La Grulla

La Grulla

 

April 10, 1996

Much of the following background information is based on Bruce Sterling's memory.  He was only seven years old at the time, but his memory is trustworthy, with one minor exception - he thought the Spanish word "Grulla" meant grey.   Bruce is not responsible for other assumptions made about various events and conversations reported here as a means of providing a little color to a world of grey.

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The road to wealth was lined with peas.  A bumper pea crop, produced on a small acreage west of Edinburg, Texas in 1936, was very profitable.  Charlie Sterling and his partner, Dick Sawyer, decided that they would invest the profits into a bigger crop the following year and prosperity would be assured.  They rented 400 acres of land, 10 times more than in 1936, east of La Grulla, Texas.  The adventure began.

The English translation of the Spanish word, "Grulla" is crane.  Maybe the sandhill or whooping cranes once enjoyed the climate of the area.  Why the town was named after a crane, is unknown. The soil at La Grulla is a grey-colored alluvial, clay, soil, deposited over the eons by floods of the Rio Grande River that flows nearby.  The dust of this grey earth has covered the roadside, houses, trees, bushes, and people, painting them all with a dusting of grey.  There were no paved roads in La Grulla in 1937 so that all roads were dusty.  This small town overlooked a resaca that - before Falcon Dam - was often filled with flood waters from the Rio Grande.   (Resacas are old river beds that remain after the river has plowed a new channel elsewhere).  The banks of the resaca are also constructed with the same grey soil that had its origin from the various soils and rocks of Colorado, New Mexico and West Texas.  

The Rio Grande starts with melted snow and rain in Colorado, winds through the upper Rio Grande Valley of Colorado, New Mexico, and West Texas as it flows and stops through several dams.  Flash floods or rapid snowmelt in the mountains or valleys causes the water to flow rapidly.  It picks up silt of which, historically, much was dropped as it passed through La Grulla, leaving a grey, clay-loam, and fertile soil several feet deep.  In modern times, this silt settles out in the various lakes behind the dams along the Rio Grande.  Evidence for this can be seen at the old Mexican town of Ciudad Guerrero, upstream from La Grulla.  Some old buildings, often covered by the waters of Falcon Lake, are nearly half covered by mud.  During extended dry spells, when the waters of Falcon Lake drop to low levels, one can walk the lower streets of the old city to the buildings below the church.  One large building is now one-third to one-half covered with mud.  This is evidence that the storage capacity of the lake and its ability to prevent floods is rapidly being lost to the silt that once settled in La Grulla.  At some point in the future, the value of the dam for flood prevention and water storage will be lost and it will be necessary to build a new dam somewhere else on the river to provide water for La Grulla.     

Early Spanish settlers found, in the Rio Grande floodplain, an ideal soil for growing semitropical crops.  Frequent floods replenished the soil with new, rich, silt so that little fertilizer was needed.  Damming the river provided a more reliable source of water for irrigation and stopped the damaging floods, but it also terminated the process of replenishment of the soils.  Thus, modern farmers require extensive investments of fertilizer to replace the natural process experienced during floods.

One major limitation to the development of this area was the lack of rapid transportation for shipping crops to northern markets. The arrival of the railroads solved some of these problems in the early 1900s.  One reason Charles and Dick chose to rent the La Grulla property was because of the nearness of the railroad that ran up the Valley to Laredo and beyond.   Thus, the farmers in the area had fairly easy access to markets.  Now, 18-wheel trucks rapidly move much of the produce of the area to markets overnight.  Interestingly, John Sterling, one of the nine children, now works at the Weyerhauser plant in McAllen, producing cardboard boxes used to ship Valley produce.  Peggy Sterling Miller made farm loans from her position as a loan officer in a McAllen bank.   Buddy Ross, the husband of Fanny Sterling Ross, farms cotton and vegetables at Mercedes, TX.  The other Sterling children left the Valley to pursue their fortunes elsewhere.  But, I digress.

