WILLIAM REUBEN WHITE’S ACCOUNT OF GOING TO ARUBA

FROM HIS BOOK

“THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A WANDERER”

 by

William Reuben White

I have taken the liberty of using a section of Mr. White’s book where he describes being hired to go to Aruba and what it was like in the early days of Lago.  I am sure his account is very much like that of many of the men who went to Aruba in the late ‘20’s and early ‘30’s.  They were all happy to have a job, the money was good and most of them really did not know where they were going.  They were just happy they were going someplace to work.

Dan Jensen

“Early in 1929 I thought I could see troubled times ahead for the company which was employing me.  The price of oil was going down and we were laying off men.  I began writing more letters to other companies looking for a job, and especially one in South America.  It was early in 1930 before an offer came.  It was a job on the island of Aruba, just off the coast of Venezuela.  I was quick to accept that offer, even though I couldn’t find Aruba on any map.  When I did finally find it, it was spelled Oruba.  I also found a man in Borger, OK who had been to Aruba.  He predicted that I would not stay my contract down there, which was for 18 months.  He said virtually no one completed a contract, that Aruba was an awful place, a desert island where living conditions were terrible, where there was nothing to do but work, eat (poor food), sleep, and go back to work.  What he told me did dampen my spirits a little, but it didn’t change my mind.  It was South America and that was what I wanted.  First, however, I had to get to New York and that took money.  It was made clear to me that getting myself to New York was my problem.  Once there the company would put me on an expense account, but not before.  I had at that time a nearly new model A Ford car.  It was, I thought, the best car built and I set out to sell it.  I don’t remember what I got for my equity in that car but I know it wasn’t too much.  The cash, I believed, would get me to New York.  I had never been east of the Mississippi and I decided I would do the trip up brown.  I would fly part of the way.  Air transportation was quite new at the time.  It was just two years after Lindberg had flown the Atlantic.  No one that I knew had traveled by air, but I found that I could fly from Wichita Falls to St. Louis and catch the New York Central from there to New York.  I bought the ticket and got myself to Wichita Falls.  I had only a small amount of money left but I would make it do.

Before leaving Borger, I had to get a passport and no one that I knew had ever been out of the U.S.A.  But after a time, I was advised that a trip to Amarillo to see a federal judge would get the ball rolling so I went to see the judge.  He produced the form which I must complete but said that I must get a sworn statement from a dignitary such as a sheriff to say I was not a wanted man.  “People leave the U.S. to escape punishment for a crime,” he said, so I returned to Borger and to the office of the Sheriff.  I explained to him what I wanted and said, “I guess this statement should say that I’m not one of them.” I pointed to the posters which virtually covered his walls.  “Wanted for murder, in Pecos, wanted for bank robbery in Amarillo"---and so forth.  He ran a sheet of paper into his typewriter and with two fingers pecked it out.  “This is what you want”? He handed it to me.  I was somewhat amused when I read it.  “To whom it may concern: This is to certify that William Reuben White is not wanted in Hutchinson County, and no other place that we know of.”  However, it said what had to be said, and it did get me my passport.

I flew from Wichita Falls on an old Ford Tri-motor.  It was not air-conditioned and the cabin was not pressurized.  I don’t think we flew over 5,000 feet and over Oklahoma the air was thick with the smoke of burning forest fires.  This caused the plane to roll and buck and I developed a splitting earache so that flight wasn’t much fun.  But we did get to St. Louis where I made the connection with the New York Central and eventually arrived at the Grand Central Terminal in New York.

New York to me was another world.  The Terminal seemed to hold a city within it and the tall buildings I was sure ended in heaven.  The city was a wonder to me and I guess I was a wonder to the city.  Somehow they knew immediately that I was from another world.  Approaching Times Square an individual walked close beside me and offered me a “gold” watch for $1.00.  I don’t remember getting near the Brooklyn Bridge or I’m sure I would have been offered that.  But I fell to no shams (probably because I had been warned about them.)

