Howard Herron Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Howard Herron 5 6
Q: Can I ask you if you remember a couple of fellows in town by the name
of James and Spurlock? Do you remember anything connected with them?
A: Well, right where the Senior Citizens Building is now, James used to
keep books for Latham Motor Company when I was there selling cars. And
so they got in business together, Spurlock and James. They were putting
in this water works then and Louis Riehle, drove up to get some gas.
James had it all planned, they had a new Ford in their showroom and James
was going to get that Ford and take off and leave town and take all the
money. Spurlock was there and he was sitting waiting for him in the car.
He had a little revolver. Inside the toilet up over head was a rack and
they just put a shotgun up there. James acted like he was going to the
toilet and he saw that rifle up there on the wall and he reached up and
got that shotgun and he came out and he shot Spurlock and killed him. He
just picked him up and threw him over behind some oil drums. Spurlock
was a little fellow and James, a big fellow. Then James saw Louis Riehle
out there with his truck waiting for him and to come and serve him gas.
And he (Riehle) heard the shots and he (James) knew he was caught, but he
just took that shotgun and that brake rod and just put it on his chest
right here and took this brake rod and pushed on the trigger and just
killed himself right then. Just that quick too. He killed James and
then killed himself. A lot of weird things happened at Auburn, any other
town. Every town is a Peyton Place, did you know that?
Q: Did you ever remember an Elmer Morris?
A: Yes, he was a good carpenter.
Q: Do you remember that day that he was struck by a train and killed?
A: No, I lived in Springfield then but I knew Elmer Morris real well and
he was a good friend of mine. He lived out here on the farm then, but he
worked at the mine. His son was a good carpenter later on. His son was
in school when that happened,
Q: Do you remember back in 1932 when more than four-hundred miners from
Auburn made a trip to Taylorville to oppose the $5.00 wage law that
Taylorville miners had to work under?
A: No, that was, you got the town wrong. They went to southern
Illinois. That was a form of what they called a PWA. It was pulling
away from the United Mine Workers. They went down there in trucks and to
stop the non-union fellows from working. They got a section down there
they wasn't looking for and they had to run all through the corn fields
and they took their trucks and everything else and finally they,
Progressive Mine Workers of America, that's was what it was. They was
forming, it wasn't Taylorville, it was southern Illinois.
Q: But there was quite a lot of miners that banded together and went
down there, is that correct?
A: Yes, yes. There wasn't over one-hundred fifty or two-hundred of them
at the most. Now that happened when we were in California.