Maury Graham, King Of The Hoboes

Steamtrain Maury Graham has always worked as a cement mason and can earn more than $10.00 an hour. But much of his time has been spent leading quite a different and interesting life. Although he met his wife, and settled down and had a family of two girls, five granchildren, and owned a house in Toledo, Ohio, he has traveled much of his life as a hobo.

While traveling, he always carries proof of his permanent address as well as $50.00, which he is reluctant to use, as proof that he is not a vagrant.

Maury started to ride the rails while he was in high school. As a young man, he spent eight years as a hobo full time. Then he married, settled down, and raised a family. He put both daughters through nursing school.

Now he is sixty-three years old, his daughters have married and moved away, so he leaves hiw wife for several weeks at a time every year to go out and ride the rails.

He knows he is of a fading breed. He gives a definition of the various types of "men on the road". A hobo rides the trains, a tramp just tramps. A hitch hiker is simply a hitch hiker. A bum won't work, but a hobo will.

Steamtrain says he hobos for fun.

He could go as a regular tourist to see the sights. He has a little truck at home, but that isn't as thrilling as for him to go by train and get off in each town and meet people. He says, "most people are friendly. If we build a fire by the side of the road, it isn't long before there is a bunch of people near. Kids want to sit around the fire and listen to the hobos tell stories. It is a fascinating life."

He says a lot of the hobos get back into civil life now and then, like he did, but that the call of the road, the steam whistle in the night, gnaws and they have to go back to the hobo life. It is a danger to stay on the rails today. The railroad bulls are real tough. Maury gets along well because he carries a card from one of the detectives on the Reading Railroad. The hobo who is not known is going to be kicked off, and if he doesn't watch, will be hurt. A hobo should never get smart with any railroad bull because he will slap the hobo silly.

The old timers used to follow the weather. They would follow the wheat harvest, starting in Oklahoma and gradually working north until they reached the Dakotas and Idaho, just working enough to get by and to get fifty bucks in their pocket before moving on. Many of the hobos winter in Florida or near New Orleans. The weather tells the hobo when and where to travel. If he wants to see the country, he wants to hit the beautiful parts. There is no beauty to them in the flat ground. In the East, the hobo likes Pennsylvania, but most of all, Maryland and Virginia. In the South, they like Mississippi. Washington is one of the most beautiful states for a hobo to be in. It is full of orchards for eating apples and in the northern part, there are beautiful mountains. Maury

says a ride through Washington for a couple of days is a real adventure. He says, "A hobo can carry a little bag, like I have, or a sleeping roll, which is the real old way of doing it. Hoboes call the sleeping roll 'a bindle'. In the bindle, there is a towel, toothbrush, razor, and a change of clothing. Also, left over food is kept in it. The bindle has a rope tied around it, and you can throw it over your shoulder, leaving the hands free. You can always get water at a house or filling station and if you are ever out on the road, it is best to carry a few tissues in your bindle, or else go back to the old fashioned way of using leaves. A real Hobo takes care of the land and leaves it cleaner than he found it.

The women in their fifties and sixties like to meet the hobo again because they haven't seen any in twenty or thirty years. They like to talk and tell how they would feed them in the old days. It's a blessing that has remained with them, so the hobo just sits and talks.

Steamtrain Maury Graham says, "to me making your own fire and cooking is one of the best things there is in life. Bread and canned beans, you can practically live on. I never eat white bread, always cracked wheat or a good grade of brown bread. Before 1973, you got a good sized loaf of bread for seven cents, not sliced, and a can of baked beans for eight cents. You cut the end off of the bread and reach down the middle and pull the inside all out and save that in your bindle. You open the can of beans and pour it in the hollowed loaf. Then you eat it like an ice cream cone. There is a book called, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" on how to live off the land that was written by an old ex hobo, Euell Gibbons. He was raised in a poor family and his mother taught him all the wild foods that were good to eat.

Hoboes are dying out and are the last of the free man. The American hobo emerged from the wars and the depressions. Following each war and during each depression, the numbers of the men on the road soared."

Steamtrain and Hood River Blackie have kept tab on many of their better known hobo brothers. Maury knows one who has traveled a lot in the East. His name is "Feathers". Thousands of people knew him and loved him. He carved canes. Some had 'Remember Pearl Harbor', or names, or scriptures carved on them. There are many of Feathers' canes to be found in towns along the eastern railroads.

Steamtrain does not advise hobo life today. He preaches to young people to stay off the road today. It is impossible to ride too far. The chance is great that one will be injured, be killed by accident, or land in jail for thirty days.

The National Hobo Convention is held in Britt, Iowa. In 1972, Chicken Red Parnell Donovan, aged ninety, attended. He spent over seventy years as a hobo on the road.

Maury Graham, or Steamtrain, has been elected King of the Hoboes several times at the annual convention at Britt, Iowa.

His family history appears in this volume under Alice Graham Spangler history.

Submitted by: Mrs. Marvin Spangler Mrs. Edna Grant