Life of Winfred Turner

Life of Winfred Turner

 

July 13, 2020

Winfred Turner

(Note:  John Turner dictated this information while I took notes and wrote it up in his own words as much as possible -- with the help of John's daughter Jeanette and my wife Patricia several year ago.)

Winfred was a deacon in the Wellington Baptist Church and a member of the Ku Klux Clan.  Membership in the Clan was very popular among Methodists and Baptists back then.  He moved to the Rio Grande Valley during the early part of the depression and first worked for John Ellis at a filling station in Edinburg.  It was uncle Jack Gaddie (Winfred's uncle) who talked Winfred into going to the Valley.  The station was located across from Holliman Motor Company (now part of Gateway Printing) on the east side of Closner street.  That was when the Valley Transit Bus company was formed to haul folks to Moore Air Base.  A fellow named Vance Raymond started the bus company which was later expanded to the whole valley and the headquarters was moved to Harlingen.  Next to the bus company was the filling station.  Gas was pumped into a reservoir above the pump; you could see the number of gallons that you wanted before filling he car.  An attendant would pump for you - he would ask how many gallons you wanted - then Winfred would pump them.  He fixed flats by repairing inner tubes.  A sledge hammer was used to remove the tire from the rim, find the hole in the inner tube, rough and clean the rubber, add glue and attach the patch - a press was used to hold it in place till the glue dried.  Lubricating autos was also a part of his job.   Lela met him while he was working at the filling station.

Grandma Alice Bowers and her daughter Stella helped Dr. Hamme deliver Pat in Edinburg.  Grandma Bowers was a nurse (midwife?). Stella married Charlie Snyder who was a good friend and grew up with Winfred.  While still living in Kansas, they had a fight.  Charlie threw a brick which broke Winfred's ankle.  Charlie had moved to the Valley before Winfred but did not buy property.  Mr. Bowers owned the Oliver tractor dealership in Edinburg. 

Another girl was interested in Winfred's attention and wanted to ride in his Plymouth Roadster.  She was from a prominent family who lived in a 2 story colonial home in Edinburg.  Winfred dated her a few times.  Lela and Winfred traveled to Boca Chica with the Lyons family.  Grace and Carroll Lyons became good friends with Lela and Winfred and remained friends for the remainder of their lives.  (Pat Turner Sterling is named after Grace.)  Lela was in Edinburg visiting her folks.  When it was time to return to Kansas, Winfred offered to take her.  It may have caused some scandal in town, but their interest in each other must have overcome their fear of gossip.  They traveled to Kansas together and his hands became tired from driving.  Lela used that as an excuse to rub his sore hands.  Some suspect that Winfred did all the driving and Lela did most of the talking.

Winfred was not a talkative person - he would answer questions but did not often initiate conversation and was not outspoken.  He was mild mannered and gentle.  He did not drink or smoke and he worked very hard.  He did not tell stories or jokes and he did not cuss with any words more severe than "darn."  He did not like to wear a tie, but often wore a felt hat in the winter and a straw hat in the summer.  He wore business hats with a small brim rather than a cowboy hat like some other men in the community.  Disciplining the children was left to Lela.  She made the boys cut a switch from the athel tree in the back yard, and then she would switch the bare legs sticking out from below their short pants.  Neither John nor Pat can remember ever being spanked by Winfred.  When the kids had mathematical problems in school, he could give them the answer without being able to tell them how he arrived at the answer. 

Winfred had a creamery on his 10 acres west of Edinburg; he bought milk or cream from others in the community.  He made butter in the creamery in a hand-cranked barrel churn.  It was on an a-frame.  He could open a door and fill the container, then turn the crank by hand till he had butter.  A home-made butter cutter forced the butter down through a grid of small wires that cut the butter into 1 pound blocks.  He wrapped the butter by hand and put it in a waxed paper carton.  He had no refrigeration except for an ice box where he kept the milk and cream before he churned it.  He took the milk to the Huey's across the road to use their separator to separate the cream from the milk.  He sold the butter in town.  Once Winfred cranked the butter churn so much that he broke or chipped a bone in his thumb.  He took a trip to Wellington to give his thumb time to heal.

Jim, John and Winfred milked 4 cows every day; the milk was mostly for their own use.  Milk was placed in 10 gallon cans, then transported in the trunk of a car to the Huey's (neighbors across the road) where the cream was separated.  One day John hung onto the back bumper of the car when his dad was driving across the road to the Huey's farm.  Winfred did not know that John was holding on the bumper and as his dad went faster than John could run, John fell, hung onto the bumper and was dragged and skinned his legs.  He never let go until the car stopped.  His mother heard him crying but he ran away because he thought that his mother would punish him.  He stayed away from Lela until she had cooled off and called him home.  He gave thought to running away rather than face his mother's wrath.  He had been told not to run after the car, but had been punished enough by skinning his legs so Lela did not punish him.

Winfred - who had no middle name - was sometimes sick but took his children to school anyway.   He drove to town every day to work at his radiator shop, the kids would often ride with him and he would drop them off  at school.  One morning in the 1950's he felt so bad - John did not know he was sick - he pulled the car off the shoulder of the road, leaned out the door and threw up - the car never stopped rolling.  Another time he dumped everything out of a cigar box that he always carried and threw up in it.  He was never one to complain - even if he felt bad.

