Childhood Memories

    I was born at a very young age on Feb. 24, 1923 in a very little town in Kansas. This little town, with the imposing name of Cambridge, is located in the Flint Hills of southeastern Kansas. In an encyclopedia, dated 1963, the population is given as 140. There may have been about 300 when I lived there.

    When I was about four years old, my parents and I along with my only sister Beth, moved south into Oklahoma (an older sister, Claire Pauline, had died before I was born). There my younger brother, Gene, was born Aug. 12, 1927. My father, Frank Dewey Baum went to work in the oil fields and then became the owner of two different grocery stores. In the midst of the depression Dad lost the second store and we returned to Cambridge when I was about eight years old. I was in the 3rd grade. We lived in Cambridge until l was fourteen. I remember Cambridge very well.

     Now back to Feb. 1923 when I was born. I was born at home so I could be near my mother.

    One of my earliest memories is of Dad having a pack of coon hounds (about six I think). The small barn behind my grandmother's house was, at least at one time, full of small animal skins stretched out drying ready to be sold. Dad periodically scraped excess fat and oil off the skins in preparation for market.

    The two school buildings were the only ones in town with indoor plumbing. I remember what a delight it was to take a shower after playing a basketball game.

    Out back of the high school were stables for horses which some (about 5 or 6) of the students from south of town rode to school. Very often after school they would all ride together down the main street at a full gallop like the Charge of the Light Brigade. How I envied them. This is one of my fondest memories.

    So this was Cambridge, a "cow town" on the back roads of America, a very provincial backwoods place but a good place to grow up. Here was where I spent most of my childhood years and when I left there at age 14, I also left my childhood.

Oklahoma Years--1927 -1931

    When I was about four years old my family (already noted) moved to Oklahoma. My sister, Beth Lorraine, was born May 2,1925. My brother, Gene Warren, was born Aug. 12, 1927. I was four when Gene was born.

    Soon, Mother and Dad bought a country grocery store. The store building had rooms in the back (no plumbing) where we lived.

    Among the things sold were feed for cows, chicken, hogs, custom cut plugs of chewing tobacco, cut by Dad's old fashioned tobacco knife and Dr. Pepper's pop, good for you at 10a.m., 2p.m. and 4 p.m. The sign on the front of the building said so.

    Often before a bad storm in Oklahoma, the air in the summer time becomes very sultry and very still. There is a feeling in the air I can still imagine. The birds become quiet and the chickens running in the yard look for cover. At this time in my life I have finished 1st grade in the new schoolhouse just across the road. I'm learning how to write and one of the writing exercises is to make ovals something like this:

    On this particular still, sultry afternoon, while playing in the backyard, I look up and from the West, God is using black clouds to make His ovals in the sky. They are coming very rapidly and I run inside to alert my mother at her sewing machine. About the time she says she is too busy to "come see", the cyclone hits.

We moved to Oklahoma City

    Although the stock market crash happened in October, 1929, it didn't seem to affect the oil fields badly until a year or two later. Meanwhile, Mother and Dad prospered so that Dad bought a new Ford truck and we moved to the outskirts of Oklahoma City where Dad built a new store building with all new fixtures. Small living quarters were built in the back of the building. Still no indoor plumbing. We had electric lights and natural gas for heating, however

    We brought my pet chicken with us from "49". I loved him dearly. One day he disappeared. Red chicken feathers were found behind some neighbor's house. I could have killed them. I cried for days.

    One day a horrible odor assailed our noses. Following my nose, I soon came to the source. Some Federal officers had found a still just down the road from our store. They had dumped the corn mash in the roadside ditch, hence the bad smell. I think the year was 1931 and the prohibition amendment was still in force.

    My parents taught me to share. Big red Delicious apples from Washington were at a premium in our store. The grade school was close by. Without informing either of my parents, I invited all my friends from school to come and have one of the big ten-cent apples. I was very popular until my mother discovered what I was doing. A dime was worth a lot in those days.

    Several times my mother took me into the inner city. There I saw a number of oil derricks right on the grounds of the Capital Building. We also saw the depression bread and soup lines of men waiting to be fed.

