction was held, ....Our family ended up with
Linda's piano for some reason.....goodbye's .....that was the end of
Ehrlich Brothers, and the beginning of separate
lives.
A new beginning for the Ezra Ehrlich family....and all
I know is what Florine and Lyman told me recently when I met both of
them for the first time since that departure evening in Shattuck,
OK....Perhaps they will tell us that story. Of particular
interest to me however is the realization that the parting of those
brothers was final....I don't think they ever heard one
another's voice again. They both died young in the
50's.
In the meantime, Asaph had been trying to maintain his
hand as a tenant farmer.....he had rented some land from various
friends including Adam Bender, who was Otilla's uncle.
Grandmother Laubhan Shaffer, had recently sold her interest in the
home farm west of town, and had agreed to loan Asaph $500.
Money for a down payment on a section of land Alex Laubhan was
selling which he had named the Jackrabbit Section, The Federal
Land Bank had been created to aid such ventures, and Asaph made the
move.
It turns out, there is a turning point.....and this was
it.......the rains came....the fence rows deep in dust began to
heal.....lots of fences barely visible.....but few bothered digging
them out....just built new fences on top...a few years
passed, a few harvests occurred.Pearl Harbor is still fresh in
everyone's mind.....the war and better weather have combined to
create new jobs, new opportunities....it is 1943, a new date
mark......October 29, 1943....We have a new baby! Robert Tracy
Ehrlich born in Shattuck Oklahoma to proud parents, a 39 year old
mother, and very surprised siblings. My recollection: we kids
are home alone in bed, having just been told we have a new baby
brother, born this day or last night in
Shattuck. Coincidentally, big brother Gene is
returning home that morning from Naval training, plans for a group
visit to see the new mother and baby is underway.... I
had not been feeling well, in fact I was hot and
freezing......and upon arriving in the hospital room, I complained
to Mom and....minutes later, a doctor's
diagnosis....pneumonia. I was to spend the next week in the
hospital, in and out of delirium......looking back, Mom almost
traded boys, one for one....
Asaph and Ezra had gone their separate ways....Starting
Over probably felt good.....I always thought the years 1943 to 1949
were some of Dad's happiest.....He became ill with Leukemia about
this time, and it was to become the biggest factor in his
life, more than the great depression, or the dust bowl....until
his death in 1953.....
Maurice Ehrlich.... January 1, 2007
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