Five Berry Farm boys at the mule barn, Berry College 1937. Mays boy and Gunby left, Billy Stubbs 4th and Fred McCaleb on the right. We were hauling mule and cow manure, logging, mowing farmland grass and jobs like that to earn money for tuition for College.
Fred McCaleb, Oscar Beck, and wife Fannie Tucker at a Berry Class Reunion 1981. Fannie graduated from Winfield Hi, Winfield, Al. With my brother Hubert in 1937.
I applied for entrance at Berry College during my senior year
in 1936 at Winfield High School, Winfield, Al. That was sometime before
school was out. The school year was cut short at Winfield Hi due to lack
of funds. I finished the last six weeks at Fayette High School, Fayette,
Al. Mr. John Morgan Brown was the principal there at that time, and the
school was later called John Morgan Brown High School. The six weeks at
Fayette caused much anxiety on my part. My academic standing at Winfield
was 3rd or 4th from the top. By hard study at Fayette I was able
to pass the final exams and was probably the only one to ever graduate
from Fayette Hi with only six weeks attendance. The feelings of having
graduated from high school were pretty good since none of my recent ancesters
had been educated past the 7th grade.
There was high hope that I would be accepted at Berry College
to work and earn my college education. The hope was shattered when a letter
came from the school that the quota had been filled for work students for
the fall of 1936 semester at Berry.
This turn down left me free to try other places of endeavour.
The country was in a very serious economic depression. There was an occasional
job around home that would pay seventy five cents to a dollar per day for
at least ten hours of work. Franklin D. Roosevelt was president of the
U.S. He had begun the socialization of the country. There were the CCC
(Civil Conservation Corps) Camps. So I applied to become a member of that.
They said “Sorry your dad has a small farm and is well off financially.”
That shook my up, for my dad’s income was less than $400 per year. Some
farmer’s sons were accepted, but they had to know the right political official
for that.
I wrote my congressman William Bankhead about being appointed
to Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. He informed me I had no
chance unless I had finished two years at a Military Prep School. What
a piece of luck this was. I later found I had no aptitude for being a military
officer with the requirement to lead other soldiers to their death.
The next thing I tried in the summer of 1936 was to join
the Army or Navy. The war clouds were gathering in Europe, but the U.S.
was neutral and unarmed. At least the people were neutral. Another Fayette
County, Al. boy and I hitch hiked to the Federal Building in Birmingham
where the Army and Navy recruiters were located. My eyes were near sighted
and had astigmatism. So the Army turned me down. The army had about 75,000
soldiers at that time. I decided to try the navy while at the recruiting
station. The recruiter there said I couldn’t see. I sassed him by saying
I could. He told me to “get the hell out of the recruiting station.” My
fellow hitch hiker was accepted. I’ve done forgot his name or how soon
he got killed or what happened to him in WW2. I had lucked out again with
the military, but only until late 1942 when I was drafted and had no trouble
with eyesight.
So I went back home from Birmingham, Al. to help my father plow
with mules and do other farm work during the summer and fall of 1936. Sometime
during the summer I applied at Berea College in Ky. It had a similar program
to Berry. They had no room there. Sometime during the summer I became peeved
with my dad or perhaps just wanted to be adventurous. I thought I
might find farmwork out west. I went to Winfield and caught a freight train
that landed me in Memphis, Tn. on the banks of the Mississippi River by
night time. I found a place to sleep on the east bank under the great Mississippi
River Bridge with other hoboes, tramps, and unknown and unfortunate characters.
I realized I had been in a dangerous position ever since catching the freight.
The next day I caught another freight back to Winfield, Al. By then I was
all black with soot from the coal burning steam engines. I walked the 12
miles back home arriving sooty, hungry and more appreciative of home, however
poor and humble. I was to relearn this lesson in the army when the main
thing I learned there was an appreciation for home and Civil life.