    I "belonged" to a "stable" of fist fighters. Next door to us lived a 14 or 15- year old boy who would no doubt be classified as a juvenile delinquent today. He "contracted" with about three of us eight year olds to be his "fighters". The prize to each winner was a handful of marbles. The fighter who cried first in the fight was the loser. I never cried but what a stupid boy I was.

    This same "boy next door" also persuaded us to go to various empty oil field buildings and help him strip them of copper wiring and brass pipefittings. He told us the oil companies didn't want them any more. I later learned he sold the stuff to a nearby junk dealer. We little kids never saw a penny. We were lucky not to be arrested.

    One last Oklahoma memory: As I stated before, our living quarters were in the back of the store. There was a thin wall through which Dad had drilled a small peep hole so an eye could be kept on the store. Above the peephole hung my Dad's 12 gauge shotgun. We had a couple of scares but we were never robbed.

Return to Kansas

    When the effects of the stock market crash finally hit the oil fields, oil wells were shut down, thousands of workers were laid off and my parents credit grocery business suffered severely. So much so that they were forced to sell out in order to pay off the debts on the building and fixtures. To my parents ever lasting credit, they refused to file for bankruptcy which was considered rather disgraceful at that time. What a delightful contrast to the prevailing attitude of today, which is "File for bankruptcy so you won't have to pay your debt".

My Grandmother's "Farm"

    It was not a full-fledged farm. It was 90 acres in size. Sixty acres were pasture, and about twenty-eight acres were under cultivation. There was a small barn and a milking lot.

    First, the house: It was simply built. It was square with a living room, kitchen and two bedrooms. There was also a small screened-in porch, closed in the wintertime. There was no indoor plumbing and therefore no bathroom or kitchen sink. It was wired for electricity with a drop light in the center of each room and one or maybe two outlets only in the living room. Only the kitchen was piped for natural gas and there was a gas cook stove there. The house was heated (poorly) by a wood-burning heater, located in a corner of the living room. Outside the screened-in porch was a cement slab which covered the well to which was attached an iron pump. This was the only source of household water. In the back bedroom was to be found the only "built-in" in the entire house, a tiny closet.

    In the back yard apart from the house was a half-sunken storm cellar. It was a single room about 10 X 12 ft. in size with rounded cement roof. The whole structure was made of cement with steps leading down from ground level into the room. In the room were a couple of cots. Shelves were built against the walls. Here Mother placed crocks of milk to cool since we had no ice box, much less a refrigerator. Home canned fruits and vegetables were kept there also. Though I didn't know it then we lived in "tornado alley" and I remember being wakened on numerous occasions by my father saying, "C'mon, kids, there's a storm coming and we have to go to the cellar". It was scary but we felt safe in the cellar.

    Behind the cellar was a dilapidated chicken house with a roost for the chickens and nests for the hens to lay their eggs, which I was assigned daily to collect. The chickens were not penned and they had the run of the whole yard--a fact that I as a bare-foot boy did not appreciate. City bred children, ask your parents what I am talking about. My grandmother seemed to be in charge of the chicken raising business. At various times, fertilized eggs were placed under "setting hens" from which were born little baby chicks. So from the hen house came eggs and from time to time Mother would wring the neck of a young pullet and fried chicken would adorn the dinner table.

    I must tell you this true story .When I was about 12 years old, my mother told me it was about time I took on the job of wringing the neck of our next meal. Now my mother really knew how to do the job. With a flick of her wrist the chicken's head would come off and that was that. So l endeavored to do this. I caught the chicken after a merry chase. I took him by the head and swung him around and around and around but his head would not come off. Pretty soon my arm was so tired I had to quit. I put the poor chicken down and he shook his head wobbled off. To this day I seem to remember a puzzled look in his eyes and to this day I have never again tried to kill a chicken in my mother's manner. 

School days

Riding Horses

    A number of my friends owned horses and saddles. They were generous with me and I learned to ride at a very early age. I loved it. Nothing thrilled me more than being on the back of a horse at a good steady lope down a country road. One "happening" will illustrate my love.

    One time my father pastured three racing horses (for a fee) for a friend. I owned neither saddle nor bridle but I wanted to ride those horses. I found some old leather straps in our little barn and with them, some bailing wire and an iron bolt for a bit, I fashioned a bridle.

