John Fawcett

During the Depression, slashed educational budgets forced schools to be downsized or closed. With few jobs available, the opportunities for young people were limited. Many teenagers and children left home so they wouldn't be a burden on their families. They hopped on freight trains or hitchhiked, moving aimlessly from one end of the country to the other. They worked odd jobs and sent what money they could spare back home. Others left home mainly for the adventure. In 1936 John Fawcett was sixteen when he left home to ride the rails. He'd had enough of the military school his father had sent him to in 1936 and yearned for adventure. But the thrills he found were always tempered by the harsh reality of hoboing. Recorded here by Errol Lincoln Uys, Fawcett's accounts of jail and scraping by for food were common...