Billie Jean



Billie Reynolds had the neighboring place to our Sitkum home, just off the Coos Bay Wagon Trail road.  I was intrigued with her fascinating stories and exotic tales about her early life.  This was so long ago I don’t recall if she actually told me her stories, or if I overheard adult conversations, (my dad always said I had the hearing of a bat.) Her parents divorced in the mid 1920s – seemingly sharing custody.  Her father lived in Portland OR and her mother in Billings Montana – so when they switched-off, they’d put Billie on the train from around age three onward, in the care of the conductor for the entire journey. Just Billie. She remembered being well cared for by the train staff, and these solo trips seemed quite unremarkable to her in the telling. 

She moved to San Francisco after high school, during the Depression, and had a job as a money courier,transporting cash from her employer’s place of business to the bank.  The money was packed into money belts, strapped to her body, then she’d put on a big coat, and with eminent danger lurking at every corner, off she’d go.  Billie was a dark-haired, curvaceous beauty, and sometime during her life in San Francisco, she acted on-stage in a play.  An all nude play. I’ll bet I eves-dropped on that story!

Billie’s now tame existence was an enigma to me.  Her new life on the farm, literally, was such a far cry from the excitement of city living.  Oh sure, there was the thrill of killing deer when a herd came into the cow field, not necessarily in season.  Billie was a fine shot with a rifle.  She’d shoot off the heads of the chickens at slaughter time, (we kids weren’t supposed to watch, our delicate psyches and all, but we’d peek anyway and see the chicken heads flopping and the headless bodies running till they dropped.) I have one photo of her holding a large string of trout, and smiling at the camera.

Her life wasn’t entirely tame.  The husband of a Billings cousin came into his kitchen one night and shot down his wife – murdered his wife - right in front of his children.  They got shipped off to Billie in Oregon during the trial. That was a brutal act to absorb.  For all of us.  As a child, I longed for more details.

Life continued and much later, she bought a cranberry bog in Bandon – where I last saw her.  She was
dying then, hospital bed in the living room, and while Mom and I talked story, Billie wasn’t telling any, just smiling and nodding, happy for our company. 

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