Now, little water remains in the Rio Grande below El Paso, because most of the water is used to irrigate crops and pastures of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.  Fortunately, the Conchos River, which flows from regions east of Chihuahua Mexico, enters the Rio Grande near Presidio, Texas, west of the Big Bend National Park.  This flow supplies the river with enough water that rafting the canyons of Big Bend is a lucrative business and current farmers at La Grulla can irrigate their crops.  However, in 1927, the flow of the river characteristically varied between extreme flood levels and levels so low that the pumps could scarcely reach water.

Wood Canal

 

High winds, characteristic of South Texas, sometimes paint the horizons grey and brown with particles of sands, silts, and clays.  When it is very dry - which is most of the time in this 20-inch rainfall area - fine grey particles blasted exposed skin and fill eyes, ears, and mouth.  Summers are hot and dry, so the soil requires frequent irrigation to grow crops.  When it gets water, seeds, and fertilizer, this grey soil can produce bountiful crops, including the peas and tomatoes that Charles and Dick grew there. 

     

Dick Sawyer was in love.  He, of course, was concerned about the profitability of his investments at La Grulla, but his robust hormonal flow was stimulated into excess by the thoughts of a certain young, McAllen lady.  Although his Oldsmobile had caught on fire and the insides destroyed, it ran well enough to transport him the 30 miles to and from La Grulla to McAllen.  There is no evidence that the heat of passions had anything to do with the fire.  Anyway, according to rumor, Charles was sometimes left to do much of the work.  The old Farmall tractors, with their steel, spiked, wheels worked long hours to plow and cultivate the grey soils.  

Esther Sterling was the mother of  9 Sterling children and claimed that she did not know at the time the cause of her frequent pregnancies.  She grew up in Edinburg, attended the University of Texas, and taught in a small Abrams, TX schoolhouse, close to the Rio Grande River near Mission, Texas.  She was an attractive brunette, with the requisite curves in all the right places, and Charles fell madly in love.   After their wedding, they lived on a 10-acre farm next to the 10- acre citrus farm of his father, Winfield Lincoln Sterling, and mother, Alice Sterling.  Five children, Bruce, Dorothy, Peggy, Fanny, and Winfield were born by 1936.  Seeing all these mouths to feed caused Charles to aggressively seek additional income.  This led to the farming partnership with Dick.   

To obtain water from the river, two large, one cylinder, diesel pumps lifted the water from the river and onto the La Grulla farm.  In 1937, there were no Falcon or Amistad dams upriver to stop floods.  A flood could wipe out the pump, the wood flumes that carried the water over the resaca, and if the flood levels rose high enough, the croplands.  Charles was very aware of the flooding potential, so he kept a watchful eye on the river.  If the river started to rise, it was necessary to make a quick decision.  If he decided the pump was in danger he would unbolt the pump from a cement slab and move it to higher ground before the rising waters could engulf it.  When sleeping at night he could hear the engines as they pumped water to the thirsty crops.  If they stopped running, Charles would rush to the delinquent pump and add diesel or fix the problem that caused the stoppage.  If it stopped running, it was necessary to heat a metal rod with a blow torch and drop it into the engine to ignite the diesel.  After pulling the large wheel as hard as possible, the engine would, hopefully, fire.  If it started, it would make a large popping sound followed by the sound of escaping exhaust and gulping of fresh air before it could pop again.  This noise was music to Charles' ears but a source of irritation when it stopped.

Diesel Pump

Charles was a large man, about 6'3" tall and over 200 pounds.  He must have been a very imposing figure to the usually smaller Mexican workers that helped him on the farm.  He had bright red hair that is often thought to predict a short temper, and it did.  He could certainly put the fear of God into his sons when they did not behave according to his wishes.  His reputation among business associates was that he was trustworthy and honest.  As it turned out, trusting others in business was not a virtue that enhanced his likelihood of financial success.  As far as is known, he lived a life of obedience to most Biblical commandments, but his obedience to any higher authority was highly suspect.  His church attendance was limited primarily to weddings and funerals, which he attended reluctantly, to the chagrin of his wife and daughters.

