A Sears and Roebuck Family

ONE OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR when I was a child, maybe the major one, was the arrival of the giant new Sears and Roebuck catalog. The old one was formally relegated to paper doll duty and fueling the outhouse for the next year.

     It was not enough that what few clothes we didn't make from chicken feed sacks came from Sears, or that almost everything we bought, including baby chicks, came from the giant book. No, that’s not enough! Harold shipped his mink pelts there. My sisters spent many a hot summer afternoon, in the cool cellar, thumbing wistfully through the giant wish book.

     I learned recently, for the first time, that the very house we lived in—where I was born—the only house I ever lived in until leaving for college in '62, was a 1920s era Kit House, ordered from, guess where? Yes!! You guessed it! Sears, Roebuck, and Company. It was built by my aunt Hallie, an unmarried school teacher. The price for a turn-key job in the catalog was $2300 dollars, but she must not have included most of the lumber, because the cost of building it was only a fraction of that, $500 or $800 dollars, depending on who was telling the story. It was built 20 feet in front of the original Gillum house, and much of the lumber was salvaged from that house, still in use, to finish it. My aunt Lula Belle came over and threw a fit about that when she found out, but the salvaging continued, plank, by plank, until the new house was finished. The old house must have not been usable by then, so the whole family moved into Hallie’s new house also. Hallie died early, in 1941, so she never lived in her new house alone.  

     This was not just a Wing thing. Far to the southeast, through Back Gate, deep in the Delta, my future wife, Barbara, was shooting to the pinnacle of Watson society, by arriving on the high school scene, sashaying in, wearing—guess what? Nothing less than the pants suit modeled on the cover of the current Sears and Roebuck catalog!

     Now, you must understand the situation here. Barbara Sue doesn't remember how this came about. And the good Lord knows, Verla Mae Dunnahoe, Barbara's mother, never told me. She was a very strong woman of few words, and like my family, she had very little money. Barbara’s parents, Sport and Verla Mae, were raising seven children on 80 acres of cotton. Barbara would just never have asked for that pants suit. I'm sure there was never a conversation between the two about that.

     A woman who does not waste words sees a lot. I am sure she saw how long, and how hard, Barbara looked at that cover. Someway, somehow, that strong woman just willed that to happen. And found a way to do it. I am equally sure it just showed up one day, probably on Barbara's bed. I am sure no explanation was ever given. Verla Mae just did not work that way.

**

     My new book, The Truest Friend – Tooter of the Fourche LaFave, is selling well. It can be bought at the Yell County Record Office in Danville, The Country Store in Rover, Gypsy Junktion in Plainview, Hardman Interiors in Arkadelphia, on at amazon.com. The price is $12. My next book, Dead Eye Samantha, will be out by fall. Thanks for reading!