Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 August 1949 — Page 25

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High as 84 registered in single

“families” are built

Last week H. E. Stone, Read of the farm placement branch of the State Employment Se-

“tomato crop. : Up near Elwood, state center for migrant labor, most of them . come from McAllen, Tex., which they pronounce “McAlly,” with

when most. Americans complain about a few miles on a bus or streetcar, i $ «4 & THEY COME north when the air blows warm in the spring. They help with the planting,

* - then move on to the fruit belt of Wisconsin ;

and Minnesota, where they pick cherries. Then they pack up and move back to the fields of Indiana where they pick tomatoes, sweet corn, pickles, peas, lima beans, BAPBIAgS and dig early po-

They work the peppermint too. ,And some move

They also are learning the trick of detasseling corn in the hybrid seed fields. not

At the first hint of a chill

That lasts until late December when they head for home, their pockets full of American dollars, down to the lower Rio Grande.

They do not come north on hope of jobs. They actually have work before they leave home. There is a system which assures them of work, It is elaborate, and mostly verbal, but it works. ”

® » e THE CANNERS and growers notify the IES in the winter as to how many workers will be needed in the

portation north of one cent per mile for every worker over 14 years old. The advance pay for transportation is paid back by the

workers out of ‘their first

wages, but the canners hold back a bonus, in the instance of tomatoes, one cent per hamper, if the workers stay on the job until the end of ‘the season,

But most of them do not .

stay. As the fields thin out it is harder to run up a good wage in piece work, and some of them leave bonuses totaling well over $100 behind them. Mr. Stone, the farm placement su , takes orders from his district agents who have received the orders from the canners.

Daughter's Arrest in Death Of Mother Shocks Hoosier Town

By CLIFFORD THURMAN, Times Staff Writer

HUNTINGBURG, Aug.

27—Two mounds, sharply

outlined by the fresh scars of a gravedigger's spade, lie

unmarked and undecorated Cemetery.

on a hillside in Fairmount

Less than half a mile away there is a house that was

a home. shrubbery. Outside it looks the same as any home on

- Main St., but the inside is

bleak with emptiness and is filled with ghostly echoes. Winter Dearing, a young rail. roader, brought his pretty Kentucky bride, Eunice Irene, to the house nearly 30 years ago. They were happy, prosperous and God-fearing people. They reared a family there, a boy and a girl Today they are together in death on a windswept hillside. They died “mysteriously,” those who loved them say, within five months of each other. . The daughter who romped and played and grew up in the Main St. home is in jail in Evansville, accused of the arsenic murder of her mother while authorities await results of an autopsy to determine the cause ‘of her father’'s death. IRCA “ The son is not in Huntingburg any more either. He is in the penitentiary serving a term for forgery. He didn’t atfend his mother’s funeral because he was “out of the state.” He was arrested as he attended final rites for his father. ? Len. THAT, BRIEFLY, is the saga of the Dearing family in Hunt. ingburg. The tragic end of more than a quarter of a century of happiness. The. collapse of a family, It is the story of Mr.

‘man and a home-lover. He was a parents! He was chairman of the Building

A little white house with a green lawn and

sary to brand her a murderess. After her mother's body was exhumed, a legal move which Mrs. Spurlock. fought bitterly, more than six grains of arsenic was found. Mrs. Dearing died

Andrew Ayala, boy fomate picker, hits the utumn air,"they be-

_ Mr, Stoner sends his labor orders on to Paul Moore, Uncle Sam's overseer of migrant labor in Texas, Mr. Moore, a straight-talking Texan in fancy boots and a tengallon hat, knows his Mexicans, talks their language, eats their food, takes care of them

, on the road and keeps them

out of trouble, oceasionally bailing one of them out of jail.

“Mr, Moore goes to the “leadBi V 5 Meet

b7 Bob Wallace, Times Stat Photosrapber.

