Tom Burns was Superintendent of the Clear Lake Schools from 1938 to 1955.
I always urge you listeners to get your own memories down on paper. In 1980 we recorded the special memories of Tom Bums, long time superintendent of schools in Clear Lake and I am so happy we have that story on tape because Tom passed away several years ago. As a soldier in World War I, he had special memories of that war and the signing of the armistice on November 11,1918, so it is a timely topic for this November program. And his stories and memories are as interesting now as they were when he recorded them in 1980. Let’s listen.
Where were you on Nov. 11,1918?
I was in Camp Burrow, TX just outside of the city of Fort Worth.
Was there great relief that the war was over or perhaps just a little disappointment for some that you were training that they hadn’t gotten across the ocean to France?
There was quite a mixture of both because the younger people were anxious to have the trip to France and the older ones were glad it was over.
There was an extra thing that happened that contributed a little bit to the feelings and that was the flu epidemic. Would you like to tell us a little about that and how it affected the camp?
Our camp was a rather large camp with some 50 – 60,000 men and for a period of the epidemic the base hospital as well as every tent in the camp, we all lived in tents, had one or more men in each tent down with the flu on their way to the hospital or to the cemetery. A tremendous lowering of morale of the camp at that time.
We can all appreciate that! Since you were in an army camp, your immediate celebration of the signing of the Armistice might have been a little bit different that in the rest of the country where we read of great celebrating and rejoicing; bells and fire sirens were sounded throughout the land; the Kaiser was hung in effigy and people waved flags, sang songs, kissed everybody and just generally rejoiced. What were you doing at that time?
At that time, we were very busy as an organization in organizing and training of the 100th division getting men ready to go as quick as possible to the battle lines of Europe. But when the armistice was signed, everything stopped. The whole mechanism of the camp stopped at once and we were beginning to think about going home.
How long before you were able to be mustered out of the army?
It was some months before we got out particularly for me getting out because I was reassigned to one of the stations of mustering out that 50,000 men we had on the field training. And it took us until the next spring to get that all done.
What was the situation economically in the country?
So far as we were concerned, it was very drastic. There were very few jobs and lots of people looking of jobs. Labor was more plentiful that the openings for it to reemploy.
Let’s back up a little bit and find out about Tom Bums and his life before World War I. Where were you born?
I was born in Pleasant Valley; Ringgold, Georgia.
Do you mind telling us what year?
1892, quite a little while ago.
Tell us a little about your family.
My family consisted of my mother and father, seven brothers, and one sister. The little sister, of course, came last and the job was finished as far as numbers were concerned. Not as far as we were concerned. We had a happy family and a lot of fun. They were very persistent to wait that long for a girl.
You said that you attended rural schools in the south as a youth; tell us a little about that.
Yes, I would be glad to. It happened that my father was a farmer, and in the south, farmers moved quite a little bit and with each move, it brought a new school for us boys. Quite often we might attend 2 or 3 schools in one year. The southern school area had their schools as summer schools and winter schools, in 2 different sessions. One between the planting season and cultivating season and the other between the harvesting and cultivating season. It gave me an opportunity to attend quite a number of schools before I got to high school.
Were these 1 room or 2 room schools?
Most of them were one room schools but occasionally there were 2 room schools. I remember very well a 2 room school and a particular event that happened there.
After graduation from high school you went on to attend the university at Arkadelphia, AR. After that you had several teaching assignments in rural school situations for various periods of time before entering military service in 1917. What did you do when you were mustered out of the Army in 1919?
I went back to the university to finish my last year of school. My to be wife was a student there and in the same class and we were finishing our senior year, the year after I got out of the service.
And you and Dexter Rivers then, were married as soon as you graduated from the university in 1920. What did you do then?
Immediately after graduation, and immediately after the marriage which was after graduation we moved to Iowa.
How did you happen to get up here?
Well, it just happened that Iowa was paying better salaries than the South at that time and we came to Iowa. A better deal than that, my wife was trained as a high school principal and I as a superintendent. She and I both got jobs together in one of the first consolidated schools. The movement of consolidation shocked Iowa and the whole country so rapidly about that time.
That was a really big innovation in education about this time. Many of our listeners probably attended some of those early consolidated high schools; tell us a little about being a superintendent of schools in 1920 in the small Iowa town of Larrabee.
