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The family was emerging from The Great Depression and was about to undergo additional trials and disruption.
My father, age 21, is living at home, a rent house on the Arkansas side of Texarkana only a few blocks east of downtown. He was working as a shoe salesman for the Gus Kennedy Shoe Store in downtown Texarkana. I was thinking the shoe store was on the Texas side, which has a larger commercial district, but a little googling reveals that it was on the Arkansas side. My father likely walked to work; it would have been just a few blocks. As a child following the war, I remember being taken, introduced, and "shown off" to my father's much respected former employer at the shoe store. I see Gus Kennedy Jr operated the store long after the passing of his father.
My Aunt Alice was living at home again after having spent her high school years in Junction Texas living with her aunt and uncle. Her namesake Aunt Alice McKemie Patterson, offered to host her for those years to lessen the financial burden of the Depression.
My Uncle Gould, oldest of the children, was missing from the family home. He was a radio personality for Dallas radio stations prior to the war.
My Uncle Ernest had Down's Syndrome; my grandparents cared for him as long as they were able. For about twenty years following this census.
My grandfather is listed as a farmer though he lived just a few blocks from downtown Texarkana. He, and the rest of the family, were developing a ~200 acre farm about 20 miles west; they lived part time at both locations. The farm was soon to be taken by the US Army:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_Army_Depot
The government taking of private property was very common early in the war; patriotism dictated little resistance by the property owners. Typically, owners were promised return of the property at such time that the government no longer had a need/use. Just a couple of many Texas examples: Matagorda Island and Fort Hood.
Prior to the 1940 census, my grandfather was mostly employed as a "drummer" or manufacturer's rep. He would travel his large area by train and by car calling on retailers with dry good samples and make sales. He also worked as a "land man". Acquiring mineral leases to sell to wildcatters.
My father was soon to enlist in the US Army. My mother traveled to California to marry in March 1942; my father had enlisted a month or so before Pearl Harbor. My October 1943 birth certificate lists my father's employment as attending Officer's Candidate School. The story is that they met while he was traveling down Moores Lane northwest of Texarkana and stopped to buy some figs which my mother was selling at roadside. That could have been ~5 years prior to the census.
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