®

ers” of the Mexican crews who round up their workers in crews ranging from 20 to more than 200. ‘

~ # »* MR. MOORE stays close to them, listens to them, hears their troubles, and eats with them. He loves their highly seasoned food with hot peppers and much garlic. Just last week he was hunting green pumpkin in Madison County.

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ices de a Li :

ns Families Almost

Tribal Size

He up” two quarts of long Ba De aes of ere Back in the roots of migrant labor system lies the men who must have jobs, the canner and the grower. They need

® = =» THE MEXICANS climb aboard the trucks of the “leaders,” such as soft-spoken Andres Garcia, 34, from Me-

ers of clean, wooden huts with beds, electricity and oil stoves, The women do the housekeeping, take care of their babies, some’ of whom are born en

- Typical Mexican family works tomato field near Ph. Isabel.

rs For Dearings Of Huntingburg

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“mysteriously” in an Evansville «7%;

hospital after visiting her daugh- “

ter. As the result of the findings Mrs. Spurlock was charged with murder in an affidavit sworn to by Sheriff Frank McDonald of Vanderburgh County. At dawn Thursday, while Mrs. Spurlock awaited” a hearing in the Vanderburgh County Jail, a little group of grim men again visited the Fairmount Cemetery and went about the task of exhuming the body of her father, The body was not removed from the cemetery. After the casket was opened surgeons quickly removed the vital organs be rushed to the Indiana Medical Center in Indianapolis for| toxicological tests. { 8 PEOPLES! Huntingburg, stunned and shocked by recent events as they were by the untimely deaths of their friends and neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Dearing, whispered speculatively to each other and recalled happier times for the Dearing family, - Listen t6 the banker who had known the Dearings for 25 years or more, Elmo A. Sakel, cashier of the First National Bank: “There just weren't any finer people anywhere than Mr. and Mrs. Dearing. I remember them well, when they bought their Rome and all. I knew the children, saw them grow up. “They bought their home about 30 years y 1 don’t know exactly. | He switchman for the SoutWern, a" hard - working

steady man, had an account here, Fund Committee of the First

Christian Church, “Yes, he was. a good man, a

———y

churchman. He was interested in his church, his home and his family,” * The banker continued to say he knew Mrs. Dearing very well and knew both Mrs. - Spurlock and Bernard Dearing. He couldn't recall any special trouble Bernard ever had in Huntingburg. Mrs. Spurlock, as Clarice Dearing, had grown up in Huntingburg “just like any girl.” . . . UP AND DOWN Main St. it was the same story. The grocer, the plumber and the pastor of their church. The Dearings were good people, law-abiding citizens and well liked and respected by their fellowmen. Mrs. Spurlock was full of spirit, gay and Hked to have fun. But she did not have many close friends, or chums, in Hunting-

burg Many . people here knew her, many 1 recdlled having gone to il with her and stil others had been in her home. Few, however, would claim close personal friendship. Few, if any, knew much about her adult life. Prof. Ray Goldman, who was superintendent of “schools in Dubois County when Mrs. ‘Spurlock attended both elementary and high school classes, remembers her well. Prof. Goldman, still Fecords in his office to refresh his memory, Gh

The Dearings were happy in this Huntingburg home.

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| “Clarice graduated here in this |building,” he said, “in 1039. I would say she was just a bit above-the-average student. She made average grades and participated in schoql dramatics. She

chestra and band.

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{ subject. course but didn’t complete it.

wasn't preparing for college either. after graduation and left Huntingburg. I haven't seen her since she left school.” Prof. Goldman also knew Arleigh Spurlock, the accuged woman's husband. He described him as a quiet boy, never troublesome and average in scholastic endeavors. "so

POLICE CHIEF GUS MAYO who, in his official

“Winter Dearing was my friend. He was everybody's friend,” Chief “I used to talk with him;lots down at the railway station when he would be waiting to to work or waiting on a train. didn’t know Mrs. Dearing well, {but used to see her a lot of the time, She was a nice lady.

