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Recently, while researching the life of Ms. Rose Brooks, local icon and spirited community leader.
I learned three of her brothers, as young men, went as migrant workers on the cotton harvest. I was excited because for years I have interviewed and recorded the rich experiences of migrant cotton pickers who traveled from the San Marcos area to south and west Texas to pull cotton bolls.
I knew it was an important story because it was their hands and backs that made it possible for farmers to grow King Cotton and to prosper. It was hard work, a lament I hear repeatedly from folks I interviewed.
“My grandkids have absolutely no idea of what it was like to pull bolls in west Texas," they'll say. "It was something else.”
Brooks’ oldest brother, Wilbert Kirk Jr., will be 92 in March. He lives in San Marcos on Gravel Street and was willing to share memories of his journey.
Born in the Redwood community, he remembers riding in a mule-drawn wagon to San Marcos and being 9 years old before he started school.
Seeking adventure and financial opportunity, he traveled with Joe Alejandro’s family, a “troquero” who owned two bob-tailed trucks, to hoe and pull cotton across Texas.
“I picked up Spanish and had excellent rapport with Mr. Alejandro,” Kirk said.
An interesting detail I learned from Kirk was that because they followed the cotton harvest from south Texas (Taft) to west Texas (Munday, Paducah and Rule), they were required to disinfect the cotton sacks to kill boll weevil and other insects to prevent the spread of cotton disease.
“My younger brothers Roy and Earl accompanied me. I vividly remember sleeping in a storm cellar on the Pete Eaton farm near Rule," Kirk said. "We did our own cooking. Meals consisted of eggs, beans, sweet potatoes, peanut butter and sardines. On occasion, when we killed rattlesnakes in the cotton fields, we cooked and ate the meat.
"I was an intense worker and could pull 1,000 pounds of loose cotton bolls in a day for $2 per 100 pound weight," Kirk said. "On the weekends, while others spent time in town, my brothers and I doubled up on work — I worked at the local cotton gin operating the suction pipe, and both my brothers shined shoes. I personally could amass $500-600 by the end of the harvest, plus my earnings at the gin.
"I stopped following the migrant harvest life and with my parents’ permission. I married young at age 17 to Miss Kathryn Love and we moved to Del Rio," Kirk said. "I worked there for 10 years for Brown and Root and Dean Word. I learned construction, mainly roads — doing curbing and asphalt surfacing.
Upon returning to San Marcos, Kirk established an independent business, Kirk Paving, and did quite well over the ensuing years.
Sandra Kirk, his daughter, remembered that her father had a contract with Aquarena Springs Amusement Park to provide piglets that were trained and became known as "Ralph." There were exact specifications about what the pigs looked like for their underwater amusement show.
His life verse is Psalm 23.
Wilbert Kirk Jr. is a member of Jackson Chapel (UMC). When I look into this man’s eyes, I see a powerful, kind and engaging spirit. He has had a memorable journey.
