Steve Dimick — Law 'n' Stuff

(Egad, I can’t believe I posted a chapter out of order.  Can you develop dyslexia later in life or was it just another example of ADD [Adult Attention Disorder]?)

Dimicks

My brother Bill runs a still on the hill
Where he turns out a gallon or two

Bascom Lamar Lunsford and Lulu Belle Wiseman, “Mountain Dew”

1630 -1940

Nobody came to Oklahoma from the west.  Like all Oklahomans then, my father’s folks came from all over the southeast and northeast: Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Connecticut, Massachusetts.  Add Kansas to the list, but Kansas was only a place to stop and rest before moving on.

Thomas Dimick (Dimmock, Dimock) emigrated to Massachusetts from England in the late 1630’s, first residing in Dorcester and finally settling in Barnstable, where he became a founder and selectman.  He served as a judge, town officer, and, in 1650 was named Elder of the church of Barnstable.  He was also on the Plymouth Colony Council of War and a Lieutenant of Militia in 1642.  According to Dr. Alan R. Dimick, now retired from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, and the leading Dimick scholar in America, “The early history of Barnstable and Thomas Dimick cannot be separated….He was the leading man and in some way connected with all acts of the first settlers.”

Some researchers assert that Thomas was the son of Edward Dymoke of Pinchbeck, England, who was the hereditary King’s Champion at the time.  The King’s Champion, a post largely ceremonial but occasionally very influential, would ride, fully armored,  into the coronation banquet at Westminster Hall after the crowning of a new king, toss down his mailed glove and challenge anyone to deny the right of the new king to rule.

The post dates to William the Conqueror, and for the last several hundred years has been the hereditary right of the Dymokes of Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire.  The last time a Dymoke actually rode his white charger into Westminster was at the coronation ceremony of King George IV in 1821, but the post still exists and a Dymoke still holds it.  A Dymoke carried the Royal Standard in the coronation procession of Elizabeth II, and doubtless will do so for the next king following Elizabeth’s death.

According to this theory of lineage, Thomas married a Puritan before emigrating to Massachusetts.  As a Puritan, he would not want his name connected with the Champions of the titular head of the Church of England, nor would he want his family in England to suffer politically because of his religious conversion.  The Dymokes, although they managed to maintain their hereditary position, had been on shaky political ground and ever-lessening influence since the reign of Elizabeth I, which was not all that long before.  Thomas, therefore, would have severed all ties with his family, creating the lineage gap so frustrating to us amateur genealogists.

This theory may, in fact, be true, but Alan Dimick finds it more wishful thinking than actual fact.  “This line is mentioned and questioned in several sources, none of which offer references of documented vital statistics to definitely make [Thomas Dimick] a descendant of this family.”

*

The Dimick family, with its various spellings, lived in Massachusetts and Connecticut for nearly 200 years before beginning their journey westward.

The older sons were landholders and officeholders.  The younger sons didn’t fare so well, tending to leave for greener pastures and tending not to find them.  My father’s lineage was mostly from young son of younger son of youngest son.

Timothy Dimick (Dimmock/Dimmuck/Dimmick), great-grandson of Elder Thomas Dimick, married Ann Bradford, great-granddaughter of William Bradford, a Mayflower passenger and the first governor of the Massachusetts Colony.  I’m sure that qualifies me for an expensive membership in some exclusive club, but if it’s not San Francisco’s Bohemian Club or the President’s cabinet I’m probably not interested.  Fascinating, nonetheless.

(After spending a couple of years playing amateur genealogist, I discovered the family is linked to Charlemagne, William the Conqueror, Eleanor of Acquitaine, lots of English Henry’s, a few French Louis’s and most everybody else of any importance in European or Eurasian history save Vlad the Impaler.

(In my research, I discovered that Charlemagne, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire,  was my 35th, 36th, 37th, 38th, 39th, 40th, 41st, 42d, 43d, 44th, 45th and 46th great-grandfather.  I also discovered that everybody of European ancestry is descended from Charlemagne through at least half-a-dozen lines, his children and grandchildren having been so prolific.  Mathematics wouldn’t have it any other way.  The great trick is to find the links.

(And, given wars, conquests, dissolution of the English monasteries – where the birth, death and marriage records were kept until 1538 – and our ancestors’ tendencies to want to wipe the slate clean when they came to America, there are lots of missing links.)

*

Elder Thomas Dimick was my ninth great-grandfather.  As uncommon as the name is, his offspring now number in the scores of thousands all across the country.  I hardly know any of them.

(As an aside, I can’t help but be fascinated by the early Dimicks’ given names: they seem straight out of Hawthorne or Cotton Mather: Adolphus, Cordial (several of these), Thankful (a couple), Asa, Charles Cordial, Sylvanus (also several), Amasa, Miriam, Ephraim, Abner, Josiah, Simeon, Ebenezer, Shubael (a handful), Temperance, Theophilus and Mehitable (another couple.))