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Tragedy Climaxes 30 Happy Yea

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both | handkerchief,

Neighbors Grieve For ‘Good People’

“I wouldn't want to be quoted about the children, Mrs. Spurlock or Bernie. I never knew Mrs. Spurlock until after her folks died and ‘they had that fire down there. It is a hard thing to puz-

"gle out. I just don’t know what

to say about it.” The police chief was discussing a fire which destroyed the garage at the Dearing home on Mazin St. The charred foundations of the garage remain but insurance claims are still unpaid on order of the State Fire Marshal, local insurance agents reported. nw * ¥

NEIGHBORS, publicity shy and

frankly concérned about “minding their own business,” are still puzzled over circumstances of the fire which destroyed the garage and another incident, on May 13, when Mrs. Spurlock was found alone in the Dearing home, lying on ‘her ‘back and apparently unconscious.

State police investigated the

was a member of the school or- garage fire and reported it was py. ¢tom”

discovered at 9:20 a. m. Mrs.

“She did not major in any|Spurlock, according to authoriStarted a OE In an ties, said she did not hear of 1/it until 10- a. m. while visiting do not suppose she was much in-/in a different section of Huntterested in office work. No, she/lngburg.

“But neighbors told state police

She got married shortly/that Mrs. Spurlock was around

the garage at 9 a. m.,” Sheriff McDonald charged. A. subsequent ‘investigation has resulted in the withholding of the insurance claim. Residents of the block admit they were closely questioned by investigators. Five days later Mrs. Spurlock was found lying on the floor of the Dearing home, neighbors recall, “There was a whetstone, with its handle wrapped in ‘a man's nearby,” Sheriff McDonald said. Koa F » . . THE SHERIFF added that,

there was a small cut on Mrs.

Spurlock’s forehead and that she said a man had jumped from the closet and had jabbed her ‘in the arm with a needle when. she opéned the door, Chief Mayo recalled that doctors had reported Mrs. Spurlock’s

«(think of the Déarings one day

route. They use old-fashioned galvanized tubs and wash boards and hang their clothes in the sun: to dry. They are thrifty and well-

craps and play poker. Occasionally on off days they dress up and go to the nearest town where they drink a few bottles of beer or Coke and see a movie, ' They have friends in the towns near the fields, friends , they look forward to seeing year after year. . Another reason they stay ou of trouble is that after they work in the fields all day they are dog tired, and hit the hay

y riage which calls for a big celebration. In Milford, Ill, recently a cannery manager, Harry Holtcamp, contributed his cannery for a wedding. The altar was brought in along with all of the church symbols. The girls blossomed

out in clothes

their American employers had

frothy heeled satin slippers, an : orate (if not genuine) jewelry, . = . NO DRINKING is allowed in the camps. It is not a rule of the canneries; it is a rule of the “leader.” If a worker shows up at camp with teo much under his belt the “leader” promptly throws him out and never brings him north again. Occasionally among the single men there are brawls. Paul Moore gets them out of jail, makes peace with the authorities and turns the offender over

“8 ee” ¥

to his “leader.” He then is on

probation. s It also is Mr. Moore's job to see that they get paid every cent they have been promised. The canneries for the most part are careful about this, They want them back next year. There were two remote instances where there was trouble about the pay. An Indiana banker owned a tomato field which his son was to cultivate with a tractor, The day before the Mexicans arrived the son was injured in an

accident and one of the Mexi-*

cans was induced to try the tractor job. He couldn't keep his rows straight, which made the banker madder than a hot pepper. He refused to pay. So the Mexicans volunteered to re-do the job by hand, a long tedious undertaking. Still the banker wouldn't pay, so the Mexicans then decided to charge him for the hand work. Finally the banker cooled off, paid the bill, 80-0dd dollars. In another instance a canner failed to pay at the end of ths first week's work. The. Mexicans went along another week on the promise that the money would soon be in from firms who were buying the pack. At the end of the second week they quit cold, $288 in the red. Mr. Moore 1s still trying to collect.