There were no refrigerators on the farm, so Charles was limited to evaporated milk for his cereal.  Dorothy remembers Esther being very concerned about his diet.  One can imagine that he ate lots of beans and tortillas.

When the pumps were running and did not command his conscious attention, Charles dreamed of being with his wife and family in Edinburg.  He missed them very much during his extended stays at La Grulla.  He suffered greatly from the ethical dilemma: should he be at home with his family or was it in their best interest that he remain on the farm?   La Grulla was not a place that Charles deemed suitable for raising his family.  From time to time, the family would visit him in La Grulla.  It was a long, hard drive of about 50 miles over dirt and caliche roads from Edinburg.  At an average speed of maybe 20 mph, the trip would require 2 1/2 jarring, sweaty, and dusty hours.   When they were married, Charles and Esther purchased a 1928 Chevrolet - green with a running board.  It is assumed that Esther often drove it to La Grulla, but sometimes Grandpa and Grandma Heacock would drive.  Kids became hot and tired and very thirsty.  This was a very trying drive with five small children, the youngest in diapers.   They could slip down into the corner of the back seat or lean on each other as they took a sweaty nap.  Esther enjoined them to be thankful for the 20/4 air-conditioner.  Driving 20 miles per hour with the four windows down was the only source of fresh air.   On one trip, Esther stopped the car on the way and filled a 5- gallon can with drinking water.  Unknown to her, the gypsum content of the water was very high so that everyone became sick with intestinal complications, adding to the discomfort of the trip.

On another trip, the children led by Bruce, age seven, were playing on a sandbar along the Rio Grande.  Winfield, the youngest, wandered off and fell in a pool of water, exhibiting to the world that he was already wild and unruly - a characteristic that followed him throughout his life.  Bruce and Dorothy saw the "unruly one's" diapered bottom bobbing in the water, but, not knowing how to swim, were hesitant to enter the water and risk their own lives to save the little rascal.  Esther, who was on the bank of the river, heard Dorothy and Bruce's screams.  She jumped into the pool to save Winfield from the muddy waters.   When Charles found out about the incident, he became exceedingly agitated with Bruce's reticence toward heroism and his fear of water.  Charles was not bashful when it came time to assign blame for the familial carelessness such as allowing Winfield to wander off unsupervised.  Bruce learned an important lesson from the incident - never accept a position of responsibility where you can be blamed for the actions of others.  He learned to swim shortly thereafter.  

Younger brothers were not as much fun as he had hoped.  He had wished for a little brother to help balance the sex ratio after his birth was followed by 3 girls, and was delighted when Winfield was born.  Anyway, in response to this provocation, Bruce took it as his self-proclaimed duty to teach Winfield how to swim.  A few years later he instructed Winfield to cup his hands and paddle like a dog while kicking his feet.  He then, unceremoniously, threw Winfield into a canal to sink or swim - he swam.  All others that he taught to swim, using this technique, succeeded  - at least as far as anyone knows.  After spending so much time underwater, Winfield could be excused to some extent for a few irrational and irresponsible acts.  He may have suffered some oxygen deprivation of the brain after spending several minutes breathing the muddy river water.  

Dorothy, Peggy, and Bruce remember playing hide and seek around the little farmhouse at La Grulla.  One day, Bruce suggested that Dorothy and Peggy hide in a patch of weeds near the house corner and he would try to find them.  The consequences of this game are etched vividly in their memories because the weed was stinging nettle.   Bruce's knowledge of plant taxonomy was sufficient so that the identification of the nettle was precisely the reason he selected their hiding site.  Dorothy and Peggy felt the sting of nettles on their fannies and elsewhere.  Bruce felt wonderfully wicked in getting even with his whiny little sisters.  He felt the unfairness of being blamed for their cries when his intentions were not to hurt them.

The wooden farmhouse had a large living room, which was needed to house the growing family.  Another family - bats - lived in the house and would fly when disturbed.  A worker would catch the bats in his hat - chasing them around the room until they were caught.   