*

Albert (GGF), Roy (GF) and Isabel Dimick

Timothy Dimick and Ann Bradford’s great-grandson, Cordial Dimick, moved to Indiana in the early 1800’s.  Cordial’s son, Adolphus, went from Indiana to Iowa to Kansas.  Adolphus’ grandson, Roy – my grandfather – left Kansas as a teenager and headed for the new state of Oklahoma, where he hoped to make his fortune.  He never found it, but he did find Daisy Crick and my father was born when she was sixteen.  None of the extensive family records indicate a marriage date – probably with good reason.

*

Susan Lucinda Thorneberry (GGM)

Daisy was born in Tennessee and her folks also set out for the Union’s newest state.  Her mother, Susan Thornberry (or Throneberry), was three-quarters Cherokee, but her name wouldn’t appear on the official Cherokee Rolls:  she refused to sign.  She was light-skinned and wanted her children to go to the white schools.  Being a Native American was nothing to be proud of then.  Now, of course, everyone likes to brag about their Indian heritage.

Green and Susan Drake Thorneberry (Great-great grandparents)

Dwain was born in 1918, the oldest of nine, on a rented farm in Logan County, Oklahoma, just a few miles outside of Guthrie.  Not much of a farmer, Roy moved his family back and forth between little hardscrabble farms in Kansas and Oklahoma.  The other children, in order, were born in Kansas (Verna, Roy and Warren) and Oklahoma (Bonnie, Norma June and Lawrence Allen.)

Two children died young, one of diphtheria, one of whooping cough and pneumonia, and both less than six months old.

“I don’t remember Verlin, but I remember Twila dying,” says my Auntie Verna.  “Grandma and Grandpa Dimick was there for the funeral and Grandma, mom, Dwain and I were sitting in the back seat.  I had whooping cough, too, and I coughed until I vomited on Grandma’s black dress.  Oh, I just wanted to die, and she was mortified.  She didn’t have any use for grandkids, anyway, and I sure fixed my chances.

The Dimick "tribe" (with inlaws): back row: Mildred, Bonnie, Verna, Daisy, Virginia (Warren's wife); Rick (with camera); front row, center: Warren, Dwain, Dick Collins

“Anyway, Norma and Bonnie were born in Guthrie when we still lived in the same house, which was unusual for us.  I was with mom when Lawrence was born [Verna would have been 17 then], and that’s when I decided I would never get married: that was not for me!

“Of course, it was Mom’s fault they had so many kids.  Roy just couldn’t take care of that many, so she shouldn’t have gotten pregnant.

“It takes two to tango, though.  Ha!”

Roy drifted from farming into barbering, becoming, along the way – if he wasn’t, already – alcoholic and tubercular.  He lived with us for a time in the early 50’s, giving me a mild case of TB.  I was too young to remember him though, and by then Daisy was married to Dick Collins, a Chevrolet salesman in Guthrie, and had finally reached the middle class.

On one of my occasional visits to Dwain during the 60’s, he had a visitor: an elderly man still wearing a hat, twenty years out of style.

“This is your grandpa.  My dad.”

“Hi,” I said, not really having a frame of reference, and the conversation didn’t go much farther.  Damned shame.  If he was anything like his oldest son, I could have gotten him to talk about himself all afternoon.

*

Roy also made moonshine.

“I can’t remember when Dad went to barbering school, but I remember we lived in Cambridge, Kansas, when Warren was born and Dad was gone,” says Verna.  “I think he went to Leavenworth [the federal penitentiary in Kansas].

“He made whiskey and the feds came one day and they didn’t find the mash.  It was under about a foot of dirt which was in front of the hothouse where Mom started her plants.  I remember sitting there on the steps and watching them take a shovel and run it into the ground.  They did find the still out in the trees behind the house where Dad cooked it off.

“I used to have to take care of the kids while Mom helped Dad at the still.  Some life.

“Anyway, they took him with them and broke the still all over the ground.  So much for new shoes for a while.  I think he got a year or two; I really don’t remember.”

**

The Depression and then the war virtually redesigned the country.  By 1948, so much had changed in twenty years that people looked upon 1918 or 1928 as ancient history.  And it’s tempting to argue that America has reinvented itself every ten years since: television scrapping the new design for an even newer one in the 1950’s, the space race doing the same thing in the 1960’s, the Vietnam War, ditto in the 1970s and continuing through the fall of Communism, the so-called “peace dividend,” the silicone chip and the dot-com bust.

But at least one constant has remained:  people formed during the Depression and war years were never really re-made.  No matter how comfortable they might later have become, the Depression and the war remain in their souls.  This is particularly true of farmers, even more particularly true of Okies and most of all true of Okie farmers.

“Steve, I have nothing but bad memories of growing up and I don’t think anyone would want to hear it,” Verna continues.  “Like standing in line at the courthouse with a gallon pail to get soured milk?  Mom would make cheese out of it…we couldn’t drink it.

“I remember dust storms so bad you couldn’t breathe.  How much more do you want to know?”