    One at a time I would catch those horses and using my home made bridle and riding bareback, we (the horse and I) would split the wind for they loved to run and so did I. I kept all this from my father but of course he eventually learned about it and in no uncertain terms brought my thrills to a halt.

Toys and Joys

    My growing up years was done during the "Great Depression". Toy stores never existed in my world and store bought toys were few and far between. For example there were (to my knowledge) only two bicycles in the whole town and they were jealously guarded by their owners, for which I didn't blame them. It is difficult to learn to ride a bicycle without a bike. I did not learn to ride a bike until I was 14 years old.

    They could be made in all sizes and degrees of shrillness. The best time to make them was in the springtime when the sap began to run in the maple trees. We would cut a piece from a smaller new limb, lightly tap the bark all around, slip the bark off the limb, whittle out the desired sound chamber, slip the bark back on the limb and, voila, we had our whistle, much more prized and fun than any "store bought".

Sling Shots

    These were made from a small forked limb, which we cut from a tree, an old shoe tongue to serve as a leather pocket for the stone, and strips of rubber cut from an old inner tube. Many boys became quite proficient in hitting their targets. Woe unto you if you broke a window! Most young boys could be seen during spring and summer with a slingshot dangling from the hip pocket of their faded overalls. They were always faded during the summer because one just did not get new ones (if you were lucky) until school started in the fall.

Rubber Guns

Rubber Gun Assembly

    "Store bought" toy guns and rifles were few and far between. But no pity expected. We could do much better. We made our own. One of our favorite past times was playing "cowboys and Indians" with these hand made (by us) pistols and "machine guns" or "repeating rifles". Girls didn't much care for these games. Here is a rough sketch of what they looked like. The guns that is!

The pistol was sawed out of a ¾ inch board. It varied in length from 10" to 16". A spring type clothespin was firmly attached to the back slope of the grip. A rubber band was put around the mouth of the clothespin to give it a firm grip. Then rubber bands were cut from an old inner tube. One was stretched from the pin to the end of the barrel. A knot tied in the center of the rubber increased the accuracy. A squeeze on the clothespin fired the pistol. At a distance of 10 ft. there was a good little sting.  

The rifle: 

The rifle was like the pistol except it had no clothespin and it was much longer. Notches were cut on the top of the barrel. A string was attached in front of them and laid in the notches and rubber bands were stretched over the string beginning at front notch. It was fired by pulling up the string---one at a time or all at once for a machine gun effect.

    We called it, "HEY! BARB-A-RENO" In the spring when the sap began to run in the trees and in the kids of the town, it was time to play, HEY! BARB-A- RENO. The game was usually played after suppertime. Shortly before dusk, the kids of the whole town, boys and girls young and old, would gather and teams would be chosen. There was no set number--the more the merrier.

    Two leaders were chosen. Then a flat rock was spit on. The dry side was heads the wet side was tails. It was tossed to decide which leader had first choice. The team to be chased in this game of tag was "it". Each team was to remain together. The "it" team was given a certain amount of time to run and hide. Their purpose was to keep as far away as possible. Their mobility was only limited by their ability to run. When the perusing team yelled, "Hey! barba reno, " the pursued team was required to respond with the same yell. The game lasted until the pursued were caught. Then the roles were reversed.

    One of my fondest memories is of those yells echoing back and forth across the hills of that little town!

    There were no commercial rinks. We were limited to frozen creeks and ponds and then the freezing weather would have to be still so they would be frozen smoothly. None of the kids were blessed with shoe skates so we were limited to clamp-on skates, which had to be tightened periodically to keep them from falling off.

    Besides the regular way, we sometimes would build a couple of forts made of wash-tub formed blocks of snow. Two teams were chosen to play "capture the flag' using red and blue bandanas as flags. Much, much fun!

    My friend, Todd Garretson, and I hunted for crows (on which there was a bounty) rabbits and squirrels with a single shot .22 cal. rifle.

    Another friend, Milton Wade, was quite a little trapper. He had a small trap line, which he walked early in the morning before school started. Often he would find a skunk in one or more of his traps and after leaving his prey at home, he would scurry to school. Our teacher, Miss Kuykendall, after a few whiffs of the pungent odor, would promptly send him home to be deodorized. Some of us, including me, were rather envious of the $60, which he got for the sale of his pelts.

