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| Glen Templeton at the Lumberyard Benefit. |
Before the music began, guests showed their support not only by attending, but also by buying T-shirts, and eating Wagyu beef hamburgers and potato chips with proceeds benefiting the Lumberyard, along with beer and cokes, which were also available. Volunteers cooked the burgers and served the drinks, and some private donations were made to add to others made on a GoFundMe page online.
The weather was perfect for enjoying the entertainment on a warm night with a moderate south wind, clear skies, and a full moon. Glen Templeton and his band put on a fine show, people danced or sat and enjoyed the music, and a good time was had by all.
Here’s hoping the evening marked a new beginning for the return of the Lumberyard!
Supporters who wish to make a donation may do so at the Lumberyard’s GoFundMe page by clicking here.
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This KTXS-TV video ran on Thursday, July 15, too late to get into last week's posting. It is 2:15.
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HOMECOMING COMMITTEE PLANNING MEETING TODAY
It’s time to get the ball rolling for the first time in three years for what we hope will be best Plowboy homecoming yet!
Connie Baize
cubaize1401@gmail.com
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NO ROSCOE HARD TIMES NEXT WEEK
There will be no Hard Times next Wednesday, August 4, as I will be in Houston for a doctor’s appointment. It will be my first skipped issue for this year. I plan to resume posting the following Wednesday, August 11, and will attempt to catch you up on the Roscoe news then.
Edwin Duncan
Roscoe Hard Times
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ROSCOE IN YEARS GONE BY: SEAMAN ARCHIE GIBBS
Editor’s note: A few years ago, I ran across an unusual bit of information purely by chance. I was doing some research in the online archives of the New York Times and, just for fun, did a word search for Roscoe, Texas, to see if there were any articles about the town or its people that had made it into that national newspaper. What I got was a handful of hits, mostly small one or two-line items buried on a back page somewhere—except for the ones mentioned below that are the subjects of the following article.
There were also two related articles, one entitled “U-Boats Now Prey on Fishing Boats” and the other “Captive on U-Boat Tells of Bombing,” which had appeared the day before. The first reported on U-boat attacks on two small non-military craft off the American coast. This was in the early stages of the war, and there was considerable concern about German submarine attacks in American waters.
The other article was the story of Archie Gibbs, whose ship was torpedoed and sunk with Gibbs going overboard and being picked up by the Germans, who found him swimming in the sea. He subsequently spent four days in the sub with the crew, and the rest of the article told of his time there before his release to a nearby trading vessel.
Never having heard of this incident nor of Archie Gibbs, I was immediately interested in learning about him. My dad, who grew up in Roscoe and graduated from RHS in 1921, would have been 39 in 1942, that is, three years older than Gibbs, but I couldn’t recall him mentioning that name, nor had my mother, who moved to Roscoe in 1930—nor had George Parks, whom I worked with for years and from whom I heard many stories about old Roscoe. I asked a few of the remaining old-timers around town, but none of them knew anything about Gibbs, either.
An online search for Archie Gibbs, however, turned up more intriguing information. Amazon listed used copies of a book entitled U-Boat Prisoner: The Life Story of a Texas Sailor by Archie Gibbs, and the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) had information and ratings for a Columbia Pictures movie, U-Boat Prisoner (1944), whose writer was Archie Gibbs and whose lead actor was Bruce Bennett—as Archie Gibbs. They gave it a rating of 5.6 stars out of 10 and provided this brief summary:
An American sailor poses as a Nazi spy in this implausible WWII action drama that reportedly is based on the actual experience of Archie Gibbs, a seaman detained aboard a German submarine. Gibbs assumes the identity of a Nazi whose ship has been sunk.
None of the video-streaming services I checked had U-Boat Prisoner, nor did YouTube, which has dozens of old B-rated movies uploaded by users.
However, I did find an old Roscoe Times article from December 1944 mentioning that the movie was showing at the Joy Theater and that Roscoe’s Archie Gibbs was its main character.
