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That's Symbiotica.com. Roku has what you need to make your college home away from home feel more like your own. Make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV or bring a Roku streaming stick to easily access all your favorite free and premium content like IHART radio. Stream your favorite playlist with the Roku vibe setting smart light strips to sync your music to millions of colors and make your dorm feel more like you. Make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV, streaming players and smart lights.
Head to Roku.com or your favorite retailer to deck out your dorm. And we return to our American stories. And up next, you're going to hear from Connecticut Shorty. And yes, you heard it right. That's the name she goes by. And she also happens to be on the board of the Hobo Museum.
And you heard that right, too. The Hobo Museum. And she is here to share the stories of the history of the American hobo. Betty Moylan is my given name. My hobo name is Connecticut Shorty. Hobo names usually are given to you by someone, another hobo usually. But some people will pick their nickname they had when they were a kid or a nickname somebody gave them along the way. My hobo name, Connecticut Shorty, came from an old time steam air hobo named Steam Train Mari Graham.
A steam air hobo is a hobo that rode steam trains and he gave me my name in Logan's Port, Indiana in 1992 at a railroad festival. He decided that should be my name. So that's my name. Prior to that, I had a hobo name.
It was Twinkle Toes because I was kind of a dancer, you know. So my sister's hobo name is New York Maggie. I gave her that name because although we were both raised in Connecticut, she raised her family in Rochester, New York. She left when she was fairly young. So I gave her the name New York Maggie.
My brother is very thin. So his hobo name is Slim Tim. Redbird Express, he picked up his name because he was a truck driver.
You know, when he was driving the truck, they called him Redbird Express. So he kept that as his hobo name. Connecticut Tootsie, her father used to give Tootsie Pops to the kids in his shoemaking store.
So she took the name Connecticut Tootsie in honor of her father. Slow Motion Shorty was an old time steam air hobo. He had him hit by a car a couple of times walking along roads and he moved pretty slow.
Of course, he had had a lot of injuries. So the hobos called him Slow Motion Shorty. Oh, Hard Rock Kid, he got his name. He was a hard rock miner out in the west.
He liked to mine those minerals and stuff. So he got the hobo name Hard Rock Kid. So they come from a variety of places, different names.
They're kind of fun. A lot of people mix up the American hobo. I say American hobo because it's really only an American phenomenon.
This hobo person that rode trains. A lot of people mix up the hobo with the homeless or the local people that, you know, hang around towns and beg and stuff. So classically, the hobo worked and wandered and they were homeless by choice. Some of them had homes. They could go home if they wanted to. You know, a lot of them had families and homes or a relative would take them in, but they didn't want that. They loved to be out American wandering. They didn't want to have a home. It sort of gave them a claustrophobia or something.
They had to be outside. A classic example is my father. Now, he married my mother in the 1940s and he had hobo before he met my mother. So he tried very hard to settle down. He had three children.
There's three of us. And he did his best, but there was a lot of problems in the marriage because he was restless. Sometimes he'd leave and disappear for three or four days. And then eventually the marriage ended and he left. So we were raised by our mother and he went back to hobo and he worked and wandered his whole life.
He just rode trains and wandered around America and worked. So it's, there's all kinds of stories connected with hobos having to, I guess you can't explain it to a person that doesn't have it. It's called the wanderlust where you just can't stay there. You can't settle down into a home and a normal kind of life, what we call normal. But to a hobo, a normal life was wandering around and picking up odd jobs to make enough money to keep going and just to see what's going on all over the country. So the classic definition of a hobo is they wander and work and work to wander because they don't mind working and they'll take a variety of jobs, but they get restless after usually just a couple of months tops and they just got to get on the road and see what's going on down the tracks basically. So they leave the job, short term jobs.
They started pretty much after the civil war. A lot of the veterans of course didn't want to go home or they couldn't go home depending on the personal circumstances. And they had been, you know, a lot of them wandering around, you know, fighting of course for five years or so. So they started following the railroad, working for the railroad and just wandering and working.
But they'd do anything. They'd paint, they'd wash dishes in restaurants. They took all kinds of jobs just to stay for a short term. Some of them worked in lumber camps like that hard rock kid.
