Lewis Winfield Sowards

The following is a transcript of thoughts from Cline Sowards on his grandfather from an audio tape in June of 2001

Memories of L. W. Sowards

By Cline Sowards

A few of the things that I remember about Grandpa Sowards When I was real young, apparently he took me everywhere.  Whenever he and Grandma went somewhere, I don’t know whether it was him or Grandma, but I always managed to go along.  Jean was pretty jealous of this, she always felt that he really catered to the boys and just disregarded the fact that there were girls. 

One of the things that I remember about him was that we were all gathered around one day, I don’t remember what day it was, but I remember that the financial situation in the United States was really going to pot, and Grandpa was extended out awfully far.  He had several thousand head of cattle and sheep that he had bought on margin and he had to pay for them.  He had the phone right there by the front door and he was sitting there and in that afternoon I watched him go from a pretty vigorous middle-aged man to an old man.  He’d go and call Denver for the market report about every hour and as it just kept dropping he’d just keep getting older and older and finally it got down to where cattle were 2 cents a pound and hogs were a quarter of a cent a pound, and I don’t remember what the sheep were, but he just hung up the phone and said that’s it, we’re broke.  When it all ended up, he had the house in Grandma’s name and that’s the only thing that they managed to salvage out of the whole thing.  He went from an extremely wealthy man to a pauper in an afternoon.  I know it took longer than that, but that’s when the manifestations of it were.

I remember him out, he always planted a big not just garden but a crop.  A lot of the corn he raised was for fodder crop.  I’d go out with him and we’d hoe that corn real early in the morning.  He’d walked along and he’d talk while we were hoeing.  Never a certain topic, we’d just discuss the weather, we’d discuss the Mexican situation, a little bit of everything.

When I was a little guy, Grandpa and Grandma were both pretty active in the church with the Mexican people.  They used to have cottage meetings at the house every, at least once a month, and they drew quite a group of the Mexican people that would show up.  Grandpa was pretty well ostracized for this.  There was really a class distinction in Manassa over this.  He had a thing for the Mexicans and most of the people didn’t and it really reflected on his association with the rest of the people. 

Grandpa had been pretty active in politics.  The governor, Billy Adams, and Grandpa were personal friends.  When Grandpa lost everything, Billy Adams swung some political weight, and got Grandpa a job.  His job title was “Hypographic Engineer for the Southern District.  In essence, he was really a ditch rider.  He monitored all of the head gates, he didn’t adjust them but he did monitor them and allocated the water.  During the Dust Bowl and Depression days, ‘33, ‘34, ‘35, and ‘36, water was an extremely precious commodity.  I remember going over one night, he had had a difficult time with some of the people up in the Antonito and Water District with some of the water over the Poncho Valley water situation.  I went over and Grandma wouldn’t let me sit in the living room at all.  She made me sit in the back there, and she had blankets hung up over the windows because Grandpa had had some life threats and they threatened to even get him in his home.  They were afraid that someone was sitting out there with a rifle and was going to shoot him through the window.  It was quite a situation there for a while. 

Over the water situation, Grandpa and I were in the Cumbers Café one day in Antonito having an enchilada.  He loved an enchilada and a little bag of potato chips and a bowl of chili and a couple bottles of beer, that was his idea of a feast.  But we were sitting in there, and I don’t know who he was, Hererra I think, he walked in and said “Lew, you son of a bitch” and Grandpa just stood up and grabbed his beer bottle by the neck and bounced him on the head and dropped him to the floor and then Grandpa sat down and went on eating.  It didn’t seem to bother him a bit. 

As Grandpa got older, he had to give up his job.  He lost his driver’s license and stuff, he must have been in his late 80’s.  He wanted Eve and I to move in with him up there right after Evelyn and I were married.  We talked about it and we’d gone in and cleaned up everything and when she walked in there was a big splatter of tobacco juice on the refrigerator door and she said no way.  So that ended that! 

I remember Mama done an awful lot of taking care of Grandpa.  One of his favorite things was chicken and dumplings and I remember how he’d always come in and drop his old felt hat by the door.  He always wore a suit coat and a felt hat.  He’d drop it down there and sit there and really enjoy those chicken and dumplings.  Talking about his suit coat, he always carried his chewing tobacco and his worms in the same pocket in his suit coat and he’d pull the worms out and bait his hook.  On the same token, out of the same pocket he’d pull that club of Cyclone Chewing Tobacco and bite a big chunk of it off and put it back in the same pocket with the worms.  It didn’t seem to bother him at all. 

When Grandpa died, to me, it seemed like the end of an era.  He was one of the old timers that was gone and just couldn’t be replaced.  I always think of that when he died Mama had his casket brought into our home.  She didn’t want him lying over at the mortuary.  I went in the night that he was there.  I opened the casket, she wanted to close the casket for the night rather than leave it open, so that was my last memory of Grandpa Sowards.