Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A: Well I guess it was. I was still in the laboratory. Sure, I was still in the laboratory. I
did. I went down there in 1931, about this time of the year I guess. I know we were down
there at Thanksgiving. We left right after Labor Day I guess. There was another Kennedy,
a pipefitter, he wasn't related to me, and two testers out of the experimental lab, Edsel and
Hacke. And I was a tester out of the lube lab. That's the way it was. And they built
stills and went out in the oil fields. And this is kind of a coincidence that we went to Tulsa,
Oklahoma, and got to ride the Pullman from St. Louis to Tulsa, which was something. And
we picked up - they sent a chemist by the name of Vursell, and the fellow that picked
us up at Tulsa, from the Shell oilfields in Texas, his name was Kennedy.
Q: Well!
A: We had two Model A's. We went to McCamey, Texas; Iran, Texas, out in the west Texas
field, west of the Pecos. When we got down there oil was selling for two bits a barrel.
Q: Oh?
A: I'm quite sure that's true because that was at the height of the Depression. And didn't
they have a moratorium on oil that you could only - I guess they still have it - you could
only pump so many barrels a day out of this well A and well B has to be turned on then,
and . . . but it was - you've seen Judge Roy Bean of the "West of the Texas" on television,
reruns, well that's where we were.
We lived in an oil field dormitory where the roustabouts worked, slept in a big dormitory,
and it was clean and we had good food and recreation. We got to go into - oh, McCamey
and Iran were oil field towns but they had picture shows and things like dance halls if you
wanted to dance, and prohibition wasn't in then, but I didn't drink much. I imagine you
could get a hard drink if you wanted to, because there was bootleggers every place in those
days I imagine. (laughter)
Q: Yes sir.
A: And, oh, I guess there was cathouses too, but I don't remember that. I never frequent
those places myself. It was an experience because what we were doing, there was a, big
field in the Iran area and in the Pegasus area, derricks, and not all of the wells were
pumping. I guess they wanted to determine I suppose the - it seemed like in that, Oklahoma
crude was superior to Texas crude, but I believe the Oklahoma fields were drying out,
have dried out, but the Texas fields, they were adding additives to it and things like
that. We didn't do that but that's what the chemists would determine. We'd run the tests
and then they would send the information further along to determine what - I know we
were there Thanksgiving, I think we got word to come home. We were wondering whether
we'd get home Christmas. And I think that the word came through they were going to
abandon the project right around Thanksgiving. I think we either packed up and left
Thanksgiving Day or the day before or the day after. We didn't get home until sometime
around the first of December. We weren't down there too long, about two months. I mean
all of September or maybe all of October and all of September, or maybe October and Nov
- ten weeks I think, at the most, or maybe twelve weeks.
But it was an interesting experience. Of course you got to see how different people lived
you know. And I imagine if we'd have stayed we might he billionaires now, we'd have gotten
a couple of wells. I don't know whether we would have or not. But of those four guys or
the five guys that went, Edsell's dead and Kennedy's dead and Vursell is dead, and Hackc
and I are the only two living and I see Hacke occasionally. He's a man of about my
age. He's an active Republican. (chuckles)
Q: Oh is that right? Well, good.