He'd work in mines. They worked a lot of the migrant farm work, but they really helped develop the country because the farmers needed the help. It wasn't the modern generation where machines can do so much today. It was all manual labor and stuff. So they were happy to have this big work crew of people show up seasonally. Most of them like they pick apples in Oregon at New York state had apples. The hobos would go to New York state to pick apples and cherries and stuff. So they were all over the place and they'd hold up in camps that were called hobo jungles. This is where they gather and meet each other and cook what they call hobo stew, just a pot of water and all kinds of vegetables and stuff. And if they had meat, they'd throw that in, but it filled up a lot of people.
That's the reason they cooked that because it would fill up a whole camp of people. They share stories. They talk about where the jobs were. Some of them would play music. Now that Woody Guthrie hobo, he carried a guitar, but very few people carried a guitar. Most of them actually play the harmonica, the ones that played an instrument because they could just slip that in a pocket or a little bag or something, you know, cause it's when you're getting on trains, you can't be carrying all this big stuff like guitars. And actually they never even carried walking sticks on trains. They were in the way when you're trying to, you know, jump on trains.
Most of them would get on off trains when they were moving. They may pick up a walking stick and carry it around the town or something, you know, for things that might try to hurt them. So historically it came down as fact that this is what the hobos did, but they weren't really riding trains with a walking stick. Some of that stuff becomes folklore. Most of them carried what we would call a bindle or a bag slung over their shoulder. It was more practical. Some of the hobos would dry their socks, hanging them on trees and sticks and stuff.
One time this old timer had a cane now, so he was drying his socks on his walking stick. The hobos were originally meeting in the Chicago area. It wasn't really the city of Chicago. It was a lot of the surrounding smaller towns prior to 1900. About 1899, word had come to Britt that the hobos were unhappy meeting in the Chicago area.
Police were hassling them in this and that, and they wanted to go somewheres else. So these business people in Britt, Iowa, there was three or four main business people. They decided, well, why don't we invite the hobos to come to Britt and this will give us, you know, national recognition as a city.
It was a railroad town and, you know, it'll have tourists come and spend money and this will be a good thing for us. So they got a hold of one of the hobos. He was the grand head pipe of these hobos that were meeting in the Chicago area. His name was Charles Noe and the grand head pipe was the spokesperson for the hobos and the chief negotiator. So he came to Britt in 1899 and met with these business people and they did the negotiations for him to start spreading the word for the hobos to come and have their convention there. And probably the biggest reason that got him interested in having the hobos come to Britt was they promised him that the hobos could have all the free German suds that they wanted, a type of free beer. So this was a really big ticket item for these hobos. So they all agreed to come and then 1900 was going to be the first convention held in Britt and they came, most of them came by trains.
Of course, there was all kinds of trains back in those days and there was notoriety all over the country. Papers go out in California, Illinois, all over the country carried this first annual convention. They didn't call it an annual convention. This hobo convention is going to be held in Britt.
And then that was pretty successful. So then after that, Britt started inviting hobos. They just started coming back every year and we still have an annual convention today. The hobo community people come into Britt. I wouldn't classify them as classic American hobos anymore, but a lot of heavy duty rail riders still come in and we sit and we have a meeting. And in the old days, they would talk about, of course, where jobs were and what's going on around the town or something. Now we pretty much talk about our community, what we need to do in the jungle, maybe to make it better.
And if there's any issues in the town, we try to resolve them, things like that. But we still actually have an annual hobo convention meeting in the city of Britt every year. And you're listening to Connecticut Shorty tell the story of the American hobo.
By the way, when she says Britt, she's talking about Britt, Iowa. That's where the hobo convention is held each year. And hobos, well, they want to distinguish themselves from homeless people. This is their lifestyle. This is how they choose to live, work and wander, Connecticut Shorty said.
And indeed her father, well, he worked and he wandered and then he kept wandering, but she didn't resent him for it. Clearly she's chronicling the hobo life. And when we come back more from Connecticut Shorty of the Hobo Museum here on Our American Stories. Every day, we are driven to get the facts, find the sources, listen to the voices and tell the stories that illuminate what matters. Democracy dies in darkness. That's where we come in. The Washington Post.
