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THE LIFE OF JIM DAVIS
(Alabama)
Written by Helen S. Hartley
Jim Davis was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, British West Indies, in the
year 1878. He was a happy youngster, having everything that any child
could wish for, a good home, fine mother and father, and two brothers. He
began to mingle with older boys when he was eleven years of age, and soon
began to hear the wonderful stories of other countries. One day while
loitering on the street, he was approached by a Sea Captain, who asked him
if he would not like to take a job as cabin boy on his sailing ship "Red
Jacket". Miraculously the opportunity that he was longing for had come,
and he could now go out into the world and seek his fortune. So it was,
that as a boy of eleven, he started on a journey that led him to foreign
shores, never more to return to his native land.
One whole year or more he was on the Red Jacket as a cabin boy, and
enjoying the thrill of handling the sails with the crew when he was off
duty. He saw much of the world during those years, the ship having touched
England; Cardiff, Wales; Buenos Ayres, Argentine; Russia; Germany and many
other seaports of the world, not to mention the different ports in the
U.S., that his ship touched. Again the wanderlust seized him and the
desire to see more of those foreign ports was strong within him, so one
bright Friday morning, while the Red Jacket was in Mobile, tied up at the
foot of Lipscomb Street, Jim with several others of the crew, jumped the
ship. It was not long before the little twelve year old West Indian boy
found himself alone. For one week he lived as he could, getting odd jobs
for food; sleeping where he could, he did not care if he suffered a little
from hunger and cold for his whole future lay ahead of him; but at the end
of that first week, the law, in the person of deputy sheriff Brown,
arrested him for "loafing", and when he appeared before the Judge, the
sentence was that he should be returned to the Red Jacket.
While Mr. Brown, with Jim in tow, was walking back to the ship, he found
himself talking frankly to this little quiet boy. They had now gotten very
near the Red Jacket, when Mr. Brown stopped, and said:
"Get going! and don't let me catch you again".
Jim took to this heels, he flew, as if he had wings to his feet, but never
forgot those words. His regard for Mr. Brown (long since passed away) is
still very deep.
He ran until he found himself in that part of the northern section of
Mobile known as "the Grove",and soon he was met by an old colored man by
the name of John McMillan, whose voice was low and pleasant, and whose
eyes held warmth and kindness. The old man asked a few questions and Jim
poured out his story into his sympathetic ears. The old colored man
sitting himself down on the curbstone of the sidewalk listened, and when
Jim had finished his story, he found that he had won himself a home, for
the old man, who had so little for himself, made a place for the little
boy and kept him as he would have a son.
As Jim grew older, again the wanderlust
and desire to see the world got the better of him, so he left his adopted
home and after wandering around from town to town and station to station,
he got a job as water boy at Lock I, on the Tombigee River, where he
worked for about six months.
Forty years ago in 1898, Jim started working at the Alabama Corn Mills
Company as a porter drawing a salary of fifteen dollars a week, gradually
working up to be a teamster of a meal truck at eighteen dollars a week, He
remained with that firm until the Company closed its doors, December,
1931, throwing Jim out of work.
He had been married since 1914 to Lizzie - , a native of Mobile, and is
still living with her to-day, although she is now a large, (corpulent)
woman. During those years when Jim was out of work, and there was none to
be had, Lizzie aided him by taking in washing. Their little home of three
rooms, is the fifth in a row of ten houses all just alike in the front,
but his home has a vine growing over the porch, which is freshly swept
each day, although now Lizzie is far from well, suffering from rheumatism
which seems to have settled in her feet causing them to swell. In spite of
her sickness, however, she is able only to keep the house almost
immaculate, do the little household washing for the two of them (for they
have no children), and in her spare time quilts up all the pieces of
material that she can get her hands on. I could not keep count of the
quilts she showed me, that she had finished and put away, but were at
least two dozen or more, some finished, others partly finished.
After the Alabama Corn Mills closed out of business, Jim could only get
odd jobs to do, painting, gardening, housecleaning and such like jobs
until 1932, when he was lucky in getting a job as helper on one of the
Taylor Lowenstein trucks at fifteen dollars a week, and is still with this
firm, and says they are the finest people to work for, as the firm aids
its employees in every way that it can. Jim's duty now is to travel on a
truck, which leaves at around five in the morning, going up the State and
returning from six to nine in the evening. He had just returned from a
trip (when the writer called for this interview), which took him through -
Bay Minette, Evergreen, Peterman, Brewton, etc. He enjoys truck work, for
each day carries its own experiences and he enjoys every one of them. Each
evening when he gets home he is too tired for anything but supper, a
minute to relax, and to bed.
Saturdays, Jim, upon his arrival home, gives Lizzie her share of the pay
check; hers to pay the bills and expenses and keep the house, his share,
as Jim told the writer, to spend as he sees fit, which usually means
joining "the boys" and gambling.
On Sunday Jim is a gadabout, never going to Church, as he is indifferent
to all religions, although at some part day he was baptized. Lizzie is
just the opposite, and is very religious, but has had to fore-go Church
meetings because she does not get out any more on account of her rheumatic
condition.
Jim is now a grey-haired man, of medium height, of about 160 pounds, and
is in good health, and, as he expresses it himself, "is as fit as a
fiddle". He is a thorough American, remembering the land of his birth but
dimly and in perfectly satisfied to be in America. He reads and writes,
although his eye sight is not so good for reading at night. Both Jim and
Lizzie enjoy life in their own simple way, in their little modest home and
are happy and congenial.
Week ending October 18,
1938
SOCIOLOGICAL SERIES.
Helen S. Hartley
Identification No. 0149-5147
Federal Writers' Project Dist.2
WPA Project 4454, Mobile, Ala.
Jim Davis,
536 Short Cedar St.,
Mobile, Ala.
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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