It’s only taken me 60 years to write about how they met. It was in 1937 or ’38. He was 22 and making $10 a week working as a delivery boy for a grocery store. His rural route took him right by her house.
She was 15 and just out of high school. As strange as it may sound nowadays, his job was to drive through the country and barter with local farmers – swap them things they needed for eggs, chickens, and fresh vegetables so he could take them back and sell them at the grocery store.
She was raised in an area of North Louisiana called The Pint. I believed they called it that because it was near a “point” where the Bayous D’Arbonne and Middle Fork ran together. The term probably got just a little countrified over time. It was an area of the country where you couldn’t swing a dead cat and not hit someone called Colvin. She was a Pint Colvin.
She used to tell me that there were three sets of Colvins: The non-church going (drankin’) Colvins, the church going ones (some who would only drink in moderation, and always behind closed doors, and lastly the Colvins “who didn’t take nothin’ off nobody.” She liked to think we belong mostly to the latter and consequently, if you ever saw her coming when her Scotch-Irish temper was up, you’d best clear the road.
The day they met she was wearing a pair of overalls and swinging an empty gallon kerosene container. It had a potato crammed on the spout to keep its contents from sloshing out. The kerosene was needed to fuel their stove and the lamps around her house. The boy coming from the grocery store had a tank of kerosene and a pump to fill her can. Back then a gallon of kerosene cost about 15 cents.
Just like the pretty young girl awaiting his arrival, the truck he drove must have been a sight to behold. It had a chicken coop on the roof to hold the chickens picked up on his route.
They met and chatted long enough for him to find out she had a steady boyfriend. It didn’t stop him from coming back around. Because he was seven years older, her parents thought he was too old for her and made them stop seeing each other.
He never left her mind though and one day he received a letter asking him to stop back by. They courted for a couple more years and were married at a preacher’s house in Arcadia. They brought along a few friends to act as witnesses. Their first daughter Phyllis Jean was born two years after they were married. During World War II he was drafted at age 28 and sent to serve in the Philippines. While he was away, their first son, James Thomas, Jr. , Jimmy, was born and named after his father.
Once the war was over, she was still at home with no husband and living with two young kids on a small monthly government stipend. She saw other husbands coming home. She decided to write a letter to the U.S. Army inquiring why a husband with two children wasn’t home yet. The letter she wrote helped him get out of the army and back home with his family.
They added two more sons to round out a family of four. Benjamin Kimble was followed by David Randall in 1956. That’s me, Randy, Laura Nell and James Thomas “Jake” Rogers’ baby boy.
And that’s how Mama and Daddy met. Daddy said he had to work overtime to beat that boyfriend’s time. I’m glad he did. Mama’s not with us anymore, neither is Daddy or Jimmy. But that makes it all the more special to have the opportunity to tell their love story.
Randy Rogers was raised in Dubach and now lives in Minden, LA.