It was at the office of Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company at 122 East 42^nd Street that I met Charley Wynne, a character like no other.  Charley was a steam hammer operator from Tulsa.  He was 50 years old, dressed in corduroys and, even to me, he looked like a hick.  He accompanied me to the cashier’s window where we both were to draw our expense money.  His voucher was pushed toward him for his signature and when the cashier turned away he very quickly asked me if I would sign it.  It was then I realized Charley couldn’t read nor write.  He could and did “draw” his name in a very abbreviated fashion and it did get his money, but he was now attached to me.  He was big, he was rough, and he was ready, so long as someone told him where and when.  I was that someone.  On the trip to the doctor’s office where we went for an examination, Charley got lost at (I think) the 114th Street subway station.  I found him there almost an hour later still wandering around looking for me.  Finding him wasn’t hard.  He stood out like a lighthouse in a fog.  After that I didn’t let him out of my sight, and he clung to me like a leech.  As long as he understood the situation, he wasn’t afraid of man, dog, or devil and he was quick to let the world know that.  Somehow I felt a little more secure with Charley by my side and together we saw New York.  I haven’t been to New York in recent years but when last I saw it---well, there’s no place like it.  I hope it hasn’t changed too much.

Brooklyn Bridge and rode the Staten Island Ferry.  We saw the libraries and the pawn shops.  During this time Charley told me about himself.  He had lied about his age to get to Aruba.  The company didn’t hire anyone over 50 and he was over 50.  He was going to Aruba to stay for three years and to save enough money to buy a chicken farm near Tulsa.  He asked me if I would be good enough to read to him his letters from his wife and then answer them.  Without knowing what a chore this would become, I, of course, said yes.

We saw the strip tease shows, the under-cover beer joints (it was during prohibition). After four days in New York, we were called to the office and given tickets to Providence to board the “F. H. Wicket” to Aruba.  I felt like I was a world traveler now, with my own body guard.  The trip down took 8 days.  We lay idle one day at sea making engine repairs.  We were taken by one scam.  I think it was the third day out that the captain told us we would pass a mail buoy the following day and he would mail any letters we might wish.  I hurried to write letters to Betty, the boys in Borger, and to my dad.  The voyage was nearly over when I learned that the letters would be taken back on shipboard and mailed in New York.  I remember at one point I asked the captain how far we were from land.  When he said about one mile I asked him in what direction and he said: “straight down.”  Charley and I were the only passengers and we were both seasick the second day out but when this passed we had tremendous appetites.  It was a good voyage and on the 8^th day we saw the outline of Aruba.  What a welcome sight!  By three in the afternoon we were tied to the dock and going ashore.  I didn’t know then that I would be there for 31 years, during which time both the island and I would change very substantially

When we arrived in Aruba that first day, the ship steamed around the high rocky cliff at the southeastern end of the island and as we proceeded to the western or protected side and entered the harbor I began to get a picture of what the place was like.   During that day and the next few days I was to learn that our company held a lease on a concession at the southern end of the island and that the concession was cut off from the rest of the island by a chain link fence.  One entered through a well-patrolled gate only if wearing a badge issued by the company.  Inside the concession there were the refinery, offices, hospital, bachelors’ quarters and a few company houses which were then constructed.  There were also the dining hall, the “sheep sheds” where the newly arrived employees lived temporarily, a one-room school for the children of the few families living in the completed houses, and a few other non-descript buildings.  There was also a company gate near the ocean, at the harbor entrance and the foot of the refinery.  Locally employed personnel entered through this gate.  It, of course, was also closely patrolled.  Just outside that gate lay the village of San Nicholaas.  In those early days San Nicholaas was a hell-hole of saloons, bawdy houses and the like where you could lose your life, or an eye, a nose or an ear.  It was alive and crawling day and night with seaman from the ships in the harbor and those who would prey on them.  Later it was cleaned up and many ordinary shops opened there where it was safe to shop, particularly during the day.  But the “village” as we called it remains to this day an unattractive town.