Some time later in the summer I wrote another letter to Berry
College saying I would like to be accepted if anyone had dropped out. They
still had no room for me. After we had gathered the corn and picked the
cotton on the farm in 1936 my dad and his
neighbor Eulas Dodson who had a joining farm decided to dig a ditch
¼ mile long. I, Fred McCaleb was the third and main digger. By about
the end of November the ditch was about half done. I decided to send another
letter pleading for acceptance at Berry. This time I sent a picture of
myself. It worked. The president, Dr. G. Leland Green , said report for
work for spring semester 1937.We hadn’t finished the ditch by then. I left
my dad and neighbor with the ditch. It was never finished. They had been
doing the talking and I had been doing the digging.
In January 1937 I boarded the Greyhound bus at Winfield, Al.
for Berry College, Rome, Ga. which was a little over 200 miles away. My
dad gave me ten dollars which was a big sacrifice for him. He informed
me he expected me back home in two weeks. From the ten dollars I bought
the bus ticket which amounted to $2.45. In my metal suitcase I had 3 pairs
of overalls, 3 blue chambry work shirts, 2 pairs of long handle underwear,
socks, a pair of black Sunday shoes, a white shirt for Sunday, work shoes
and a brown suit and shaving equipment. My grandpa James Franklin McCaleb
had died in 1935 and his suit was an approximate fit for me after my mother
had reworked it. The Berry rules called for a black or navy blue suit,
but I hoped what I had would be accepted. It wasn’t. On my first Sunday
at Berry Dr. S.H. Cook pulled me out of the line of boys marching into
Mt. Berry Chapel. In going to church the boys marched down one sidewalk
and the girls down another and sat on different sides of the building.
Going through the door side by side was the closest encounter with girls
at the church. Five points came off one’s conduct for each church missed.
Dr. Cook was lenient with me and allowed the suit to be redyed black,
which saved face for me. Neither I nor the parents had any way of buying
another suit at that time. I was housed in an old wooden barracks along
with other work students during the spring 1937 semester. This barracks
was near the old administration building where President G. Leland Green
and Martha Berry had offices. This building may have been converted to
faculty housing or some other use or burned by 1996 when this was written.
My work assignment for the spring semester 1937 was on the farm
under Mr. Russell and his assistant farm boss Arthur Beard. My first work
there was hauling manure to farmland using a wagon pulled by two big mules.Their
names I fail to recall.
This was nothing new to me. I was now earning 24 cents an hour or $1.92
per day. This was about twice what I could earn at home if it were possible
to get a job at all. I was in earthly Paradise. My father had expected
me back home in two weeks. I never showed up until the spring semester
was over when I hitch hiked back home. I helped my father farm the summer
of 1937. Part of the Paradise at Berry was that there were showers, commodes,
and running water. Running water at home required a boy or girl to run
and draw a bucket of water with windlass and rope from the 60 feet deep
well. Baths were in washpans or washtubs. Toilets were outdoors in cold
or hot weather. I was a barefooted farm boy in the summer at home. Never
had the athlete foot disease until I came to Berry and caught it in the
luxury showers daily to wash the manure smell away.
I performed a few other jobs on the Berry farm than haul manure.
Berry had a sawmill at that time and I hauled logs on the wagon for a while.
One mishap during the logging was the back wheel caught on a stump. The
mules kept pulling and broke the coupling pole. My friend and coworker
Ed Dickey said he pulled the wagon on to the loading area and told Mr.
Beard the coupling pole had been broken trying to load a log. Mr Beard
accepted the tale and didn’t “get on to me” that day as I had expected.
Mr. Beard’s nickname among the workers was “Blame Fellow”. When he caught
one doing something wrong he would say “Blame fellow, can’t you beat that?”
I dreaded to hear those words used on me. He was the first boss after my
daddy, so I had to get used to a scary supervisor. That was a little hard
on me I suppose because of my youth. When spring came we pulled haymowers
with the mules. There was a vast acreage of fields to be mowed. Berry had
32,000 acres of fields, campuses, dairy farms, apple and peach orchards.
Miss Berry tried to be self sufficient and have the working students produce
everything needed. She had the largest campus in the world, and it took
many boys and girls working at many things to keep it going. I got to view
much of the fields with my mules and wagon I worked wirh on the farm under
“Blame Fellow.”
