| Home Page Riding the Rails Letters About Interview Reviews Video Links Brazil |
On Christmas Day... Donald E. Newhouser, Gary, Indiana |
| Born
on a farm in Nebraska in 1916, Donald Newhouser rode the rails from 1935
to 1938, following the harvests through the West, the hay fields in Colorado,
potato picking in Idaho, apples in Washington, hops in Oregon.
"I was one of the few farm boys who got through grade school and high school. I got the only job I could find on a cattle ranch. It paid $10 a month and my room and board. "After a few months I realized that such a job would get me nowhere fast. I resorted to the only means of transportation I could afford and that was riding the rails. "I learned the tricks of the road. How to grab a boxcar doing 30 miles per hour, how to walk on top of a train doing 50, what not to ride on, and never, never get friendly with anyone. "I've been shot at, held up and dumped off on the 'great divide" in zero weather but managed to catch the last car and survive. "The one thing I enjoyed was the beautiful scenery, the mountain streams, waterfalls and trees. It helped me take my mind off the dangers and troubles I continually faced. "I was sitting on a railroad track, somewhere in Montana, waiting for a freight train. I was nineteen years old. It was getting dark, and as I looked down at a village below, I saw a Christmas tree lit up in a window and children playing around it. Tears ran down my cheeks as I remembered a Christmas Day when I was the age of those children." |
| Home Page Riding the Rails Letters About Interview Reviews Video Links Brazil |