Lee S. Manwill, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Luke Kelly, July 11, 2001: Saving the legacy tape no. 267

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Lee Manwill Jul ll 2001 were whole families traveling on freight trains. I rem mber part f th coal car. They called them gondolas. The hobos of those days call d th m gond la . There was one whole family in one end of that coal car, and w wer in th ther nd. But then, later on, we came through the Royal Gorge on the train and we switched to a flatcar which was hauling a big tractor and some machinery. It was all anchored down with a flatcar. We got kind of under the machinery to protect us a little bit from the wind, and it started to rain. And we got cold, and we got hungry. And we each had a couple of cans of vegetable beef soup, and we had a can opener. I remember opening that can of vegetable beef soup. It was concentrated, and we didn't have anything to 1nix it with. But eating that out of that can, it tasted better than any food I'd ever had in my life. We were that hungry. As we rode along through Royal Gorge we went under the big suspension bridge. We could see it up above and it was quite a sight. We got to Denver and spent two or three days there. Like I say, it was the heart of the Great Depression. We'd go up to a restaurant in Denver and say, "Have you got some work we could do for a meal?" Nine times out often they'd say, "Well, we don't have any work to do, but sit down, we'll feed you, and they'd give us a meal. And we got by that way. And I won't go into a lot more detail. But when we got back to Salt Lake-rode the freight trains back to Salt Lake-I still had $1.50 left in my pocket. I don't know what I spent the dollar for that we had when we left. That was quite an experience. Later on, I went to school at the University of Utah. I started in there. And I 10