    Having experienced 5 or 6 years of continuous drought and the Great Depression, some of my recollections are not too positive. There were the chiggers, the stubbed toes, the ever persistent fly's, the hot summers and windy cold winters and the lack of indoor plumbing. Air-conditioning was non-existent and in winter the home was heated with a single wood stove.

    I recall the measles when my eyes swelled shut, the 17 boils on my back at one time. I remember nails I stepped on and the cuts from broken glass. I still have the scars. I once stepped into the pen where lived our old sow who had just given birth to piglets. She didn't trust the hand that fed her and quickly let me know by biting the calf of my leg. I still have that scar too.

    I don't think my parents had much faith in doctors. The only time I remember seeing a doctor in Cambridge was for blood poisoning caused by a scratch on barbed wire. Of course penicillin or other anti-biotic did not exist at that time.

    But I do have some pleasant memories--the swimming holes, the wild gooseberries and persimmons, fishing, hunting, the freedom to roam the hills, Sat. night silent movies for 5 cents, open air talkies in Burden, the "Grand Ole Opera" And many more. One luxury we had was a table model radio with Gang busters, Dick Tracy, Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy, Amos and Andy, The Shadow, Fibber McGee and Molly and others.

    Unbeknownst to me, my mother had told my father that if he did not get the family out of Kansas she would gather us kids and walk out. So with part of the $500 my dad purchased a 1928 Whippet and we prepared to leave our home in Cambridge, Kansas.

    I was told very little about our planned migration. We kids were told to keep our going a secret. Why we were told this is still a mystery to me. However we did keep our going a secret. Therefore, there were no going- away parties or socials. We left in the wee hours of the morning. Our home was second to the last house on the edge of town and we were headed west. We slipped quietly out of town in the dark.

    There was no room in the car except for the six of us, myself aged 14, sister Beth 12, Gene 10 and Duane aged 4 and of course Mother and Dad. We did not have a trailer; there was no car trunk. We tied suitcases between the fenders along side the motor. Nothing was tied on top. We did have a luggage carrier bolted to the side of the running board. It was shaped like this:

    Needless to say we were traveling light, taking only the absolute essentials. We took a minimum of clothing, pie tins for dishes, some old "silver" ware, blankets and no food. All toys (a very few) were left behind, including a pair of roller skates I had used some of my corn hoeing money to buy.

    If my sister took a doll. I don't remember seeing it. Our main home entertainment was a table radio and a few table games. All of this was left at home including my BB gun, which had been given to me on my 11th birthday. Even my marbles were left behind.

    I can only mention my own feelings. There was EXCITEMENT (going west!), MYSTERY (why did we leave secretly at night) ANTICIPATION, (I had never seen mountains), SADNESS (leaving familiar friends and places), DREAD (facing the unknown).

    We traveled only 300 miles per day. It took us 7 days to reach our destination. We stayed in tourist cabins, which cost us $1.00 per night. They were primitive affairs consisting of only the bare necessities. There were only two rooms, a bedroom and a kitchen. The bedroom had a double bed. The kitchen usually had a wood burning cook stove and a table and chairs. There was no indoor plumbing. Outhouses were shared by the residents of the cabins. This is an apt description of the tourist cabin, which was to be home for the coming year.

    The trip was rather uneventful except for a couple of semi-comic events. Just east of Denver, Colo. in irrigation country we saw plants commonly called cat-tails which we had never seen in Kansas. They grow in marshy places. My sister, Beth wanted some of them, so Dad stopped the car, Beth jumped out and headed for the cat-tails not realizing there were shallow water filled ditches between her and the cat-tails. But Beth had grit and determination. She would disappear from sight as she slipped and fell but she would arise and continue her course. Triumphantly she returned to the car, muddy but unbowed, with her hands full of her prizes!

    The Whippet car had no gas gage. You measured the gas by dipping a stick into the gas tank. One day as we traveled merrily along the Lincoln highway, the car stopped and Dad could not coax it to start even by cranking. He had prepared to hitch-hike back to a gas station (few and far between on that lonely Wyoming road) when a good Samaritan came along and offered to help. Both my Dad and the good Sam tried everything to get the car started---nothing worked! Then the good Sam asked if Dad had checked the gas tank--problem solved! Much to Dad's chagrin. Good Sam loaned us some gas and we went gladly on our way.