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Your taste buds and your gut will thank you. Look for the brown bottle with an anchor on it and try health aid kombucha today. Roku has what you need to make your college home away from home feel more like your own. Make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV or bring a Roku streaming stick to easily access all your favorite free and premium content like iHeartRadio. Stream your favorite playlist with the Roku vibe setting smart light strips to sync your music to millions of colors and make your dorm feel more like you. Make your dorm the place to be with Roku TV, streaming players and smart lights.
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Let's return to Connecticut Shorty. Originally the hobo convention was run by those business people that I mentioned and the early hobos they had some sack races and games and things they did but now currently it's a wonderful event. It's more of a family event.
It's the second full weekend in August every year that's been consistent for over 30 years that I've been going. We have a hobo jungle there. The hobo jungle is really a camp. Now the old time hobo jungle was where the hobos came to meet each other when they got off the rails and they'd gather over by the railroad station and town and they'd be around the town in the daytime talking to the tourists and stuff but then at night they'd go to their own hobo jungle.
The people really didn't go over and bother them too much probably were a little afraid of them of course but today it's more of a family event. People come into the hobo jungle talk to the hobos you know have them sign autographs take pictures of them. They bring their kids down to meet them so it's changed over the years but it's still considered a hobo jungle because that's where we all are and where our campfire is and you know where many of us are sleeping so and then this is one of the reasons the hobos came to brit for so many years and we still go to brit. We have a memorial service in the hobo cemetery. The hobo cemetery is a section of the local evergreen cemetery in britain.
They've given us a area where we can bury the hobos that have caught the westbound in our community. We have a memorial service where we honor not only the hobos that are buried in the brit cemetery but also the hobos that caught the westbound anywheres in the world really because some of them were actually world war ii veterans they never came home so and then we have a huge parade and the highlight of course is the election of the king and queen. The king and queen are elected by the public really there's of course there's a lot of hobos there the whole hobo community is included in this. They gather around this little gazebo now that they give up to a two-minute speech on to say why they should be king or queen and then there's judges spread around the audience there's six judges and they listen to the claps and they come into the head judge and tell him or her who they think got the most claps and that person is the person that is elected king and queen. They're crowned with a blue robe and a red robe and their crown is a straw hat with a Folgers coffee can attached to the top and that's stored in the hobo museum and used every year. The hobo museum started in the late 1980s. A hobo historian his name was George Horton he walked into the local chamber of commerce he had two boxes of hobo artifacts that he had been collecting and he put them on the desk of the chamber of commerce lady whose name was Willie Klein at the time and said up here you could have these you know I don't really have any place to keep this collection anymore so that generated the idea well why don't we start a hobo museum in brit so back in 1974 a steam air hobo named slow motion shorty had caught the westbound and he had left several thousand dollars with a non-profit that was called the hobo foundation that was organized also by coincidence in 1974 by three hobos so the money was just kept in the you know the bank account of the non-profit for years so then the city people and the hobos worked together they found the chief theater downtown brit that was empty and they used slow motion shorty's donation to purchase it so opened as a hobo museum you're talking about 30 years ago now somewhere's around there since then of course all kinds of artifacts have come in because what happened over the years especially a lot of people in brit had these hobo collections that they'd have hobo sign things and sometimes hobo would give them gifts and stuff and as they get older and older and for various reasons they donate their stuff to the hobo museum the hobos themselves donated stuff artifacts come in from all over the country so it's grown to be a world-class museum now with thousands of hobo connected items we have a nice collection of paintings there's two really neat paintings in there hobo joe had those commissioned their hobo jungle scenes and what's unique about them he had himself painted into the picture so in each jungle scene you can find hobo joe which is kind of unique there's a nice collection of various walking sticks there's a quilt that was hand embroidered by hobo named texas madman it's made of denim and he sewed the sayings and the various things on the patches with string can you imagine hand sewing a quilt together with string i can't even imagine it but he'd carry some patches in his little pack and little by little he'd make this and assemble it and there's some photography crafts done by the hobos there's a knot collection in there frisco jack he hoboed and he was a merchant marine and he