I learned, too, that the refinery was employing some 4000 local employees and about 400 foreign staff personnel; these numbers were growing as the refinery grew.  High on the rocky point and inside our concession, stood the South Point Lighthouse.  It was obvious that all these things were changing as everything grew.  The 500 or so foreign staff people inside the concession formed the “colony” and it was known by that name for perhaps 20 years, until the word “colony” became a dirty word politically.  But in many respects we remained a colony.

I now began to find that there were a number of things to do in the colony.  I got out my tennis racket and joined the gang on the tennis courts where there was plenty of play.  I also found swimming beaches at the little lagoon where swimming was great and where on weekends I got a sunburn in a hurry.  So, life moved on and at the end of six months I got a room in the most recently completed bachelor’s quarters, said goodbye to Charley Wynne and moved out of the “sheep sheds”.  I shared a room not much larger than the one at the sheep sheds, with two other men but we had lavatories in the room, and a bathroom which we shared with the three men in the adjacent room.  Life had improved, and I looked forward to even other improvements.  A clubhouse was being built and the 400 or so young men in the colony were forming baseball teams.  Soon there was a baseball league and the competition was furious.  Just a little later when the clubhouse was finished a basketball court was available, teams were formed from the various departments and soon we had a basketball league.

However, before the play there came the work and work it was.  Five and one-half days per week plus plenty of overtime kept me tied down so that at first I hardly had time to go to the commissary to buy white clothing.  White clothing was the uniform of the tropics then.  I was not getting paid for the overtime but my supervisor seemed highly pleased with my work.  I could and did make that typewriter sing and the money seemed to pile up, since I had no time to spend it.  Under the terms of my contract $75.00 was deducted from my pay each month for the first three months to guarantee that I would fulfill my contract.  Should I resign before the year was up the $225.00 would be used to get me back to the States.  The food at the dining hall, (we called it the mess hall) seemed good to me and my cot in the sheep sheds seemed comfortable.

Now there  was time for me to begin to see what this island was like.   Don Heebren, my supervisor, suggested that we go on a hike to see some of the back country.  That was some hike.  We took with us only two quarts of water.  We thought we would find one  of the water holes which the local people used.  Don’t they have to have water?  Apparently they didn’t; the only water hole we found was about eight feet down with the most filthy, stagnated water this side of the New York City sewers and just a taste told me it was salty.  We ate our sandwiches under a scrub Divi Divi tree which barely diluted the tropical sun.  Our wandering that day must have covered  ten miles along the windward side of the island where we saw almost nothing except sand and coral rocks, together with herds of the poorest, scrawniest goats in the world.  We also saw a few scraggly palm trees and the wrecks of small concrete houses which someone had hoped to make into homes but failed.  The palm trees bore no coconuts and we gradually dried out until about two o’clock when we reentered the gate of our colony concession beating our way to the nearest water cooler.  I have never tasted water better than that and after a cooling shower I was on my cot until five o’clock.  I took no more long hikes on Aruba.

By now I knew the island was about 5 miles wide at the widest point, that it was about 13 miles to the capital city of Oranjestad, and Oranjestad had a population of perhaps six thousand souls, and that there were almost no Negroes on the Island.  I also learned the local people were a mixture of native Indian, with traces of Dutch, Portuguese, French, Spanish and some English in their blood.  They were intelligent, and fiercely independent.  The capital of Oranjestad held business men and professional men but it also held smugglers.  Nearby Venezuela had exalted prices because of the high duty on anything legally imported.  Venezuela was a wealthy country; it was oil rich and proud.  Under the rule of old Juan Vincente Gomez, the “Tyrant of the Andes”, they maintained a strong and well equipped armed force and the arm of the tyrant reached out to cover the entire country.  Some of Aruba’s wealthy and highly respected families made their fortunes smuggling into Venezuela.”