After spending the summer of 1937 back home working with my daddy
farming in Fayette County, Al. I came back to Berry to start my college
studies that fall. For me being at Berry was like being set free. It was
like arriving in the Promised Land. I had worked for $200 to pay
the college tuition for 2 semesters. I still had to work two days per week
to pay for room and board which amounted to about $60 per semester. This
made a total of about $320 per year to attend Berry College
during my years there. Back then the students ate at Blackstone Hall. Each
clear day before lunch the Berry band under the direction of Mr.
Ewing played beautiful music outside the high cement front steps of
Blackstone. Inside the dining hall were big square tables that seated 8
boys per table. We stood up until Dr. Cook rang a little bell for
silence, and then he offered the blessing prayer to God. There was a one
gallon aluminum pitcher on each table filled with milk from the Berry dairy.
If it ran out a girl working in a blue chambry dress would bring another
pitcher full. There were containers of biscuits (called cat heads by the
boys), or cornbread or other breads and cakes, and bowls of other good
foods. Most of the foods were grown on the Berry farms and dairies. Margarine
had been introduced and was served at Berry, at least part of the time,
instead of butter from the dairy. Flour had to be donated by friends like
Ford. I never felt a lack of good food while at Berry. I believe they tried
serving soya beans, probably at the suggestion of Henry Ford, at the time
I was there. One of the boys decided to lead a strike against eating that
kind of food. Miss Berry got wind of that, called him to the office, and
asked him if he wished to cut off the hand that was feeding him. He quickly
quieted down. I was satisfied with the food myself, and ate whatever was
put out, as I did at home before and in the Army or wherever I was in after
years.
The school required wearing uniforms at that time. The girls
wore blue chambry dresses until the senior year aftger which they wore
pink chambry dresses. Nobody other than seniors were ahead of anyone else
except seniors changed to the pink. The boys wore blue denim overalls and
blue chambry shirts until the senior year when they could wear denim pants
and blue shirts. The girls wore dark dresses for church. The boys wore
dark suits, white shirt and appropriate tie. It is interesting to note
that some of the latest thinking in the 1990’s for big city high schools
is to require the students to be in uniform. That way there are no “dudes”
or “underdogs.” Some people of my age thought it was a mistake to go off
the uniform requirement. Not being too deep a thinker, I didn’t think too
much about it either way.
My choice of courses at Berry was chemistry as major. The first
year I studied cheistry, analytical geometry, physics, Old Testament, english
and I believe human biology as related to health and the functions of the
human body. The best I recollect I got F on the first english theme along
with many other freshmen. But that didn’t discourage me from sticking it
out at Berry. I had found a good home. I was one of Martha Berry’s adopted
children and would stay for the full course. Miss Berry never married,
and she called all the students at Berry her children. The work in the
fall of 1937 was on the farm two days a week with “Blame Fellow.” In the
spring of 1937 I worked with Mr. Bollier of Switzerland at the greenhouse
and caring for the shrubs at Miss Martha’s old plantation home at Oak Hill.
In the greenhouse we grew beautiful flowers to put at Mt. Berry Chapel
on Sundays, at Miss Berry’s home, and for any occasion or event on campus
that required flowers. Though from Switzerland and brought up speaking
German Mr. Bollier did very well with english. He said Switzerland
had never been conquored by military force because every male there took
military training. Perhaps its difficult location in the alps had something
to do with its security.
During the 1937-38 college term I managed to pass all subjects.
Better grades were made on chemistry and physics than on subjects
such as english, Boble, etc. At Berry there was more competition to be
the highest ranking in scholarship than back home in high school where
I had ranked about 4th from the top with about an A- average. At Berry
I averaged about a B+.
