Lathrop Based Publication Since 1998
LATHROP / WESTON RANCH / FRENCH CAMP
TENTS IN LATHROP
By former Mayor of Lathrop, Mac Freeman---Edited by Lenora Bigelow
When I wrote “Stanford, the Beginning”, January 2008 issue, I mentioned Lathrop started as a
canvas town. Most new towns along the railroad stops started with tents as living quarters.
Before 1950 tents were prevalent in Lathrop in several places. In the 1930’s and 40’s there
were Mexican migrant tents between the railroad and Seventh Street. There were also migrant
tents at the northern end of Stratford Avenue on Warren Avenue. Around 1950 they were
replaced by wooden bunk cabins. One of my best friends, Tommy Lucas, lived there with his
brother Peter and their parents. His father was a field boss of the migrant workers (Nationals
or Braceros was the term used then) who lived there. During our high school years he just
wasn’t there anymore. He always warned me that I knew they were Gypsies and probably
would be moving some day. Nobody I ever talked to knew when or where they went.
During the 1906 San Francisco earthquake many refugees were transported down the Central
Pacific Railroad to towns that would house them temporarily. Many stayed in homes in Lathrop.
There were also many who stayed in tents along the railroad in Lathrop until they could find
permanent housing.
Toni (Carpenter) Say, James Say’s wife said, “My grandfather had a ranch north of the
Lathrop School Annex on Thomsen Road. My grandfather hired Braceros who were men from
Mexico, documented and legal, working the harvest. Their visas were only good during the
harvest season. They were housed in huge tents. Inside the tents it looked like an army
barrack. We had a mess hall for their meals and places for them to shower. That must have
been around 1949. My grandfather used Braceros for about three years. I remember my job
was to count the boxes of tomatoes they picked and give that information to my father, Pete
Carpenter, who kept records of their work and did the payroll.”
In 1949 the Whitesel family moved on Avon Avenue in the Lathrop Acres. They built a wood
floor on pier blocks and erected a tent on the wood foundation. Ethel (Craig) Whitesel and
David Whitesel said that David was just a kid when he started living in the tent. They said it
was a lot of work building the house around the tent for the adults, but it was fun for the kids.
They said that every night there were two Persian cats that would climb down the center pole
and sleep in the tent. The next morning they would leave the same way they came in.
Around Easter 1948 the Say family was living in Garberville, California. Mr. James Joshua Say
was a lumberjack who was trying to make some extra money. He went out after everyone was
done for the day to cut more trees. They usually used the buddy system but he was alone. He
judged the tree to fall the wrong way and it “jumped” falling on him killing him. The lumberjacks
got together and raised around $5,000 giving it to Mr. Say’s wife Vera. She and her seven
children moved in with her sister in Stockton. Vera bought an Army tent for $100 and two
acres of land on Stratford Street in Lathrop Acres. Lathrop Acres was a nickname given to the
land on the North side of Lathrop Road between the railroad tracks and Highway 50, now I-5.
Most lots were divided into one-acre lots. The seven children’s names were Hulen, Tommy,
Donna Mae, James, Lois, Virginia and Larry.
Vera’s dad Barney Meredith, “Poppy” to his grandchildren, came to live with the family to help
Vera. Poppy started building a house on the South acre and planted a huge garden on the
North acre. The first year nothing would grow. He got some fertilizer and talked to a nearby
farmer, John Frey, to plow the fertilizer into the soil. They plowed and fertilized two straight
years and by the third year they were able to plant and grow a garden.
John Howard Frey was a farmer who farmed land on the South side of Louise Avenue between
Harlan Road and Howland Road. He sold his land to Libby Owens Ford Glass Company and
moved to a ranch south of Manteca on Perrin Road. He continued farming and became a
landscape painter. He began teaching painting and taught many locals to paint, many
exceeding his talents. Before he died he gave me several five gallon cans full of old car repair
tools, which he considered antiques. I’m saving them for a future Lathrop Museum. His real
fame is the frames he made for his artwork and also sold to other painters. In most cases he
used local trees. The one painting I have of his hanging in my living room was made from a
cottonwood tree, which used to be abundant in Lathrop. Thank God they are not anymore.
Cotton like-seeds used to float all over Lathrop, landing on everything and everyone.
The Says said dirt blowing in the tent was a huge problem. They even had to wash the dishes
before and after they ate. They said there were tumble weeds as big as cars blowing into and
around their tent. The tent had windows, doors and a wood floor. They used a two-holer for a
restroom and of course the biggest problem was what to use for toilet paper. A constant
worry was sitting on that open hole and knowing there were black widow spiders down there
just waiting to bite their behind. There are many stories I experienced first hand or heard that
I can’t put in this story. You old timers who grew up using an outhouse, know what I’m talking
about. If you had to go at night, it was scary and sometimes cold, to walk out on a moonless
night without a flashlight. Batteries were too expensive for a lot of us. The Say family lived in
the tent one to two years.
The Says had large and fantastic gardens. The whole family participated in planting, watering,
weeding and preserving fruits and vegetables. We Freemans moved next door to them from
Schilling Road to our Stratford Road home sometime in the mid 1950’s. I remember watching
them working for hours in the garden. The youngest child, Larry, said when he got the chance
he would hide between the rows, lie down and go to sleep. He said it was nice and warm.
