Uncle Tom and the Mississippi River

Uncle Tom with his sisters, Cora and Ada 



          Last week I was listening to the news about the flooding of the Mississippi River, and the commentator mentioned that this was the worst flood since 1927. Suddenly I realized that my great uncle Tom was in that flood. He told his sister, my grandmother, all about it.    

          Uncle Tom was an interesting character. His parents, my great grandparents, had left Georgia after the civil war and migrated west. Over the next 20 years they moved from place to place, through Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, finally ending up in Indian Territory, the future State of Oklahoma. Tom was the second oldest of eight children, and the only boy to reach maturity, so he bore a big responsibility for the family's welfare, helping his father with the farm and hunting for game to provide meat.    

          When the Cherokee Strip was opened for settlement in 1893, Tom made the land run, and staked a claim for a 160 acre homestead. Tom tried to work his claim but he wasn't happy with the land, so he moved back to Arkansas and started farming near Kelso, on the Mississippi River. Tom grew tobacco and cotton and he was successful, at one time amassing a fortune of $50,000.  

          Life on the Mississippi was hard though. Not only was the work hard, but malaria was endemic, and it wasn't long before Uncle Tom came down with it. Every few months the fever would come, and all Tom could do was go to bed until it broke. One of the treatments for malaria at that time was to have the fever "boiled out" in a sauna, so every year Tom would make a trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to sweat out his malaria in the bath houses there.

          One year, as Tom started home from Hot Springs, he had a terrible accident. He got a late start on the day he was to leave, and he arrived late to the train station, just as his train was starting up. Tom ran for the train, but when he leaped for the platform, he lost his grip and fell, sliding under the wheels!  Uncle Tom survived, but his leg was severed just above the knee and he almost bled to death. He spent several weeks in the hospital recovering from his injury, waiting for his stump to heal, and then being fitted for an artificial leg.           

          While Tom was in the hospital he fell in love with his nurse, and he asked her to marry him. The nurse said yes, so while Uncle Tom convalesced, they made plans for their wedding. Tom had a productive farm and plenty of money in the bank so he felt that he would be able to support his wife comfortably, but while they were waiting to get married and return to Kelso, a tragedy of another kind occurred. Tom's bank folded and he was left with nothing. Those were the days before the FDIC, and your money was only as secure as your bank. Tom told his fiancée that he couldn't ask her to marry him under these new conditions. He would have to return to his farm and recoup his losses. Then, he promised, he would return for her, and they could begin their life together. 

          Then came the flood of 1927. When the Mississippi overflowed its banks Tom refused to leave. He built rafts for himself and for his horses, but his crops and his home were destroyed. Again Uncle Tom was ruined. It took several years to recover. Meanwhile, back in Hot Springs Tom's fiancee was waiting. Years went by but no word from Tom. Finally she wrote to my grandmother, Tom's sister. Another man had asked her to marry him and she wanted to know whether she should wait for Tom. Grandmother hadn't heard from him either.  She told the lady to get married and to go on with her life.  

          Finally Uncle Tom decided that he had recovered enough to support a family, but when he returned to Hot Springs for his bride, he discovered that she had married someone else. Uncle Tom's comment as handed down by the family was, "Damned woman, couldn't wait."