Jim's Narrow Escape

Right after Jim's kindergarten year, Mamma and Pappa moved the family to San Antonio, Texas. Pappa was going into business with one of his cousins selling real estate down in Tampico, Mexico, on the Gulf coast.

Jim loved San Antonio. She loved the lush vegetation and the daily afternoon rains, the zoo at Breckinridge Park, the old Buckhorn Saloon downtown with its fascinating collection of mounted horns and all kinds of stuffed animals, from huge bears and moose, to deer, armadillos and rattle snakes. She loved to sit on the balcony of their Spanish style house and watch the people walking down the street. She loved the smell of fresh tamales when the tamale man rolled his cart down the street every afternoon, and she loved the taste of the figs that grew on a tree in their yard. She loved to play with her brother Bob in their back yard. They would catch horny toads and tie strings to their little horns. Jim loved to imagine that she was a fairy and could have adventures riding on the backs of the tiny reptiles.

Pappa's business didn't take off though. 1919 wasn't a good year for real estate. What with Pancho Villa raiding the countryside and American troops stationed in San Antonio ready to protect the border, it was hard to get people interested in buying property down in Mexico.

So the family moved back to Pauls Valley. Since their house in town had been sold, they moved into the old house at the farm, the same house that Pappa had been born in back in 1876. The old house was run down, and Mamma went right to work cleaning out trash and plugging holes in the walls to cut out the draft. Luckily it was springtime.

She school year was about over, and Jim had missed so much school she was put back a year. It was humiliating, being in class with children younger than her, and seeing her friends from kindergarten advance to the second grade.

It wasn't long before the spring rains came. The land that Jim's grandfather Sam Paul had given to the Santa Fe Railroad back in 1887 for a depot, and for the town of Pauls Valley, was right in the fork between Rush Creek and the Washita River. The area was relatively low, so the town flooded every spring. The flood of 1921 wasn't the worst in history, but it was certainly memorable for the Paul family.

The afternoon it started to rain Mamma began to get worried. The children were still in school in Pauls Valley, and they would have to cross Rush Creek to get back out to the farm. Rush Creek was aptly named. Although usually placid, a downpour could quickly transform it into a raging torrent. I witnessed Rush Creek's behavior during my childhood. The churning brown water would dig into its soft mud banks, undermining bridge supports and even the road.

The Trimmer family's house was next to the road from town to the Rush Creek Bridge, so Mamma called Mrs Trimmer and asked her to intercept the children on their way home from school. Jim and Bob were walking home with their older brother Haskell that day. Mrs Trimmer met the children as they walked by her house, brought them inside and dried them off. The Trimmers had built a play room for their children in the barn. The room was warm and cozy so Mrs Trimmer decided to fix palates for the children there for the night.

While the Trimmers were getting organized to host their little visitors, there was a knock at the front door. It was Jim's oldest brother Willie. Mamma had sent him with the wagon to see if it was safe to cross the bridge. Willie reported that he had come across it without any trouble on the way there, so he thought it would be okay to take the children home.

So Jim, Bob, and Haskell gathered up their school books and piled into the wagon. Jim had some pretty new shoes and she was especially careful not to scuff them as she climbed in. Willie stopped along the way to pick up Fred Snyder, a neighbor boy who also needed to cross Rush Creek to get home. Then he hurried to get back to the bridge before the water rose higher.

When the little party got to the Rush Creek Bridge, the park on the town side of the bridge was flooded, and the bridge itself, which had no railings, had disappeared under the water. Men were standing on either side of the creek to mark the location of the bridge for those wanting to cross.

Willie stopped near the bridge and talked to the men standing next to the bank. They assured him that he would be fine. The bridge was only a couple of inches under water. So Willie urged the horses, Mack and Maggie, out onto the invisible bridge. The horses slowly advanced, and as the wheels sunk deeper and deeper into the water Willie began to realize that the men had misjudged the depth of the water, but it was too late. Then wagon started to slip sideways. There was no turning back. Jim remembered the men yelling: "Keep to the right! Keep to the right!" Willie was standing now, yelling at the horses, urging them on and pulling on the reins with all his strength to steer them to the right.

The wagon had been made for hauling dirt, Jim said, and the boards in its bed were loose so they could be released to dump loads of dirt. As the water rose, the boards just floated away. Suddenly Jim found herself in the water. The experience was surreal. At first she was more fascinated than frightened. She saw her six year old brother Bob clinging to Fred Snyder as he tried to swim to the bank. It was a comical sight. Bob had his arms wrapped around Fred's head, covering his eyes so that he couldn't see. Jim looked back towards Willie, but all she could see above the water was the horses' ears. Then her head went under.

The next thing Jim knew, a hand reached out and pulled her head out of the water. It was her brother Haskell. She panicked and tried to fight him, but he was stronger than she was, and he finally managed to get her to the bank. Jim finally calmed down when she was able to get her feet under her and stand. As she followed Haskell up the bank, their feet sinking deep into the mud, one of her new shoes came off. She tried to go back for it but Haskell wouldn't let her.

After everyone was safely out of the water, Willie took the children, the horses and what was left of the wagon over to the Bradley house on the far side of the creek. Mrs Bradley cleaned the children up, put them in dry clothes, and then her husband drove everyone home to Mamma.

Jim's narrow escape was probably the most frightening experience of her life, and it left her forever afraid of the water, but what bothered her most at the time, she told me later, was losing her pretty new shoe.