My Mother and sister at home got a good job at the ammunition depot in Texarkana, Texas. We were really in the money then. In a short time we were able to give the forty acre home place back to the man who owned it. We found twenty acres up the road, about four miles toward Fouke. Mother hired some help and they soon had a house built on it.
I liked California and I knew I could be more help to them there, so I kept working. I was going to school at night and working in the daytime.
My being extra small turned out to my advantage, for once in my life. They needed welders badly In the bow of the submarine the welder had to be extra small to get in the tight places. The welding had to be done by experts. I was selected for the job because I was very small. At that time, my weight was 94 or 95 pounds. I received special training eight hours a day for months. I was still being paid like I was working. Before I was sixteen years old I was among the best in the welding field. Despite this, my mind never left Sulphur River and the bottom land for very long at a time.
I got loose from my work when I could and carne back to enjoy the outdoors.
During my welding job at the shipyard and my time in the Merchant Marines, I was also engaged in boxing.
For four years or so, I fought amateur fights only I fought in most all the tournaments on the West Coast.
Smokey Crabtree during his boxing career, 18 years old.
I loved to fight, even as a small boy In California I had a chance to take training from the best. I took the training serious and did real well. I won most all my fights.
After about four years of amateur fights, I was told by the Athletic Commission that I couldn't fight amateur anymore. They said I would be taking advantage of the inexperienced fighters in the amateur tournaments.
I was forced to turn professional or get out of the business. Here came all the cheap and phony managers. They were waiting for this, they came by the dozens.
They didn't want to spend four years of hard work training a fighter It was easier to steal one that someone else had trained.
They would ask me out to dinner, as a rule. Then their line was, "I have been watching you for the last four years. You have got what it takes. I can get you in the big money faster than anyone in the business." They would offer me a deal. I would ask for a few days to think about it. During the time I was thinking it over, another one would approach me.
He would say, "I have seen you around in public with the crookedest manager in the business."
He would call the name of a manager that was waiting for me to sign a contract. He would show me a clipping from the newspaper where some boy had suffered brain damage in a fight. He would tell me that man was his manager. He was so money hungry that he matched him with someone out of the boy's class and got him hurt. Stay away from him or you will be in the same shape.
Then the next day, here came another one. He showed me all the nasty things the good one had done.
It was plain for me to see that I was the boy that would get hurt, so some guy in a pin stripe suit could get by without working for a living.
As long as it was for fun and a contest of skill and wits, I enjoyed it. The professional part involved things that I didn't care for.
I have fought several times since, but only for the benefit of others. I usually fought to raise money for crippled children or charity.
I would fight a man just to accommodate him quicker than I would over a misunderstanding.
Smokey Crabtree during his Merchant Marine career,
19 years old.
Smokey Crabtree at 20 years of age.
When I was eighteen, the government needed men in the service and was drafting them off their jobs. I volunteered and went into the Merchant Marines.
I traveled all over the world during the next two years, meeting strange people, good and bad. I observed very closely, learned well, and remembered for a long time. Two years of this and I was well educated in what the world was like and I wanted no part of traveling around.
The war ended about that time and I went back to my welding profession in California.
I soon met a very, very special girl. Her name was June McCloud. She was still in high school and only fifteen years old. She was very smart and looked a lot older than she was. She was living with her parents in Alameda, California. but they were from Oklahoma. She had lived most of per life in the country as I had. I got to know her folks and they were a fine family.
Our wedding picture, Smokey Crabtree and wife June, taken in Reno, Nevada, five minutes after we bought the marriage license.
They were like me, they had come from the poor side of the tracks but inside they were the finest.
I only got to take June to the movie a couple of times a week. Her Mother said that she was too young to date steady. This went on for several months.
I asked her to be my wife and she was willing, but there was her parents. We talked it over and we knew for sure her Mother would never consent to the marriage. We figured if she found out we. were serious about each other, she would stop us from seeing each other
We slipped off to Reno, Nevada and got married. You did not have to be of age. There we were wearing twin sweaters and blue jeans when we were married. Her Mother was very upset for awhile but soon got over it. Our plans were to save money and move back to Arkansas so our children could be raised in the country, away from the big city In the country people lived more or less off the land, instead of each other.
I wanted to protect my children from the queers, dope fiends, and crooks that had the big towns infested.
My idea on this was to go someplace in the woods. Odd people are allergic to work and in the country you usually have to work for what you need rather than kill or rob your neighbor. I very well knew where this place was, Fouke, Arkansas.
We got our family started sooner than we planned. We were married only three months when June became pregnant. We were very happy about this, but we started worrying right away about the doctor and hospital bills.
Within four months we had saved up one hundred dollars. We wanted the money to be in safe keeping. I went to the Post Office to deposit the money in postal savings. When I came back, I was carrying a .20 gauge automatic shotgun. It was a beauty, a Model II Remington, the finest gun I had ever seen, and I owned it.
June was very upset for awhile, until she saw how I felt about the gun.
I said, "Honey, they quit making these guns during the war This is the first gun like this I have seen on the market since I've been big enough to work for money It cost me one hun fred one dollars and fifty cents."
It was a dream come true.
I told her, "When we go back to Arkansas, this gun will help feed us and I will work twice as hard now that I am broke."
She soon forgave me. During the next few years, we lived upstairs, downstairs, and beside every nationality in the world, some good and some bad.
Families were all crammed together like fish in a can. Neighbors were fighting over the oddest things.
I saw