Great Grandfather Thomas M. Adams Stories

The Person I would Most Like To Meet Someday






Before Rachel Bagley was married, she was given a thought-provoking assignment in school: write a paper about the person you would like to meet someday. Rachel Fowler Bagley chose Thomas Marion Adams, who was born November 11, 1900. Tom Adams is Rachel’s great-grandfather. All her life, Rachel was told stories about this wonderful man whom she never met because he passed away a few years before she was born. But this much Rachel knew, he was a man of his word and was very creative in what he did to support his family.

Three stand-out memories about Tom Adams for Rachel are: the purchase of the town of Crosby, Wyoming; the purchase of the orange juice, and the time he took his two oldest children to a movie on a tractor.

The Purchase of Crosby, Wyoming
Who do you know or have you ever met who has purchased a town? Rachel’s great-grandfather Tom Adams did. This town was named for Jesse W. Crosby, Mormon pioneer. The town was started by Dad Jones, prospector and miner, who supplied Thermopolis with coal from Crosby in the early 1890's. There are no residents in Crosby. It is located south of sister ghost town Gebo on county highway 433 past Kirby, towards Lucerne. This is about 60 miles away from Lovell, Wyoming where Tom Adams lived. The coal mines closed here in 1932, so the town was put up for sale…not the land, but all the houses, outhouses and other buildings standing on it. Just seven years earlier, there were 125 kids in the Crosby school.

Today the only thing standing is a single diner. You see, Tom bought the town so he could sell those houses and outhouses. For two years, he hauled house after house as well as the outhouses back to Lovell, where he sold each one to support his family. The town had a general store with an inventory of clothing and other merchandise. His family wore the clothes from that store and gave the merchandise and some of the other clothes away as birthday and Christmas gifts.
Rachel thought this was a very creative way of supporting a family and showed how hard-working and industrious her great-grandfather was.

The Purchase of the Orange Juice
Now we are not talking about one or two cans of orange juice. That is why this story is such a big deal. One day during the time when the United States was at War. “During the Second World War, you couldn't just walk into a shop and buy as much sugar or butter or meat as you wanted, nor could you fill up your car with gasoline whenever you liked. All these things were rationed, which meant you were only allowed to buy a small amount (even if you could afford more). The government introduced rationing because certain things were in short supply during the war, and rationing was the only way to make sure everyone got their fair share. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor dramatically ended the debate over America's entrance into the war that raged around the world. As eager volunteers flooded local draft board offices ordinary citizens soon felt the impact of the war. Almost overnight the economy shifted to war production. Consumer goods now took a back seat to military production as nationwide rationing began almost immediately. In May of 1942, the U.S. Office of Price Administration (OPA) froze prices on practically all everyday goods, starting with sugar and coffee. War ration books and tokens were issued to each American family, dictating how much gasoline, tires, sugar, meat, silk, shoes, nylon and other items any one person could buy. View a listing of all rationed items. Across the country 8000 rationing boards were created to administer these restrictions. The 1943 Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog contains a list of all rationed farm equipment and tells the reasons and benefits of rationing as well as who is eligible. Even chicken wire fencing was rationed. A wartime edition of the American Woman's Cook Book contained revised recipes and gave advice on dealing with food shortages.” (http://www.ameshistoricalsociety.org/exhibits/events/rationing.htm)

Every time Tom would go to the store he would check to see if they had orange juice. They would never have it in stock or if they did, there would always be a limit of one or two cans. On this particular day, Tom walked into the store and to his delight, saw a display of orange juice cans stacked very high in the middle of the aisle. He asked the clerk how much he could buy and was told he could buy all he wanted. He had expected a one or two can limit. Well, Tom told the clerk that he would buy all he had and to his surprise ended up getting a full truck load. This cost him $500 which in those days was the price of a new car.

He took the truck load of orange juice cans home and stacked them in the basement until the basement was full. Then he had to stack a bunch of cans in his son Thomas’s bedroom, and even stored many in the bathtub because he was looking for more space to keep the juice.

You might ask what was his wife’s response to this purchase? Lucy, who is Rachel’s great-grandmother, merely said to her husband, “Oh, I see you purchased orange juice.” And that was that. That was the type of relationship they had.

Tom was a man of his word. He did not need or want all of that orange juice and so after he had told the clerk that he would take all they had, he bought all they had. The family would end up serving orange juice to anyone that set foot in their home for quite some time after that.

Going to the Movie on A Tractor
One afternoon, after working in the fields, Tom came into the house and asked his two oldest children, Thomas and Gloria, if they wanted to go into town and see a movie. Lucy was at a school function with the other three children and the family car. Thomas and Gloria were excited, but asked how they would get into town. Tom replied that they would take the tractor. In those days tractors did not have rubber tires and therefore could not go on the road. So the three of them got on the tractor and road into town in the barrel pit along side of the road. They went into the movie theatre full of excitement and energy and Tom asked the children if they wanted to eat popcorn. They said they did, so he bought the biggest tub of popcorn he could and they laughed and laughed at the movie. After the movie was over, they climbed up on the tractor and it was pitch dark outside. The tractor did not have any lights, so they drove home by the light of the moon. When they got home, Lucy asked where they had been and they replied that they had been to the movie. Knowing that they did not have a car to take, she merely responded “that’s nice.” That was the type of relationship she and Tom had. Nothing surprised her. But what a memory for Tom, and his two oldest children. They loved the outing. They were a bit surprised a month later to read in the Saturday Evening Post magazine that the movie did not get good reviews as to being very thought-provoking. They had loved the movie, but more importantly had a great memory together.

Stories Related to Rob (Reid Adams Robison) Dec 24, 2009 by Tom’s daughter Gloria Dawn Adams Robison. (Rob is her son and Tom’s oldest grandson. He has fond memories of his grandfather Adams).

Also, the story of Crosby, Wyoming was related by Grandma Robison to some of her grandchildren (Justin, Jeremy, and Jamie as well as Jeremy's wife Karenin) on Christmas Day 2009.