Verna finally cools down a bit and goes on: “We never did own anything.  We rented the farm, and mom went to the field with a team of mules and worked the ground.  We lived on Grandma and Grandpa’s farm for a while when the boys were little.  I was in the third grade.  This was at Cedar Vale, Kansas, and we walked 2 ½ miles there to school.  The teacher would drive right by us and never let us ride.  Seems she couldn’t play favorites, and that’s a sorry excuse if I ever heard one.

“We went to the cotton field when we lived at Crescent and Guthrie, and Mom pulled a cottonsack, and after she would breast feed the baby she would put it on her cottonsack and let it take a nap.  I kept the kids at the wagon where they weighed up and tried to stay in the shade of the wagon.  I baked bread with everlasting yeast on a wood stove when I was nine years old.  I always had to have the meal ready when they got ready to eat, noon or night.

“I think we lived in Crescent when Roy went to barber school and Mom learned from him how to barber, then we wound up in Guthrie later where he rented a small building and put in his own shop.  Haircuts were 15 cents.  No one ever got a shave.

“Then he went up to a quarter after a long time and we nearly starved to death – everyone just put off getting a haircut.  Bread was a nickel a loaf and I had to go to the store every day, barefooted, to get a loaf of bread.  I can still remember how hot the dirt and rocks were on my feet.  Why didn’t Dwain ever have to go?  Beats the hell out of me.

“Oh, and one more thing: Dad made whiskey and bootlegged the whole time he barbered, and was always drinking.

“We lived in the back of the barber shop when he had his shop across the street west of the post office, and we couldn’t make any noise or Dad would come to the door and tell us to cut it out.  We usually tried to play in the alley, or go about three doors on west behind the mission and play.  Before that, we lived on the west side.  The house has been torn down, thank God for small favors!  I don’t have to look at it when I go up there.  I don’t like the town; never did and never will.  I’ll hush now.”

I can get Verna to open up if I only ask her a few questions at a time and not bother her again for a week or so.

“I know that Grandma Crick graduated from college in Tennessee.  What year, I don’t know, but it’s good to know someone in the family got to go to school.  My dad thought I didn’t need an education; I would just get married and it wasn’t necessary.  I told him I wanted him to buy my books so I could go to high school, but he wouldn’t do it.  I had gone all the way through school so far sitting with someone and sharing their books, and I had had enough of that.  So no high school for me.

“I wish now I had kept going.”

*

Dimick Boys: Waren, Gene, Dwain, Lawrence

Girls weren’t important, but if Roy had had anything to give, the boys would have gotten whatever they wanted.  Since, as Verna says, “we never owned anything,” all Roy could really give them was fantasy.  If I had only been one week earlier at that oil patch, we’d be rich today.  I was just starting to bust through on that rented farm when the drought come.  I was all set to be foreman of that crew, but this other old boy told some stories to the owner, and I got fired.  I told them how they could increase the yield by half, but they wouldn’t listen to me, so I quit.

These refrains are the leitmotifs of the Midwest:

1.  I could have, but luck was against me.

2.  I could have, but outside forces intervened.

3.  I could have, but there was a conspiracy against me.

4.  I could have, but decided not to, based on principle.

I grew up with these stories and this attitude, coming at me from all directions.  All of Dwain’s friends “coulda” made it big but for someone else’s doing.  My school friends all had stories about how their fathers “coulda,” – but for.  Put them all together and you begin to think, “Damn.  If it weren’t for a little bit of bad luck, a conspiracy or their high moral values, everyone in the state of Oklahoma would be filthy rich.”

And that’s pert’-near exactly what they believe.

*

What Roy was able to give to his boys, and particularly to his oldest son, Dwain, was the lesson that they were talented (as Roy believed he was talented, with no evidence at all to back up this claim) and could do anything they set their minds to (as Roy coulda), provided, of course, that factors 1 through 4 didn’t intervene.

Failure was, therefore, not only an option, but was more or less to be expected, although failure would never be their fault.

And two more things: women are only for cooking and sex, and children are only for helping you in the field or reflecting glory on you.

*

Roy was evidently a role model for Dwain as Dwain was for me.  Was Albert the same for Roy?  Or Adolphus the same for Albert?  And what about Elder Thomas Dimick?  Did he beat his animals?  Beat his wife?  Beat his children?  Or does poverty and the prairie do that to a man?

*

“I could take those mules and make ‘em put up with the harness,” Dwain said.  “I’d cut a branch and get a piece of line and by the end of the afternoon, they’d be pulling that plow just as pretty as anything…I mean straight rows.  Not even my dad could work those mules the way I could.  You just have to show ‘em who’s boss.

“One day I come home and saw my dad drunk and slapping my ma.  I grabbed a two-by out of the barn and said, ‘You son of a bitch.  If you ever hit her again, I’ll kill you.’  I don’t think he ever did.”

Dwain failed to learn from experience – or maybe he learned all too well.

*

Around age 18, Dwain’s life-long fondness for pussy first got him in trouble.  His first child, Dwain Lee Dimick, Jr., was born in 1937.  Dwain was 19.  Before the war broke out, he was divorced.