Bertha with brother Bobby, 1929

By Bertha Walsh

In 1933, California was a Prohibition state and there were men around making bootleg whiskey. Papa met one of these guys who lived not too far from us. Papa learned how to make corn whiskey. The revenuers got wind of this guy so he put the still in our barn and took off for the border. This guy was selling whiskey to the Watsonville Police Department, so Papa talked to them and we made whiskey all one winter and sold it to the Police Department. They would hide their bottles on the shore of the creek and Papa would fill them up.

One day about the last time Papa ran whiskey he had a 5-gallon bottle full and ready to go fill the Police Department’s bottles. Mama and I were sewing and I saw these two big fat women coming. We had a pea hamper that was cone shaped. They would pick the peas and ship them in these hampers. It was about as high as a table stool so I put it over the top of that 5 gallons of whiskey. One of these women sat down on it and for the next 30 minutes they preached to us of hell and damnation. Mama and I could hardly keep a straight face. While they were telling about all the bad things in life, including whiskey, they were sitting on a 5-gallon bottle of 90 proof.

We had a little red pig that we raised and she thought she was a dog. She was getting so big and we couldn’t let her run anymore. Well, Papa had a barrel of corn mash about ready to run and it was setting near Peggy’s pen (the pig’s name was Peggy). If anyone would see it they would think it was pig’s food. Papa said, don’t any of you kids feed any of that mash to the pig. Well, I don’t know for sure who did it but when Papa came home from work he sure raised heck. Peggy was drunk … That was the end of Papa’s bootlegging days …

The man Papa got the ranch from was going broke. The Depression was well on its way and he wanted the ranch back. Mama didn’t want to give it back and we didn’t have to but Papa kept at her until she gave up and signed the papers.  We had sold all the pigs. Pork was down to 1 cent a pound.

We left that ranch in July of 1933. Roosevelt came in as president and he began to make jobs and the country went better. Prohibition went out. Papa buried the still in the river bottom and it flooded and we never saw it again.

We went to San Jose to work the prunes again. We had just set up our tent and Mama’s bed when she went into labor. It didn’t take very long and Margie was born. I washed and dressed her. She was such a pretty baby. I was 15. I really spoiled that little girl.

We left San Jose and headed to Watsonville to pick apples. Papa, Ernie and Pat and I picked 150 boxes of apples and put them by the road for the owner to pick them up. That night someone came by with a truck and took all the boxes. Good thing we had already been paid.

The Year: 1934

In 1934 I was working three days a week and going to school two days. I was in the high school in Watsonville. I talked to my teacher and the counselor and told them I was quitting: I would turn 16 that May. He said he would look into my grades and see what he could do. My grades were really good, so he gave me a release from the last two weeks and he passed me for that year. I didn’t go to school anymore. I had finished my freshman year and most of my sophomore year. I sure hated to quit, I really liked school …

I worked picking young berries and raspberries for the rest of May. I could make a dollar a day if I worked 10 hours. I gave the money to Papa as we all had to put it together to live on …

There was a vacant piece of land that was owned by the railroad with water and a bathroom and they let people camp there who worked the harvest. Some of the town people called us fruit tramps, vagrants, tent tramps and a lot of other things, but without us the crops wouldn’t have been harvested …

All the people in the camp were in the same boat. They were not bums. They were farmers that lost their farms, lawyers, doctors and teachers that had lost everything. A lot were from California but some were from out of state. The Depression was in full swing now and we were just trying to exist.

At night someone would have a bonfire, there were always people around with a fiddle and guitars and harmonica … Everyone would gather and sing and tell stories of where they came from. We may not have had much, but we were a happy bunch. They were all good people; all they needed was a place to live, and food. We made a lot of friends on the road and we lost a lot of them a few years later when the war came.

Earl and Bertha Walsh, 2011

About the Author

This “Chapters of Life” installment draws from Montana native Bertha Walling Walsh’s 2007 memoir, “Fruit Tramps” (available at amazon.com).

In it, she recounts her family’s 1930s journey into and across California, following the harvest for a singular purpose: “If you wanted to eat, you had to work,” she says.

With family ties in the foothills, she and her husband, Henry, moved their auto parts business to Angels Camp in 1955. After his death, Bertha continued to run Williams Auto Parts – where she met her second husband, Earl – until retiring in 1998 at age 80. She later wrote her story on pieces of paper she stuck in a drawer. Her son, Kelly, put it into book form (online, visit fruittramps.com).

“You should always leave some kind of a record for your kids,” says Bertha, now 93. “We all make a story – some better, some worse.”

© 2011 Friends and Neighbors