Page 78 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

Riches to Rags, Roundtrip - Chapter 18
The story of the McClure family is a success story that appeals to me very much, as I suppose all success stories have always appealed to everyone.
Jim and Ida both lived in Graford, Texas, about halfway between Weatherford and Graham - hence its name. It is a small town not far from Dallas, and Jim was born there and grew up there, a member of a large family and one of a pair of twins.
In 1930 he was a successful, prosperous business man with a wife and a grown daughter. Imogene was attending Southern Methodist University. He owned three farms near Graford, and lived in a beautiful home at the edge of town. He was looked up to by everyone as an honest, reliable, responsible man.
Jim was a cotton broker, and as I understand it, that means he dealt in futures on the market. This involved contracts for the delivery of cotton at some future date and at such a stated price. Speculation was therefore involved, and fluctuations in the price of cotton were of supreme importance in providing either a loss or a gain.
When the 1929 crash came, the price of cotton plummeted to rock bottom, and Jim was caught short with not enough cash to cover his shortages. Legally he was liable for only a percentage of the losses, but being the honest man he was, he felt he had a moral obligation to repay every cent of his debt. He sold all his farms and applied the proceeds to the debt, then sold even his
home - something he could not have been forced to do. He still owed $5000, a sizable sum in those days, and instead of crossing it off, he regarded it as a just debt to be paid as he could. Jim withheld enough cash to homestead some land in New Mexico and make a start on rehabilitating the family fortune. His wife Ida accompanied him, and his daughter, Imogene, joined them in the summer when her college term was over.
The McClures filed on a section of land about nine miles south of Datil and just northwest of the C-Bar-N ranch. It already had a small but livable log cabin on it, so they moved right in. They brought with them a team of work horses, a Jersey cow, and a Pontiac car, (several years old). After getting settled in, they bought a hundred young pullets, a couple of pigs and several Hereford calves to fatten.
Since they arrived in the spring one of the first tasks attempted was the clearing and plowing of a large portion of virgin land, and the planting of a very large garden. Soon the garden was furnishing them with fresh vegetables, and the industrious Ida canned, dried, pickled, and stored enough vegetables to last them through the next winter. There were fresh green beans, black-eyed peas, squash, onions, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peas, carrots, corn, and okra. Other vegetables such as
cabbage, beets, turnips, and potatoes matured later in the season.