Transcript

Location: 313 Caledonia Street

Jeffery Hotson: My name is a Jeffery Wayne Hotson. My paternal grandparents that lived 313 Caledonia Street. I remember as a kid staying with my grandparents and walking in the neighborhoods, you would see some strange chalk marks on the sidewalk out in front of my grandparent’s house there. And the weather would come and, you know, wash it away, and so it disappeared. And sometime later, you would see a new one, so it was much more common. And I would ask my grandmother about them as we walked around, and she said well, those are signs, messages to other hobos. And ah it’s a code and it means this house or this place they will give you a glass of water,  something to eat if you need. Don’t go to that house because they’re not friendly. And so I asked her so did that apply here to your house and she says oh yes. Hobos would come to the back door, and we would give them whatever we had at the time, even during the depression. We may not have much, but there’d be a hunk of bread or and some cheese or, um, a glass of water. And if they wanted to help out a little bit, whatever you know. And we always tried because they just had bad luck, and we could have been there except, you know, for better luck. My grandmother was, I mainly talked to her, and she was very kind. There was that notion of kindness, so when there was a hobo that was down on his luck, be kind to him.