Growing up in Sacramento, Calif., Jacklyn Landis didn’t question where her family came from.
But, as an adult spending time with her Aunt Pauline, she heard many stories that spurred her curiosity and that she later incorporated into her historical fiction book, “Promise of the Road,” now available on Amazon.com.
Landis’ grandparents, Jack and Neva Sampley, along with their children – Delbert, June, Pauline and Dale – left their hardscrabble farming life in the Texas Panhandle during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression and traveled across the country for a better life in California.
The original thought was to make it a children’s book.
“I was working with fifth-graders studying the Dust Bowl and the Depression,” Jacklyn says. “I was in libraries trying to find books that children would understand and would make it come to life for them. There wasn’t much available. And I also wanted it to be something for our family.”
It’s a story that is not unlike John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” But while Steinbeck wrote fiction, the Sampley family actually lived it, becoming “Okies” and living through many adventures and hardships.
They picked crops, worked on ranches and labored in mines. Jack worked with the Works Progress Administration program and Delbert did a stint with the Civilian Conservation Corps – both projects part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal designed to employ American men on public works developments.
At times on the road, they slept in fields or beside their dilapidated Oakland car on their cross-country trek.
It took Jacklyn 20 years to turn the book into a reality. She had encouragement along the way. Her professor in a correspondence writing course commented on a chapter of the book, “Just stay with this, we’re not going to do any other assignments.” And she entered several chapters in a Midwest writers’ conference competition and won second prize.
During this time, Jacklyn and husband, Jerry, moved a number of times for his job with Verizon, where he was head of security for four states. Eventually they ended up living on a farm south of Akron, Ohio.
“I grew up in the asphalt jungle,” Jacklyn laughs. “But Jerry spent his summers on his grandparents’ farm and had this passion that someday we would live on a farm.”
While Jerry took on several additional jobs – including county sheriff – the couple raised and trained horses and had pigs, chickens and cows. And two children.
“We worked from sunrise to sunset, but we loved it,” Jacklyn says. “We were dirty a lot!”
Jacklyn wrote articles about their cows, Belgian Blues, whose beef is leaner than chicken or fish. And they ran a bed and breakfast that catered exclusively to people traveling with horses.
“We hosted rodeo people and one time a huge trailer full of polo horses arrived after 24 hours nonstop on the road,” Jacklyn says. “When those horses ran out into our pasture, the earth shook. It was a beautiful sight.”
They invited home-schooled classes and taught them about animals and how to care for them, along with instruction on organic gardening. For several years, they also operated a travel agency and took advantage of the deals, going to Portugal and Mexico among other destinations. In Slovenia, they stayed near the stud farm for the famed Lipizzaner horses and were invited to ride one morning.
“You have not ridden until you’ve been on the back of a Lipizzaner,” Jacklyn says. “They are all muscle – nothing but strength.”
Then one morning Jerry woke up and said, “I think we should move to The Villages, Jackie.”
Jacklyn was stunned.
“We had DVDs and other promotional material from friends,” she said. “I didn’t think we’d like it.”
They moved to the Village of Buttonwood in 2012 and “we loved it from Day One,” Jacklyn says.
Jacklyn and Jerry had spent 17 years on the farm in Ohio and were ready to leave.
“We wanted to go with a sweet memory before it got too much for us and we started to neglect things,” Jacklyn says.
Jerry, who woke up every morning and said, ‘I can’t believe we live here!’, passed away in April 2016. Jacklyn found solace in her writing, visiting with family spread across the country, a trip to China and The Villages lifestyle.
“I golf, work out, garden, write and go out with my friends,” she said. “My days are pretty full – sometimes too full.”
Along with her two children – Scott lives in the Village of Fenney and Laurie in Lafayette, Ind. – Jacklyn’s family also includes four grandchildren, including Kate, who designed the cover for her book.
“Kate is a designer and, along with her husband, is traveling and working across the country in their Airstream trailer,” said Jacklyn, who is planning a special granddaughter trip to Eastern Canada next fall.
Although completing “Promise of the Road” was a two-decade personal crusade, Jacklyn feels philosophic about the effort.
“The Sampley family made this magnificent journey and no one wrote it down,” she said. “But people should never believe that just because they were born poor, they have nothing to contribute or that their story has little value.”
Jacklyn believes that though the family had virtually nothing in material terms – Pauline Sampley was a teenager before she ever had a birthday present – they had a love and respect for each other that kept them together, gave them strength and enabled them to overcome the hardships together.
“My hope is that the Sampley family can teach us that it doesn’t take a lot to have a happy family,” Jacklyn says. “I tell young people, ‘Don’t ignore history. It’s a stepping stone to your future.’ And I believe that we all take pieces of our history with us.”
John W Prince is a writer and Villager. For more information visit www.GoMyStory.com.
