They say it never rains but it pours…
Just a few days before we left to meet with Samuel Hargoves, Bert Larkins typed “93rd Engineers” into Google, and found his dad’s page under 93rd Personnel on this site. His father, Bert tells us, is a healthy 96 and remembers his military experience very well.
Pvt. Leonard Larkins, started his work life in a sugar cane field in South Louisiana when he left school at age 10. When the Army came looking for him nine years later, he was happy to change jobs! The Army took him to Camp Livingston; the 93rd Engineers; and finally to the Yukon.
Pvt. Larkins served with Company A, the Company that led the regiment through its most urgent and dramatic work on the Highway in May and June, 1942.
We have information of Mr. Larkins, and we’re getting more… And he and his son have graciously invited us to visit them in New Orleans next month. So this story, like that of Samuel Hargroves, will unfold here in steps.
For now, it’s enough for us to have found another proud black man who can help us understand the way it was.
In the 1930’s Star Plantation drove an incredibly hard bargain.
Field workers worked from sun to sun, supervised by a man on horseback with a rifle.
In sweltering South Louisiana, the Plantation had to provide water. It came in a bucket with a can hung to it, and everybody drank from the can—everybody, that is, except the man on horseback.
For permission to urinate, one held up one finger. Two fingers indicated a more serious request.
Star Plantation paid in tokens, not the coin of the realm. Workers could spend the tokens at the Plantation Store.
As bad as the Army treated black soldiers, it treated Leonard better than Star Plantation had.
Leonard’s children sat down with their dad last weekend; showed him the site. That generated some comments that his son, Bert, passed on to us.
Leonard remembered riding the train over the mountain. When the train stopped, thirsty men weren’t allowed to use cups. They had to drink out of a hose.
Web site pictures of men working on the highway inspired this: “Too many men standing around. On the highway you kept moving, you didn’t stand around.” Leonard knew about work. He shared with his buddies his technique for moving a heavy log—stand it on end, squat, let it lean on a shoulder, then tip its end up off the ground and stand yourself up.
Leonard remembered miserable, unbearable cold. Cigarettes and spoons stuck to lips.
He remembered the Company Commander—Lt. Holtzapple. More important, he remembered First sergeant Sgt. Ashel Honesty, the subject of another story here on the site. “Not a nice fellow.” Apparently First Sergeants haven’t changed much in seventy-five years.
He had a cousin, Henry B. Lawson, in Company C of the 93rd.
The Plantation taught Leonard about work. The highway taught him more… On the Highway, Leonard painted the milepost signs. And he organized the tool tent—handing out hand tools to the men. He became the master of hand tools—especially the shovel.
After the war, he worked as a cook in a Louisiana Marine Hospital; worked there for thirty years. He married Anna and they raised six sons and four daughters in a two bedroom house. A large garden consumed much of their yard; helped feed the family.
Son, Bert, remembers that Dad ran the show. He tumbled his children out of bed early. Behind the house, washing up, they would wait for Anna to call them to breakfast… And then they would wait some more until Dad said they could go eat.
Children, working in the garden, asked “How far do we shovel?” Dad answered, “Don’t worry how far. Look at what’s in front of you.”