I couldn’t go home again to help my dad farm again in the summer
of 1938. That summer I worked at Berry on Mr. Looney’s lawn crew where
I pushed a lawn mower every day along with about 5 other boys. I recollect
Ed Dickey,Preston Jackson and Noble Finley being three of the boys. Those
lawn mowers were the horizontal reel type and required manpower to make
the reels turn. I learned to set the clearanced between the rotating curved
reel and the fixed cutting blade of steel it swirled the grass against
for easiest cutting. In other words I didn’t want to work any harder than
I had to. I carried a file to keep a sharp edge on the steel for clean
and easy cutting. The other boys and myself kept acres and acres of campus
mowed. This included the main campus, the girl’s school campus at
the Ford Buildings, the log cabin campus, and the lawns at Miss Berry’s
Oak Hill home. There was some worry about whether we were doing a
good job around her house. She expected everything everywhere to look exactly
right. In my mowing I probably walked about 10 miles per day under heavy
pushing load for four months that summer. Perhaps this may be why my legs
are still working when I am 82 years old in 1998. An hour or two a day
in the early morning with a self propelled lawn mower would be about all
I could stand now. Ed Dickey was good at basketball and other types of
required physical exercise and became a favorite of Dr. Cook. Ed became
a physical education coach at berry later on. Physical exercise was required
by the school, but was of little interest to me. I didn’t make very good
grades on that. I probably should have flunked it. On unsupervised exercise
I received plenty during my stay at Berry and at other places since
then. The U.S. Army for example. Building my own house. Riding bicycles,
etc.
My two day per week work during one fall semester was working
at the Berry brick plant. My brother, Hubert McCaleb, had been accepted
to work at that plant after graduating from Winfield Hi School, Winfield,
Al. He wasn’t delayed in being accepted to Berry. I had told him how to
gain entrance to Berry by showing up in person. So he and Reuben May hitch
hiked rides to Berry. Dr. Green interviewed them and they were accepted
for the work program. Hubert and another boy took new molded brick off
the conveyor belt as fast (or nearly as fast) as they came along and stacked
them on a cart to be rolled into a kiln and to be cooked at high temperature
for a 3 week cycle. Some of the brick plant workers did shift work to fire
the kiln around the clock. It took one week to get up red hot temperature,
another week at that temperature, and a third week to cool down to unloading
temperature and a week to unload the kiln. My job at the brick plant was
wheelbarrowing clay to a steam heated drying floor. It was a very hot and
strenous type of work. We made enough brick to build a new science building
and a physical ed building while Hubert and I and others worked at the
brick plant. Ever since I can go to Berry and say with pride that I helped
make the brick that went into these buildings. The science building was
the most modern thing at Berry during my last 2 years in chemistry there.
Now it is considered obsolete (1997) and Heard hints that something bigger
and more update was planned.
My success in college school work was adequate with A’s and B+s
until I got into Miss Paine’s public speaking class. She was an elderly
old maid Miss Berry had recruited from somewhere in the Northeast of the
country. She couldn’t speak plain english, but could practice criticizm
to its full extent and encourage others to criticize. I didn’t hold my
hands correctly, talk loud enough, do correct enunciation, and make my
points. Nothing was correct. She gave me a C on the first semester. I received
a D on the second semester. So my ability to speak in public went from
slight to none while at Berry. In that field I let Berry down. Some people
can stand before the public and talk fluently on and on and on and never
say anything. Take our present President Clinton as an example. Most everyone
likes him. What a crude success. My mind and tongur were never that agile.
I wanted to speak truth if I said anything. The truth is hard to find and
slow to come by. I suppose I could have blamed my parents, but why should
I blame them for my short comings?
One year during my summer work at Berry I decided to take a night
class in journalism taught by Tracy Byars. His objective was to try to
teach the students how to write a news story. I had some acquaintance
with English composition by that time. His classes seemed very easy to
me. My mind didn’t have to work so fast to write. I received a high grade
in his class. That was one of the most satisfying courses I took at Berry.
I have taken several writing courses since that time and have gained confidence
that I can write. The quality may not be first class, but everyone has
a story to tell. So if one thinks he can do something he can, if he thinks
he can’t, he can’t. Perhaps I learned a little along this line of thought
while at Berry.
After wolrking two years or more on the more undesirable jobs
at Berry such as farm work, brick making, lawn mowing and green house work
at Oak Hill I began to get more desirable assignments. I was assigned to
the print shop to work under Mr. Morris two days a week for one semester.
One of my coworkers there was Roy Allman. He was one of the nicest fellow
students I came in contact with. He and another boy ran the linotype machine.