To find out more, I ordered a used copy of the book from a bookstore that sells on Amazon. In its introduction by Eugene Leuchtman, I learned that after Gibbs’ adventure with the U-boat, he became an instant hero in that early stage of America’s involvement in the war:
He had his picture taken with Mrs. Roosevelt. He spoke on the radio. Life magazine gave him a page for his four days in the U-boat. Joe Curran, president of the National Maritime Union, pinned a medal on him. He talked at production rallies in war plants. And when his money ran out, he went back to sea.
Gibbs then tells the story of his life in the book, which is an interesting read. He was born in 1906 in Ohio, but his dad was a drifter, and his family, which consisted of his parents, an older sister named Lillie, and a little brother, frequently lived out of a wagon, as they moved around. His mother was not mentally stable and completely lost it when her 2-year-old daughter fell against a wood stove and was burned so bad that it killed her. The mother was committed to an insane asylum in Wichita Falls, and the dad had trouble raising the kids. One day he gave up and gave the little brother up for adoption and the next day just disappeared. The authorities put Lillie in a Salvation Army girls’ orphan home and sent Archie to the State Juvenile Reform School in Gatesville.
He was 12 at the time and spent four hard years there before being released to Lillie, who by then was married and living in Dallas. Archie stayed with her and her husband, George Ruthford, before hitting the road after losing his job. He then hoboed and scraped by as best he could until finding work as a merchant sailor. He loved his new life at sea and remained a seaman from then on.
In 1938, George and Lillie moved to Roscoe. Archie never says why, but he does mention that George was in poor health when they lived in Dallas. Anyway, George died in January 1939 at the age of 54 and was buried in the Roscoe Cemetery. Lillie telegrammed the news to Archie, who had just left a ship in Corpus Christi, so he went to Roscoe to be with her for a while. She had nine children, and when he went back to Corpus, one of her teenage sons ran away from home to be with Archie and become a seaman. But he was too young, and Archie bought him a train ticket back to Roscoe.
Archie remained a sailor until the war broke out and he was involved in the incident with the U-boat. During that time, he considered Roscoe home, not only because that’s what he told the newspapers and others, but also because in his book he mentions returning “home” between ships a couple of times for brief stays before shipping out again. Home for Archie was Lillie and her family. When he was captured by the Germans, the only photos he had were of her and her children.
Lillie lived on until 1952 when she died at the age of 50 and was buried beside her husband in the Roscoe Cemetery. Since she lived in Roscoe for over twelve years and had nine kids, someone must remember her or her children—and I would be interested in talking to anyone who does.
So, if you remember Lillie Ruthford or any of her children—or know someone who does or did, I’d be very interested in finding out more about this little-known bit of Roscoe history.
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Sources
“Captive on U-Boat Tells of Bombing,” New York Times, July 27, 1942.
Archie Gibbs, U-Boat Prisoner: The Life Story of a Texas Sailor. Edited by Eugene Leuchtman. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943.
William Du Bois, “A Texas Sailor Goes Underwater,” New York Times, August 29, 1943. Book review of U-Boat Prisoner, The Life Story of a Texas Sailor.
uboat.net: https://uboat.net/allies/merchants/crews/person/5603.html
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WEATHER REPORT: HOT SPELL, SURPRISE SHOWER
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| Yesterday's sky. |
We got a pleasant surprise this morning with an unexpected shower from the north. I don’t know what others got, but there was exactly a half-inch in my rain gauge. I’m sure the plants appreciated it.
The forecast is for slightly cooler weather, but not by much. Today’s high will be 95°, which is an eight-degree improvement over yesterday. The rest of the week will be more of the same with partly cloudy skies and little chance for rain until Monday, when we’ll have a 34% chance.
After Sunday, temperatures are expected to cool down to 91° or so in the beginning of next week.
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Who thought it was a good idea to give that guy in the purple shirt a microphone?
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing. It must have been one of those Plowboy Mudbog guys.
DeleteI remember seeing the movie about Archie Gibbs at the Joy theatre, but nothing else.
ReplyDelete