was an expert knot tire he donated a collection of knots it's a pretty unique place it's the only hobo artifacts museum in america in the whole world for that matter so it's one of the most unique museums in anywheres that you could find because it's amassed quite a collection of items i've been on the board of directors for the hobo museum since 1992 today there's a lot of steam air hobos still alive but most of them you know are in their 90s or over 100 years old the genuine classic steam air hobo which is the history that we're trying to preserve in brit we had only one steam air hobo come to brit this year his name is minnesota jim he's 94 years old there's other hobos still alive from that generation but they don't necessarily come to brit so what we have today coming to brit not counting minnesota jim is mostly what i would call rail riders we have a lot younger generation coming in they're riding trains from california to minnesota and making their way to britain stuff but i wouldn't call them a classic hobo anymore the hobos that worked and wandered are pretty much gone so today we have people that still ride trains some of them been riding trains since the 70s they're heavy duty rail riders still coming to the hobo convention and coming into the hobo jungle where we share a lot of stories and history there's still a lot of us you know older people wandering around that are happy to talk about the hobos to anybody there's a neat little restaurant in brit called the hobo house that has all kinds of hobo memorabilia on the walls and around the restaurant so if people are interested in hobo history the place to come is brit iowa and you can't do any better than that you just never know who's going to be there who's going to show up like some people you they come back year after year i've actually been to 31 consecutive hobo conventions myself and there's still a handful of us redbird express and my sister have been there 31 years consecutively minneapolis jewel has been there 41 consecutive years this year she's 10 years ahead of us so there's some really old timers there and the most fun is meeting your friends a lot of times you see people there that you haven't seen all year you see them once a year they show up in brit sometimes you'll meet a unique person and you'll spend you know a lot of time talking to them or socializing with them and you'll never see them again so i think it's probably the interactions with the various people that is the reason i keep going back to brit personally and of course my father's buried there connecticut slim we i think we mostly go for each other to meet our friends and honor our dead that's really the big reason the hobos go to honor our dead when we have our hobo service out at the cemetery at the end of the service we all walk around and touch all the stones with our walking sticks to show the people that have caught the westbound honor so that's a tradition that we have that probably started oh 40 years ago i just think that brit is unique wonderful small town in iowa that honors these hobos since 1900 and it's worth a stop when anybody's passing through and a great job on the storytelling by madison and a special thanks to connecticut shorty for sharing her passion with the american hobo with all of us and we all learned something from that story a that it's a unique thing the hobo it's an american thing moreover that there's a convention where people convene to talk about hobos and we also learned that there are not many hobos left and indeed the hobo life is over in large part though the heavy-duty rail riders well they still prevail all over this country the people who just love hopping on a train by the way the emperor of the north a movie with ernest borgnine and lee marvin is a classic story centered around hobo life and hobo jungles the story of the hobo museum here on our american stories there's a lot of pros to drink in hellfate kombucha no cons that i can think of pro amazing taste pro pairs well with anything pro probiotic that's a literal pro and it's deliciously refreshing it's the perfect pairing to your meal or great on its own whether you're having pink lady apple berry lemonade or one of the other great flavors it's the perfect swap for soda or alcohol make it part of your daily routine look for the brown bottle with an anchor on it and try hellfate kombucha today is your body trying to tell you something tiredness lack of focus trouble sleeping bloating these things can affect your quality of life that's where symbiotic can help the supplement brand is made with quality ingredients free of seed oils and shady additives and they taste delicious the time to feel better starts now at symbiotic.com use the code i heart to get 20 off and free shipping on your subscription order that's c-y-m-b-i-o-t-i-k-a.com that symbiotic.com roku has what you need to make your college home away from home feel more like your own make your dorm the place to be with roku tv or bring a roku streaming stick to easily access all your favorite free and premium content like i heart radio stream your favorite playlist with the roku vibe setting smart light strips to sync your music to millions of colors and make your dorm feel more like you make your dorm the place to be with roku tv streaming players and smart lights head to roku.com or your favorite retailer to deck out your dorm hi loves it's me paris hilton i'm already excited for you to listen to my new album infinite icon and i'm even more excited for you to listen to it on vinyl every vinyl collection needs a crown jewel and no jewel sparkles 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