    As I write it is Saturday morning, February 5, 2000. On February 23rd I will observe my 59th birthday as a born-again Christian. The next day, on February 24th I will observe my 77th physical birthday. During the early summer of 1939, I had gone to work for Mr. McMahan in his country grocery store and gas station where I was clerk, soda jerk, butcher, gas station attendant and janitor but mostly as a clerk behind the counter. I was 16 years old when I began. I worked 6 days a week, 12 hours per day. I was paid $12/week. The store was closed on Sunday. I continued to go to Wapato, Washington High School during the school year. At this time I worked 37 hours/week. The school bus brought me to the store at 4:00 pm and I would work until 9:00 pm (or later). Each Saturday I would work 12 hours/day. I have written the above that you may see that I had no time for sports (which I loved) nor any other kind of social life. I had no friends with which I could spend much time. At this time I never set foot in a church. It was a very lonely life. Though I was happy in my job, I longed for companionship with other young people. At this time, my sister, Beth, was 15 years old. Unbeknownst to me, my parents had told her that she could not date boys without first asking their permission. A young boy named Bill Schilperoot (sp?) asked Beth to go with him to a 3-week revival meeting to be held at the Grace Brethren Church of Harrah, Washington. The meetings were from February 2nd to February 23rd, 1941.

    Without asking our parents, my sister told Bill, "yes." When told, my parents said, "no." After much persuasion (and tears?), which I was not privy to, my parents relented and said she could go with Bill, only if they were accompanied by Archer (me). Glad to have an occasion to lord it over Beth, I agreed to be their chaperon.

    Thus, I find myself sitting in the last row of the balcony of this little Brethren church. It is February 2, 1941. I do not remember the message. I only remember that the preacher seemed to be looking at and preaching to me only (not true of course). It is a little scary to me and I thought it to be unfair that he spent so much time looking at me.

    It is February 23rd, 1941. It is the last night of 3 weeks of meetings. I was there on the first night but I have not returned until tonight. I did not like to be preached to and be looked at. I later learned that, after 3 weeks of meetings, not a single person had responded to the invitation to receive Christ.

The minister, Conrad Sandy, has preached his last sermon. I am sitting in the balcony, last row. God's Holy Spirit has brought the conviction to my heart that I need to give my heart and life to Christ the Savior. The last hymn is being sung and with eyes full of tears, wearing shoes with leather heels and steel cleats, I clatter down the wooden stairs to the altar and give my heart to Christ. This is my spiritual birthday. Tomorrow I will be 18 years old.

 My going forward seems to have broken a spiritual dam. About 20 others followed in my footsteps. I consider the decision to receive Christ to be the most important decision of my life. I have never regretted it.

    Exactly four weeks later, with others of our youth at Harrah, I attended a Christian Endeavor conference in Sunnyside, Washington. In response to a message by the president of Whitworth College, I dedicated my life to the service of Christ. After spending all summer working 60 hours/week in a fruit warehouse, I left home to enroll in Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland, Oregon.

Multnomah was only the beginning. After earning a diploma and marrying my lovely and beautiful wife, Eileen, we, still on our honeymoon, rode in a Pullman coach back to Winona Lake, Indiana where I spent a year as a student in Grace Theological Seminary. In 1945 and 1946 I spent a year and a summer at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. I then transferred to Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, from which I was graduated with a B.A. degree in 1949.

 After spending almost two years as pastor of Wishram Community Church in Washington, we (including Eileen and our two little girls, Rebecca and Colleen) returned to Grace Theological Seminary.

    While a student at the Seminary, I was a student pastor at West Etna Community Church from 1950 until 1953 where I preached and taught the adult Sunday School class. Just as God had blessed our ministry at Wishram with converts, so He did at West Etna. I was among the first to use the baptistery in the then new McClain Hall.

    After receiving a Master of Divinity degree from Seminary in 1953, our little family and I were called to the First Brethren Church of San Diego where I became its fifth pastor. Here we served for over 7 years. Today I have been given the title, "Pastor Emeritus" of the church.

    As I am writing this I am 77 years old.

  After spending 59 years of study in philosophy, religion and Christianity, I am firmly convinced that in Christ we find truth and life.

    With firm conviction, I can say with the apostle Paul, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."