Peas were chosen as the first crop planted by Charles and Dick in La Grulla.  It is a cold-hardy plant that could be grown in the mild South Texas winters.  Unfortunately, the pea plant cannot withstand extensive freezing temperatures.  A blue Texas norther pushed into South Texas and Charles and Dick began to worry - could it be possible that a freeze could destroy the crop.  It was rumored among the Mexican workers that Charles paid a visit to the local priest when the temperature plummeted to about 35 F.   He requested assistance in mediating a little divine intervention.  Surely, God in his infinite mercy would understand that the poor Sterling children needed new school clothes and a newer car would provide safer transportation for the family.  If he miraculously intervened and saved the crop, Charles implied that a special love offering to the Church might appear.  The priest and Charles did their absolute best, but the temperatures continued to drop and the 400-acre crop froze.  The next day Charles and the priest walked through the frozen pea crop.  Pea vines lay on the ground - their bright yellow-green color replaced with the dull dark green - a virtual carpet of pea corpses.   The priest offered an explanation: God was likely so busy saving souls that he had little time for such worldly and mundane acts as saving pea crops.  Charles ventured that maybe God had it all backward.  It is unknown whether Charles ever asked for divine intervention again.  However, at the dinner table, he mumbled a mercifully short, "Thank you for this food, bless it to the use of our bodies, for Christ sake, Amen."   Then the hungry children could begin to eat.  Esther would have preferred more extemporaneous and eloquent blessings,  but the simple blessing provided evidence that the nine children were being raised in a Christian home. This was of some consolation to her - at least the souls of her children had an improved chance of eternal salvation.  (Note: The role of the Catholic priest in this adventure is pure fiction, but who can say that something similar did not happen). 

Not to be deterred, and still having some money, Charles and Dick invested in a second crop.  After a prodigious amount of sweat and dust, a beautiful crop of tomatoes was ready for harvest.  With a ready and cheap source of Mexican labor and an open-air packing shed by the railroad, they packed hundreds of boxes of the green fruit.  It would ripen on the way to the Chicago market.  Dorothy remembers watching the "hands" building shipping boxes.  They would make 2 hits per nail in rhythm - ba-bang, ba-bang.  Many carloads of tomatoes awaited orders for shipment to the semi-frozen citizens of Chicago who were starved for some fresh fruit after a winter of beans and bread.  Then, disaster.  Something happened to the market.  The carloads of tomatoes waited on the railroad siding till they all rotted.  There was no talk of divine intervention this time - although God's name was occasionally said in vain.  Although he was only 7 years old, Bruce can still remember the smell of those rotting tomatoes.  He also learned that one can damn the highest authority without being instantaneously fried by a bolt of lightning from the heavens.

Charles and Dick were broke.  Charles suffered the degrading choice of working for his father-in-law, J. W. Heacock,  at the Edinburg Hardware Store for $25 a week or going hungry.  Charles and Esther later produced a second family consisting of four more children: Scott, Ruth, John, and Peter.  Dreams of wealth garnered from farming the grey soils of La Grulla vanished.  Charles later entered another, more lucrative farming partnership with a fellow named Reising, but that is another story.

Epilog:  

For those interested in visiting the La Grulla farm site, follow highway 83 west of Mission to highway 2360.  Turn south and in 3 miles you enter metropolitan La Grulla.  Follow the highway due south to a T at the edge of the old resaca embankment, then turn left.  The paved road ends about half a mile east at a locked, metal gate.  A sign says "no trespassing."  The farm on the other side of the sign is the location of the great pea and tomato disaster.  In 1996, when Bruce and his wife Arleen, John and wife Linda, Winfield and wife Pat visited the location the old town, La Grulla still appeared much as remembered by Bruce as he saw it in 1937.  Cabbage was growing on the lower fields and some of the upper fields were fallow.   The current farmers now grow about 1000 acres of celery.  The pumps on the river are now electric and much more dependable than the old diesel engines.   A little imagination is required to envision the farm in 1937, covered with a tomato field with lots of Mexican workers carrying baskets of tomatoes to waiting trailers.

Bruce, Arleen, Linda, John and Pat Sterling at La Grulla

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