I mostly ran the job press and did some handsetting of type for postcards
and short letters. The linotype machine had a lead melting pot, and
the lines of type were set to send in and make a full line of type. The
set lines of type looked upside down and backwards. Lines were assembled
into pages and the pages put on printing press. We put out the Southern
Highlander for Miss Berry where she told of the plight of the poor rural
sons and daughters of farmers. Her mailing lists included millioneirs.
I remember one time Miss Berry wanted 600 pages by lunch of a form letter
to send to prospective donors. Roy and I set the letter and had it out
on time. I don’t know who addressed the envelopes. That was interesting
work to me because I was working with interesting equipment. I visited
the same print shop I formerly worked in . (1996) None of the equipment
resembled anything we had. They could duplicate a thousand pages after
it was typed in about 5 minutes. (while you wait) Time and progress marches
on. I forgot to say that my friend Roy Allman was killed soon after being
drafted into WW2. What a waste of young manhood! Mr. Morrs, one of the
finest labor supervisors, is long gone and forgotten.
My next assignment at Berry was as a chemical laboratory assistant.
Dr. Ford was head of the chemistry department and I worked for him directing
the students in setting up equipment, answering questions, and grading
laboratory test papers. This was an interesting assignment. I am sure I
couldn’t answer all the questions asked, but tried to do the best I could.
We didn’t get the lab on fire or blown up. The best I recollect I worked
about three semesters as lab assistant. A girl named Marjorie Dodd worked
with me at least one semester. She was good in chemistry and worked for
Hercules Powder Company. She died about 1995. I understand the science
building is now outdated in 1999 and there is being built a more up to
date building. My brother Hubert McCaleb and I worked at the brick plant
to help make the brick of the outdated building. We thought the building
was about the latest thing out when completed about 1939. Time marches
on. This was the last place I worked at Berry. I had enough credits to
graduate by Jan 1941.
I tried to obtain a job at Tubize Chatillion Corp. rayon plant in Rome,
Ga. They failed to take me, but took one of my classmates, James Lowery.
I went to Birmingham and got a chemical laboratory job analyzing tin plated
sheet steel for tin cans. The noise there was almost like the roar of thunder
as white hot steel was being rolled into thinner and thinner strips and
coming off the rollers at about ½ mile a minute. The pay was great
a starting rate of $90 a month. I was now away from the care I received
at Berry and out into the cruel world. My 2nd mother, Martha Berry, was
no longer able to take care of me.A PHD graduate from Mississippi was running
the hardness and softness metal testing machine. He had worked as
a filling station employee before getting the good job at Tennessee Iron,
Coal and Railway Co. (division of U.S. Steel) and working up to about $125
per month.
When I was able to graduate from Berry I felt like I had rushed
through the place too fast. The many subjects I was taking gave too much
homework. I felt like I hadn’t mastered the subjects. I would have liked
to have stayed another 4 years and just take one subject per semester and
learn all about that subject. But that was not to be.
I guess I learned at Berry how to study and learn about subjects
on my own. Each job required new learning and knowledge in areas not already
mastered at Berry. I became interested in amateur radio and electronics
as a hobby and became knowledgeable in that field. Perhaps I should have
been in the electronic field where many of the advances were being made.
I found that an analytical chemistry job which I was trained
in paid the lowest salary in the chemical field. Employees from bigger
name colleges were promoted before Fred. Chemical engineers from anywhere
were promoted first. I found that a good line of bull and politicks moved
one up whether they had knowledge or not. If a person were from a foreign
country he was given first priority so he could be a good spy. I learned
that who one is friends with is more important than knowledge in the field
I was in. For goodness sake don’t let your supervisor know that you have
any knowledge. I failed in the political world where your success in the
job world counts the most. These are some things I didn't learn at Berry.
I blame it on myself instead of Berry. Others were still up conversing
and learning after 10 PM when I promptly went to bed as supposedly required
there. I figured if I hadn’t learned anything by bedtime I might as well
give up. I still try to hit the bed by 10PM at the age of 82. Sorry I didn’t
make a great showing for the college but lucked out and had a livelihood
to a ripe old age of 82. Maybe I will see the year 2000 in about seven
months. Maybe I could improve if I had to do life over, but that is not
a coming up opportunity. I go down still loving the school I attended.
Fred McCaleb