Poppy and Vera grew just about everything. Vera would can pickles, vegetable soup,
tomatoes, carrots, apricots, and many other fruits and vegetables. In today’s lifestyle,
canning is almost a lost art. My sister Vernita said, “Vera’s vegetable soup at her table was
the best I ever had!”
Vernita married Hulen Say and had Keith, Greg and Sheila. When Vernita was dating Hulen, his
car had an “accident” while parked in our driveway: My brother Gary got mad at me about who
knows what, and threw a shingle-nailing axe at my legs. He said later he wasn’t mad enough
to kill me; he just wanted to maim me. I, being agile in those days jumped over the axe. It
embedded itself in Hulen’s 1950 Ford car door. Hulen was red faced livid, but he didn’t want to
ruin his chances with my pretty red headed sister, so he just steamed. My sister just recently
found out about this incident when I started researching this story. Hulen never told her. Mom
came out and asked Gary why he threw that axe into the side of Hulen’s car. He said, “It
wasn’t my fault, if Mac hadn’t jumped over the axe, it never would have hit Hulen’s car.” Mom
was laughing so hard it was kind of hard to discipline Gary with that kind of logic. Hulen
convinced Gary to pay him five dollars to pay for Bondo to fix the hole in his door. Hulen fixed
the hole himself.
The Says raised pigs, sheep, chickens and rabbits. They would sell rabbits and chicken eggs
as well as eat them as a family. We Freemans also raised pigs and chickens to slaughter for
food, and had a milk cow and a milk goat. We drank the milk and churned butter from the
cream. Our mother and sister Kelsey made and drank buttermilk from the sour milk. Yuk. When
we and others in Lathrop didn’t have our own milk cows, we would buy milk from the Craigs
down the street on Stratford for fifty cents a gallon. To this day I long for some whole milk
that has not been pasteurized instead of that one percent watered down milk we drink today.
Vera also made dresses and quilts for their family and at times she sold them for extra money.
Vera took her kids to church regularly at the Lathrop Brethren Church on Fifth and J Streets.
The youngest child Larry said he usually slept through church on the lap of the wife of Pastor
Robert Madoski.
Toni, James’s wife said, “I recall some of the things Vera told me about raising seven children
on her own. She said that her oldest daughter, Donna, was a tremendous help to her with
household responsibilities. Hulen, being the oldest son, had a lot of extra responsibilities as
well. She felt bad that so much was put on the children, but she needed the help. Her day
was filled with cooking, cleaning, canning, washing clothes and dishes and keeping count of
her kids.”
Poppy started building the house on the south acre of land at the same time the family began
living in the tent. He was able to buy used lumber from Sharpe Army Depot. The whole family
worked on it as best they could. The lumber he bought was probably crates from heavy
equipment shipped to Sharpe. Sharpe would usually deliver them to the work sites. The huge
crates cost around $7.00 each, and it would take five or six crates to build most homes. He
also bought some of the lumber from Valley Lumber in Stockton. Poppy also built himself a
small structure separate from the house to live in. I think it was connected to the chicken
pen.
Most families living in the Lathrop Acres were poor and of course we didn’t know it. When we
look back, depending on our personalities, most of us would say we had fun. The Say kids
talked of having BB gun fights in the open fields in the area. They would hide anywhere they
could, including behind tumbleweeds. They also would hide in water ditches and shoot at kids
riding by on their bicycles with their BB guns. On Halloween night many Lathrop kids and some
adults would have access to tomatoes or steal them to throw them from the back of pickups
at cars, including police cars, or at anybody or anything on the road.
My sister Vernita remembers that when her future husband Hulen, got out of the army, he
tried to buy his mother a refrigerator. The welfare caseworker told Vera the refrigerator would
make her too rich to continue to qualify for welfare. She had to keep using an old icebox with
a chunk of ice delivered every week. Hulen bought the wood and finished building the front of
the house, which had not been completed. Hulen said he forgot to put in insulation. He said
that was always the coldest part of the house. When we were teenagers I remember Virginia
telling me she used to steal her mom’s cigarettes. Her mom was a closet smoker and claimed
she didn’t smoke. She usually smoked in the bathroom with the door closed. Vera never said
anything to any of the kids about her missing cigarettes.
After all of Vera’s children grew up and were out of the house, she learned to drive and got
her first drivers license at fifty four years old. She went to work as a waitress at Jimco Truck
Stop in Stockton. She later went to work at the Jimco in Ripon. Hulen said she was happier
and took so much pride in earning her own way. She had taken care of others for so long, that
now it was time for her. Barney “Poppy” Meredith had lost a leg to diabetes. Vera took care of
him until he died.
The fifth generation of Says still lives in Lathrop. Anthony Rhinehart (age four) and Marquice
Martinelli (age two) are two of the current residence of Lathrop. They are the
great-grandchildren of Toni and James Say. Every generation from Vera Say’s son, James, has
lived in Lathrop.
There are still many families from the 1940’s and later who grew up in Lathrop and are still
here. The ones that aren’t here and have heard about some of my stories of growing up in
Lathrop, enjoy reading the Lathrop Rush, and are great about giving me interesting times of
our history.
Oh for the memories!
Copyright © 2007 Lathrop Rush -
last updated: June 4, 2008
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