x» SOME OF the “leaders” make & commission on their crews. Others rent their trucks for hauling tomatoes to the canneries. One “leader,” Amalia Martinez, of Lyford, Tex. one year netted $13,000 from his trip up north. Not bad. The workers get 8 cents a hamper for tomatoes and earn from $6 to $9 a day. There is on record the case of the 14-year-old boy who earned $20.40

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Texas-Mexican mothers, in Curtisville camp, stay home, rear young. x]

a day for six weeks straight, He was young and quick and worked long hours. a The crews are independent but there is the thin mist of loyalty among them. Recently a crew of 35 went broke was stranded at Converse, The crew on the job laid two days, gave the work to stranded Mexicans, and sent them on their way with $188.

Employment :. When the Mexicans get reste less, and the tomato crop thins out, they will pack up their be-

longings, then pile in their crews and be on their way. 8 wo

IT IS interesting to know why they come 2000 miles for jobs. "There are two reasons, One: ape cannot make a live ing in lower Rio Grande Valley, Mexican nationals, called “wetbacks” because they ‘presumably ‘swim the river, come over and work 10 hours a day for 20 cents an hour,

The canners have to have them when the crops are ripe, They even send their field men, such as A. B. Cramer of the Fettig Canneries, into the Rio Grande Valley to look them during the winter, inviting them back the next summer, And like their Indian ances. tors of old, who followed the buffalo herds for meat, they follow the crops for their own bread of life,

Not even names on the Dearing graves.

like a needle. » “She's a strange, funny kind of girl,” Chief Mayo sald. He added that he had been unable to determine cause of the garage fire, nor had state police and deputies from the fire marshal’s office. He sald the incident of the whetstone and hypodermic needle was “still a puzzle and still unexplained.” Neighbors, or those who were purported to know about the mystery fire and other incident today simply “prefer” not to remember, “It is a terrible, terrible thing,” one man sald, “Everything happened so fast, so to speak. You

as living and happy and you think of them now as dead and buried. It is a strange and terrible thing.” 4 . ”

ne BERNARD DEARING, too attended school in Huntingburg and was an average student. There was never any trouble—tha trouble that his benevolent father couldn’t fix up somehow or other, Huntingburg people have heard about his father helping him and about his mother worrying about Bernie. Everybody in Hunting-

t it, serious |tima

years ago. He went many other places... He is married and the |father of two little girls. People talked, as people in small communities do talk about peo-

neral. They wondered why and it was rumored that he was afraid to come back to Indiana because of some trouble. ; Five months later, however, Bernard Dearing was back at the little home at 104 Main St. to attend his father’s funeral. Neighbors say he was walking across the lawn following the casket when an officer touched his arm. He was convicted of forgery and is serving a’2-to-14 year sentence

® 8" » wn . THEN, TOO, there are people here in Huntingburg who wonder about Mr. Dearing’s will, . Prop-

mated ‘value -of some $20,000 were willed to Mrs, Spurlock just five days ‘before her father died. . Bernard and his sister area't. fhe best of terms now, folks'i

Bernard Dearing left Hunting. worded letter addressed . i 4 * il

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ple they know, when Bernard| \ : didn't attend his mother's fu-|Physically and mentally incapable

in the Michigan City State Prison. ba

erty and other assets with an a

without finding anything burg for Evansville a number of Evansville attornef asking that

the will be contested. Bernard, it is feported, will

[age that - his father did not lin tchildren as beneficiaries and that

nd to exclude him and his he made the will when he was

of executing such a document. ” . . THIS IS the story of the Dear ings of Huntingburg, the story as their former friends and neighbors tell it. It is ‘the story of a lifetime as recalled, bit by bit, by

in the future. There's more Winter and Bunice can do to help or hurt their dren, ° pe