Earl was married at age nineteen to Inez
Ruby Baker who was sixteen on April 27, 1915. Inez was born on
August 27, 1898 in Kansas City. Her parents were Charles Franklin
Baker and Minnie May Laurine.
The
family appeared in the 1930 census in
Chariton, Lucas County, Iowa.
Earl was 34 and working as a
railroad switchman with the Burlington Railroad. His son, Richard wrote
my
father seemed to do quite well and with such a strong wife beside him
would have been quite prosperous if the depression hadn't hit him.He was the last to be laid off of
the train crews at the Burlington (CB&Q) railroad in
Chariton
which
gave him a little work whenever the regular men took a day off.. . . With the income from the two
cows and the fruit and vegetables we raised we did just fine. Most of the other children's
fathers were on welfare or on the WPA and I felt like a rich kid. The fourth grade teacher asked the
class how many had breakfast that morning and I was among about five to
eight of the pupils, out of thirty, who had a hearty
breakfast.
. . . [Earl] seemed to have an intricate knowledge of what made a healthy happy
cow. For instance he knew that cottonseed would make their coats
shine, but that cottonseed lacked certain vitamins and unless you
supplemented it the cows would go blind. This was at a time when
vitamins were just starting to be recognized. He had steel lined bins
(to keep rodents away) with compartments of different grains to make a
cocktail for the cows. You put a coffee can full of this grain and a
half a coffee can of that grain, etc. The cows would go crazy over
their dessert. Although he didn't have much money to invest,
his milking shed had good stanchions to keep the cows in place and a good
wooden floor above concrete so that their feet would stay healthy and that
they would be dry and comfortable at all times. Our cows
produced a cream level that went far below the center of the bottle and
all the rich women in
Chariton
let the grocer know
that they would only use our milk because the quality exceeded any
other. Of course today we wouldn't be able to sell hand bottled
whole unpasteurized milk. But it got us through the
depression. As a young one, I often wondered where he learned his
expertise."
In the 1830s settlers began arriving in Iowafrom Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, Kentucky, and Virginia. Iowa became a state in 1846.
The Great Depression was world wide and originated in the U.S. with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929. Income, revenue, profits, prices, and trade plunged.. Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 25%. The negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the end of World War II.
Richard Fox also wrote
Isabelle
gave my father the vacant lot next door to build a house and my mother who
was very frugal saved up enough money in a year or so to pay cash for the
lumber to build a one bedroom, four room house. My father hired an
old retired carpenter and the two of them built the house. At the
rear of that lot was where all this [from John's horses] fertilizer had
been deposited for some years and that rich soil grew huge vegetables to
get us through the depression. In addition we had apple trees,
cherry trees, pear trees, concord grapes, currant bushes, gooseberry
bushes, black raspberry patch and more. We had little money, but we
ate and lived better than a lot of the wealthy people. When I got
old enough to date and got invited to dinner I couldn't believe the junk
some of those people ate."
Earl died of a heart attack in February, 1947 in Ottumwa, Iowa.
He is buried in
Salem
Cemetery
with his father John
Fox. Inez died on January 19, 1893 in Santa Clara,
California.
Earl Fox is Taken by Death
Earl
Fox died suddenly Friday of a heart attack at his home,
821 Jay
Street, Ottumwa. Fox
was a former resident of Chariton employed as a switchman with the
Burlington
railroad being transferred
to
Ottumwa
a few years
ago.
He
is survived by his widow, Inez, and one son, Richard Earl, of
Phoenix,
Ariz.
Funeral
services were held at the Lester Jay funeral home at
Ottumwa
Monday at 11:00 a.m. Burial was made in
Salem
cemetery southeast of Chariton.