Those who are old enough to remember will remember very well that consolidation was almost like a revolution all over the Midwest. Because most of the people who were being forced into going into the larger city schools, which were the anchor for the consolidation, didn’t want to do that so there was a great deal of rejection. We ran into it at Larabee in so much as anyone could have. It was a new experience for us because the people were all fighting among themselves and we were trying to hold them together to get that new kind of a school started. It worked out.
Now as a superintendent did you do some teaching?
I taught the scientific parts of the high school classes and another teacher taught the rest and my wife was the English and Latin teacher in the same high school.
What other places did you serve as school superintendent?
After leaving Larabee, we moved to Scranton for a short period of time, 4 years, and then to Rockwell City for a period of 10 years. And then from Rockwell City in 1938 we moved to Clear Lake.
And you’ve been in Clear Lake since that time. You’ve lived on the shores of Clear Lake practically all those years and you’ve enjoyed that. Tell us about that.
You’re in danger there! It’s not hard for me to start and never get stopped and talking about Clear Lake and our lakeshore home. Dexter and I have lived here where we could just run and jump into the water anytime and were completely sold on it so that’s a story I couldn’t finish.
MUSIC INTERLUDE BY BETTY BURNS AND HUSBAND PHIL
One of the great hobbies and one of the most rewarding satisfactions of your life has been travel. You told me such an interesting story of how travel came to be a love of your life. Would you share that with our listeners?
I’m very happy to do so because it is one of the strong things in my make up. It just happened when I was a very small boy living in the beautiful valley in Georgia. Our farm backed right up against White Oak Mountain. Just as the sun came over the mountain every morning and as a little fellow I always wished I knew what was on the other side of the mountain. I wished that as long as we lived there and I never did find out until later on. So later on we went around to the other side and found that the other side was the same as the side on which we lived. Then following that, one thing and another lead to make travel one of our great interests.
How did you actually get started traveling?
Well, we bought a little trailer, quite a little one, going to Florida. We’d go to Florida and Texas and spend a little time in the summer time. Other people went in the winter but we went in the summer when our schools were not operating. And we decided that was a good way to spend what extra time we had so we began to branch out a little. First we camped in practically every state and every local campground park in Iowa. And then we went to other places close by and to Canada and to Mexico and then it occurred to us that we should try an around the world trip. Then we did that very thing!
Tell us about the scope of your travels.
We went to Europe with the intention of spending as much time as we had and to spend with as much money as we had to spend. We bought a Volkswagen in Holland and drove to every country in Europe. We took our time because we were 10 months driving that time. We drove and saw Europe in 10 months. With 13,000 miles in the drive. So we had a good start at it then and out of that came every major country in the world except Red China. And even to Red China I have been since Dexter died. But Outer Mongolia, which is the Gobi Desert area, I spent a week on that one time. And then Korea is also a province of Red China so we’ve been nearly everywhere and we have enjoyed it every bit.
Let’s back up a bit to that interesting Volkswagen trip. You kept some interesting financial records on that trip. What did you say about that?
I say we did. Buying the car in Amsterdam, driving it the 13,000 miles and after reselling it our entire expense for that whole 10-month trip was $11.88 a day and I think that is almost a record.
That would be a little different than that would be today.
So it’s a good thing you traveled when you did, I guess. You said you traveled around the world 3 times, once by plane when your wife was alive and your daughter also accompanied you on many of your travels. That’s a lot of miles and a lot of “could be” lumpy beds, bad food and unfriendly foreigners. How about your experiences?
Nearly all those terms apply except we had very few experiences with unfriendly foreigners. There were very few indeed, even our language was always settled by a pleasant smile and a “happy I did understand you.” And we met that in almost every country; of course we were not linguists, Dexter was a pretty hand at her Spanish she had studied in college and she could convert that into other languages and help out a great deal. So that all worked out quite well and we always found friends everywhere we went. It was an easy matter to find friends.
Did you usually travel in groups or alone?
We traveled mostly alone but sometimes in groups. I think our most technical trips would be in groups.
Did you have many traffic or navigating problems? Did you get lost or did you have trouble finding your way?
Not often did we have any difficulties that way because the routes are open all over the world and there is always someone to answer in his language but he can point and you listen and see. We had very little trouble and even when we traveled alone has not been troublesome as far as being misdirected or anything of the kind.
In all those travel experiences, it would undoubtedly be hard to choose one favorite place, but what were some of your favorite spots?
