Warren Jefferson my life on collective Farm in Tennessee

Philip met a lady named Ms. Martin in a Nashville music store. She heard about the Caravan and that they were looking to buy some land in the region. Her family owned 1,000 acres of land in Lewis County, and she offered that the Caravan could camp there until they found a place to settle. She told Philip that a local named Homer Sanders was caretaker of the property and that we should contact him to arrange a visit to the property. She said he’s an old  ‘moonshiner” and that we should bring him a bottle of whiskey when we went. Philip and I drove our bus to Lewis County and met Homer on The Martin Farm as the place became known. He was in his 60s with a lean build. We introduced ourselves and noticed right away had a speech impediment. We could hardly understand what he was saying. We learned later that Homer had mouth cancer and had a portion of his tongue removed. We did understand enough and got an idea of the lay of the land during the inspection tour.  He showed us a mead...

  It was Summer of 1968 in San Francisco, and we were parked off Hwy 1 in Big Sir. The ocean was to our west and we could just hear the waves breaking on the beach. In those days you could park there and even spend a night or two without the police telling you to move. We were sitting in Stephen’s bus with two other four marriages about to take peyote. Altogether there were 13 nervous students in the bus. Some of the women had stayed in one of the buses with the kids. Stephen took out his medicine pouch and handed me a baggie of pot and rolling papers and said, “roll us some joints.” Whenever I was with him Stephen asked me to roll joints since he visited our place on Chattanooga Street and saw that I could roll a good one.  There was a large tea pot of peyote simmering on the stove. Michael filled a big mug with tea and passed it to someone who took a swallow and passed it on. Stephen was lying propped up on pillows in his bed with one of the ladies lying next to him. Wheneve...

It was the summer of 1976 and me and another MP mechanic were on our way to Dembo’s scrap yard with a load of junk cars. We had gathered them from the surrounding area. The Farm, located in Lewis County, is one of the poorest counties in Tennessee. Almost every household had an old car rusting away in the yard.   The Motor Pool developed a scrapping operation and had an agreement with The Bank Lady that they could keep any money made from scrapping cars. The money was to be used to fund operations and buy parts to keep The Farm fleet of cars and trucks running, some hundreds of them at the time. And so, we were cruising along with 8 or 9 junk cars in our old car carrier pulled by the “Red” White tractor truck when we noticed a used truck lot with a couple semi-trucks out front. We made the decision to stop there on the way home. We were interested in semi-trucks because The Farm Band needed a bigger truck to haul their equipment, and Stephen thought a semi was what was needed....

An all-points went out over the phone system saying that there was going to be a town run to the laundromat in Mt. Pleasant the next day and to meet at the head-of-the-roads at 9:00 am. I was assigned to do the laundry run and I called Carol, the lady in charge to make sure she had gotten money from the Bank -Lady. She said she got $100.00 dollars in quarters. She thought that should be enough.  The laundry run happened each week and the Bank -Lady would go to the Bank in Summertown and get the coins needed. This was an important run with six ladies going to do the laundry for three large households, and it had to go off without a hitch. At the motor pool I checked the truck for gasoline and started it up. You never knew if a vehicle would have gas in the tank because syphoning was rampant at the motor pool. I had checked out the truck the day before to make sure the turn signals and brake lights were working and that it was running well. It was. The truck was a sweet running one-t...

It was 8 am, and I was on my way to the Bank Lady’s bus on Tower Road. It was a cold morning and had snowed a little during the night. I had stoked up the wood stove in our bus and eaten at a couple pieces of bread with sorghum, kissed my wife and left. The water wagon was at the water tower, and they were filling 5-gallon jugs for households. The lights were on in the Round House and smoke was curling up from the stove pipe as I passed.  It was early to see the bank lady, but I was hoping to get there before other people that needed money. I got there and knocked on the door. “Come in” she said. The bus was warm. She was nursing her baby, and her husband was stoking the wood stove. “Good morning, I hope I’m not too early.” “What do you need?” She was quick to ask. “I’m working on a couple midwife trucks and could use a hundred dollars to cover the parts I need.” “I got a long list of requests left from yesterday. I can only give you seventy-five dollars,” she said. “Yea I understa...