Fred Kendal - May 25, 1983
Living in Hiding II
Uh, that was, that was the winter more or less and again, those things were--we would constantly be on the lookout so we are not discovered, you know. And if we were discovered, we would then abandon, you know, because the only thing that uh, I do remember is that uh, once we started running, we just grabbed whatever you could carry and primarily food--that's the main thing that we were concerned with and then we just go and leave everything behind. So, and, of course, shovels and tools--that was important. Those are the tools, yeah.
Um, how did you get clothing?
Um, well I suppose whatever clothing--that's a good question. Whatever clothing we had was either given to us by some of the farmers that my grandfather knew uh, or stolen. It was just that simple. I mean, the, the, the farmers would wash their clothes and hanging out to dry and we'd just steal it. And, of course, they didn't like us for that a lot, you know, and I--and for that, we can't blame them, you know, because we did to steal. We use to go into that barns and steal food, steal chickens. Uh, if they give it to us, you know, good and well but if they didn't, we would steal. It was just um, and we really did--the one thing that we didn't have was, was shoes. That was a very bad--we used to wrap our feet with, with um, linen uh, rags and uh, wear, you know, they used to call it a ???, the ??? and it's that made out of um, yeah, sand and made out of bark shoes and--they were not shoes, they were just a form that is made out of bark and with, with ropes around it that you tie so that was for the sole, you know, and you wore that um, you wear at your feet with rags. As a matter of fact, I still know how to do it. And, and there's a certain way to wrap your foot and then you wore those and they were wrapped around your foot, you know. But I, I--that, I can picture vividly but that was one--and some people had shoes, you know, some, you know, and lasted as long--some--I don't know but those that didn't, that's okay, you know.
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