“Time marches on.  The first year saw many things happen; my supervisor got promoted and I was chosen to replace him, but I didn’t get the salary.  The comptroller called me into his office to say that the operation on Aruba might be coming to an end.  Our refined products, mostly fuel oil, could no longer be shipped to the States because of a new law.  This was our entire market; if we couldn’t ship there we couldn’t ship anywhere.  We were owned by Standard Oil of Indiana and the Indiana Company’s customers were all in the U.S.A.  Before I became awake we were suddenly laying off men who were on tankers coming down to Aruba.  We would meet them at the boat, pay them off and send them right back on the same ship.  Then came word that we must all take a 10% cut.  From the bottom to the top every man jack must take it or get on the ships.  It was 1930, the bottom of the depression in the U.S.A., so we all took the cut.  Then, out of the blue came the announcement that Standard Oil Company of New Jersey had purchased us.  Jersey Company had world-wide markets; our refined products would go all over the world.  So the impending storm passed.  It left us all poorer by 10% but most of us still had our jobs.  The poor old island now looked pretty good

It was during my first year that I made contact with a group planning to begin writing and publishing the island's first newspaper and I began to write.  I had always wanted to write and found that I could do a passable job of it, although my copy must have been pretty awful at first.  We published weekly and almost instantly had some 3,000 paid subscribers.  The company agreed to give us the paper and let us use their machines, so we began making money from the very outset.  I worked hard at it and gradually, I think, my writing improved.  I was the World News Editor and this entailed sitting before my radio each evening with pencil and pad and get what news could be heard and sometimes this was precious little.  I shudder to remember what stories I was forced to build from the few words I often received over the radio. (Dan's note: This was short-wave listening and many times the reception was not good.)  I now can admit that many of those stories were almost whole cloth.  But we ran that paper for some 30 years during which time I held virtually every job on the staff.  It was during that time, too, that we wrote and published the first written history of Aruba.  Through three separate printings we published and sold, I think, some 15,000 copies.  Today I don't have even one copy.  So much for the newspaper effort.

I returned to the States at the end of my contract, landing in Houston, Texas.  I immediately bought another Model A Ford and headed for New Mexico and the girl I left behind.  We had a lovely small wedding which I (being the usual nervous bridegroom) scarcely remember.  To my relief the festivities were finally over and we put our luggage in the Ford and headed west on our honeymoon.  We spent ten wonderful days touring through New Mexico, then returned to Hobbes and spent a few days packing and shipping our belongings to Savannah, Georgia.  We had a great time driving the little Model A across the southern states to catch up with our trunks and boxes in Savannah.  We had them and the Ford put on board the tanker "George G. Henry", (See Rueben White's story of the George G. Henry on the reef) on which we sailed for Aruba and our new life together.

The weather was perfect throughout the voyage, and there were other young people on board with whom we could share the anticipation of arrival on the Island.  When the excitement and formalities of docking and unloading were finally over, we excitedly drove to our new bungalow.  Our "castle" was a 3 room house set upon low concrete pillars, each with an oil moat around the top.  This separated us from the termites and other insects such as ants, scorpions, and cockroaches.  But somehow they all found ways to get past the oil moats and sometimes into the house.  The scorpions would cling to other objects and be carried in.  The ants would find any object which touched the house and march in by the millions.  Nothing kept out cockroaches, particularly of the Aruba variety which grow large, ugly, and fly like airplanes.  We had a never-ending battle against all these and other insects and at times the invaders got the upper hand.  Then, too, there were our pets.  Cats could find so many ways to get feet or tails into the heavy black oil and come into the house where they sat upon chairs and swung their tails like paint brushes over furniture, carpets, etc.

With Standard Oil of New Jersey now running things there were fewer crises like the near closing down of the refinery, we got back the 10% cut and began gradually to get more.  We continued to travel on the tankers and some of these voyages gave birth to fantastic stories.  Sometimes a tanker might be diverted in transit and if you happened to be a passenger you took an unexpected ride to some part of the world.

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