Suspecting something wrong, he visited John Sealey Hospital in Galveston for diagnosis and was informed that he had early symptoms of Parkinson's.  A year and a half later, the first symptoms appeared.  He was sick for a long time with Parkinson's disease.  He also had heart problems - a heart attack struck him after he was diagnosed with Parkinson's.  He survived the first heart attack but the second one killed him in 1961.  He may have had a mild stroke in between the heart attacks.  Parkinson's weakened him but the heart attack was the cause of death.  He never had the severe palsy - his hands shook very little.  He was very tense in the later stages and could not relax.  Medications may have been partially responsible for this tension.

Winfred owned a '36 model Dodge and Jim and John would slide down the fender to the running board.  John was 2 and they lived in the Nelson place north-west of Edinburg.  He remembers that they had fresh plums - to keep from dripping in the house, he moved to the back porch to eat the plum.  What a  treat!

Before he was married, Winfred was a special deputy at Wellington, Kansas - some kind of secret (undercover) agent for some governmental agency.  In Kansas, he followed some bad guys into a cave - they fired a gun at him - Winfred decided then and there that law enforcement was not for him.  What happened to the crooks who were in the cave is not known.  John still has Winfred's badge and ammunition.  That encounter may have influenced his decision to move to the Valley.  However, he continued some of this law enforcement activity in the Valley when he was needed for special occasions.  He would tell his family that some criminal or possible trouble was coming to town and he was needed.  This was volunteer work for which he was not paid.  When the family went to town, Winfred was available to law enforcement authorities if he was needed.

Before he left Wellington for Edinburg, Winfred worked on his dad's farm.  He hoed cockleburs in corn rows up to 1 mile long.  He placed considerable importance in making enough money to buy firecrackers for the Fourth of July and was paid 3 cents a row.  They also had cattle, chickens, pigs, wheat.  The thrashing machine was stationary - wheat was moved to thrasher from the field.  A pile of straw remained after threshing and it also had to be moved by pitchfork.  Winfred left the farm while his dad was still farming it.  Pancho Villa was still roaming the Valley when Winfred moved there.  Sheriff A. Y. Baker issued justice in the Edinburg area - it was not rare to find a Mexican hanging from a mesquite tree not far from town - such was his type of vigilante law and justice.

Winfred was too young to fight in WWI and too old for WWII.  Having a wife and 3 children kept him from being classified 1A during WW2.  During WW2 they could not buy a new tire for their car - they could only repair old tires.  Rationing limited their ability to buy many things.

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Winfred & Lela

Winfred was the first person in Edinburg to buy a Plymouth Roadster.  The Chrysler Corp. bought out Maxwell Auto Co. the year before so this was the first year Plymouths were sold.  The price of the car did not include the tires.  But, Lela was impressed by both Mr. Turner and his roadster.  It had a canvas top held on by snaps.  Lela wore a scarf to hold her hair down when riding in the roadster.

Winfred's Plymouth

Anyway, they fell in love and were married in the Methodist church in Edinburg.  Lela had a bouquet made out of queen's wreath.  Riding to Corpus during the honeymoon, Lela got wet in a rainstorm before they could raise the top.  It was necessary to stop the car and get out to raise the roadster top to keep out the rain and cold.  The top and side curtains were all snapped onto the car, so it took a while.  The rainstorm turned into a cold norther and Winfred bought her a new coat so she could  keep warm.

Winfred and Lela Wedding

Winfred family in Wellington

The Winfred family got a phone call to inform them that Grandpa had died.  They traveled to Kansas and upon arriving, Grandpa came walking out of the house - what a shock!  It was not a trivial drive to Kansas, but highway 281 was paved.  Only a few years earlier, folks drove slowly through the sand hills of the King Ranch area.  Hillsboro, TX had a tunnel that they drove through - John (age 5) could not understand how his dad could find his way to drive through the tunnel.  Winfred generally did not stop when traveling - he drove straight through.  The drive to Wellington might have taken 24 hours of solid driving.  The kids would sleep in the car when he was driving. 

John, Pat, James and Jim Turner

When Pat was about 6, Grandpa James Irwin left for Kansas on the bus.  He left Edinburg to live with his son, Herman, in Wichita, who built a special room for him.  He lived there til he died. 

Herman's wife, Nellie, was part Cherokee Indian. Aunt Nellie's  mother was full blooded Cherokee Indian.  Herman had a large family and was accustomed to having lots of folks around. Aunt Nellie's dad lived with Herman for a while but died before James Irwin moved in with them.  Herman was a Santa Fe semi-truck driver who hauled freight.  Santa Fe Freight owned Continental Bus Company - Uncle Glenn (Lela's brother-in-law) drove for Continental.  Santa Fe RR owned Santa Fe Bus Co. and freight company too.  Herman became senior, so he got the best hauls and he made good money because it was union scale wages.  He did not have to load and unload - dock workers did that.

 

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