Snakes and Drought part of the get-tough homestead life.

Fact, Fantasy & Fiction
Hobbs News Sun, 26 June 2011
Printed with permission of Max Clampitt, local freelance writer and historian

Most folks who see theeir young get married and "leave the nest", should consider the story of Mr. and Mrs. A.E. Rodgers. In 1906 they left home and were married. She was 16 and he was 21.

The new bride was Lela Mae Long. Her family and Ales Rodger's family lived on famrs near Bronco, Texas. For several years the newly-weds lived on the Rodgers' farm, then moved to a construction job at  San ANtonio, Texas.

Alex worked three years building basements. Then in, in 1914, he loaded his wife and four daughters into a covered wagon and moved to a homestead six miles south of of Eunice.

With the help of neighbors, Alex built a one-room half dugout, where they lived for severalyears. Four more children were born to the Rodgers' parents during this time, two with the assistance of midwives and the other with a doctor present.

Lela Mae recalled that the family killed 36 rattlesnakes during the first year on the homestead and many others during trips back and forth to Midland and other places. A daughter remembers that the mother broke several hoe handles in snake killing.

So, life wasn;t easy in those early years. Trying to take care of livestock, raise crops on a dry-land farm and feed a large family was really tough. They had to spend five or six days making trips to Midland the the sand hills.

Then in 1917, came the terrible drought and there was no crop at all. Oldtimers in this area, wel remember that year. It simply did not rain.

During this time Alex Rodgers spent most of his time away from home. They had sold their livestock, and he had to travel some distance just to makr a living. He had rigged up his pickup truck to serve as either a hearse or an ambulance in order to care for both the living and the dead.

He took a turn at barbering and several years during the cotton season, he took he took the entire family to Texas to pick cotton for wages. He recalled that in one day he picked over 400 pounds at 75 cents a hundred. (Three dollars a day?)

And, during the peak years of the Great Depression, he worked for the WPA.

A daughter recalls that the Rodgers family never went hungry because mother always had plenty of plump chickens as well as canned fruit and vegetables, all home-grown.

Over a period of sevweral years the one-roomed, half dugout house grew to four roomsm and Mr. Rodgers filed on an additional homestead.

There was a schoolhouse about a mile from their home and all the kids attended school there. As was the usual custom in thise days the school house also served as a church and, when a circuit rider was available, everyone for miles around came to the church. Denomination was not a factor. The folks simply wanted the chance to fellowship together and praise and worship their God.

Alex and Lela Mae Rodgers managed to raise their family during these hard times through their faith, hard work and preserverance. Their youngest daughter: Ina Bell married Edward Doyle Berryman and lived in Hobbs until death of both Doyle and her.