That always depends on what you are enjoying most. We and I after I was traveling alone, always enjoyed scenery and I think probably the most beautiful landscape as well as green scenery would be northern Switzerland and Austria. Austria and the area that stretches down toward the Black Sea, all beautiful country. The world is beautiful anywhere you go.
What was probably your most unusual trip?
Well, a usual trip I could mention, actually, I have two, would be trips that I put together on a one year trip was unusual. I saw the “midnight sun” twice in 12 months. Once in the later part of January from the South Pole region where we crossed the south Antarctic Circle and saw it from there. Then in August of the same year I went to the ice cap at the North Pole to see the “sun at midnight” up there. I’d say the most unusual trip, that was probably it.
You also mentioned a bus trip across Russia and visiting a Russian commune. Would you like to share that experience?
That was a surprise to us. Especially to me and some of the other people who were along. We were traveling on a bus trip. There were some 30 or 40 of us and we went into one of the large commune farms to see the farm and what they were doing and how it was all directed and I asked one of the guides if she would take me to the home of the manager of the farm organization. And she did and when I went in, a little lady was so pleasant, met me with a smile, had me sit down and began visiting as best we could with all the sign language, but a little boy about 11 or 12 years old was wild about football. And he knew considerable English, in his school, he had some English. So we had a lot of visiting and that one little visit and the fact we got in was the surprising thing about it. It surprised our entire group. None of the rest was lucky to happen to ask the guide to do that for them. It was an experience for me that I enjoyed tremendously.
Another one that intrigued me was the week you spent on the Gobi Desert.
Yes that was a very intriguing week. The Gobi Desert as you know is real desert and it’s a province of North China. We went there to spend a week and our housing was in a little tent arrangement and the people we dealt with were all managers of some type of the life they had. They had their camel herds and they had herds of one kind or another. And it gave us an idea of what Red China was as well as Russia coming down because Russia controls it now but Red China originally controlled it.
You experienced much friendliness of foreign people and by staying in their homes in the “bed and board” arrangement. You had mentioned in particular, Norway.
Yes, I’d like to tell anybody about Norway and about the people of Norway because I think they are the people we love most of all. They were so easy to get along with. We might spend a night with a couple and they wouldn’t know a word of English nor we theirs but we would visit until midnight as hard as we could and just everyone trying to get his little story across and they never tire.
Another thing that intrigued us was Sweden, particularly. They have what they call “Meet the Swedes” and they have a sign up in every large city in Europe, the main large cities like London, England have what they call a “tourist bureau”. And they have everything that is convenient for the tourists help them at that place. So when we went into the office in Stockholm, there was a sign up on the holder that says, “Meet the Swedes”. So we went and found out what it was all like and the manager appointed a young lawyer and his artist wife as guides for us and they got in our car, and for 1 or 2 full days they took us all through Stockholm to see everything in Stockholm that would be interesting and then the thing that touched me most of all was the little lady said, “My mother lives half way between here and where you will go back into Belgium. And I’ll call my mother and tell her that you folks are coming by and I’ll tell her about what time you’ll be there.” So we drove the next day and sometime along in the afternoon we drove by the place she told us about and there sat the little mother and her husband sitting out on the front steps waiting for us. And that was another jewel in our little experience.
You had some great experiences. You’ve said you were always planning your next trip to “hit” the places and do the things you didn’t do “this trip”. As an experienced world traveler, do you have any special advice or suggestions you might offer to our listeners?
Well I don’t know just what advice I would want to give because I always think that if a person knows where he would like to go he will work out what he wants to do when he gets there. But one does have to make preparation for travel or he won’t enjoy it. As I say we did travel on limited funds, but we enjoyed that part of it. And if a person loves to travel they are going to make most of those things come out and back home, it’s always an easy matter if a person is willing to do it.
Now we didn’t know how we would get along in Europe with the money situation because there were changes here and there. My secretary in Clear Lake, Annabelle Morris, was the finest person that I worked with anywhere in my life so I had all my mail left in the school mailbox and she took care of all my personal letters. And any time there were any checks or any mail that she thought we should have, she would sort them out and send them by special mail to us and we would cash them and that was our money to live on most of the time.
Very good. Did you ever have any serious health problems?
No, we didn’t. We were very lucky that we never had anything that was really serious at all that would cause us to have to change our plans.
Well that’s great! Thank you so much, Tom. It’s been such fun to visit with you about many things today and we sincerely thank for not coming to share hour enthusiastic account of world travel back in a time when it was not so common to travel outside the United States on our today’s “remembering the way we were” program.