Depression-Era Stories

[Amy Jeanne]

Talking to a co-worker today whose mother was born in 1920, one of FOURTEEN children. She was telling me some tales of the Depression.

For Christmas they would get oranges and apples.

The children had to alternate days when they would eat. One meal a day was all they would get (on their day to eat!). Christmas dinner was the only time a proper meal would be made and served for the whole family.

Her mother loved the movies and said the theatres would accept cans of soup as admission.

She used to get clothes from her teachers. They would bring in old clothing for the children in the class to have.

I just thought these bits were interesting as it really shows how bad it was. Anyone else have any stories like these from people who actually lived through the Depression?

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandparents spent their first winter together living in a tar paper house with no electricity and a tiny little woodstove for heat. He was working in a barrel factory and she was a waitress in a lunch room, and they were a lot luckier than a lot of people they knew.

My grandfather used to talk about "Hoover Soup," which was ketchup mixed with hot water. As a side dish, they'd pull dandelion greens out of the yard and boil them up, and that'd be supper.

He'd also pick up cigar butts off the sidewalk, chop them up, and smoke them in a pipe.

 

[Fletch]

I respectfully wish to abstain from this thread.

Along with many Loungers, I cherish and study the 1930s first and foremost as an era - not strictly as a depression. It doesn't slight the suffering of the many to do so. It only pulls the spotlight out to a broader scope.

In a way, the culture of the '30s is itself deprived. Much of it never reached its audience then, and has not been given due attention since. This is true in part because of unpleasant memories for a generation, in part because of political correctness after their passing, and finally, because of the simple passage of time.

The stories of the depression must be kept alive for future generations. But the culture of the era is much more at risk today. Soon too much of it will be gone - forgotten or thrown away for no good reason.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Great thread! I have a bunch of Depression stories that my parents shared with me. Here's a couple.

My father's friend, Frank, once told me that his family moved frequently during the Great Depression. Frank's dad had difficulty keeping employment and when their house rent would come due, the family would have to quickly pack their belongings and move to some other town. Frank said that his family moved so often in those days, every time his dad walked out into their yard, their chickens would lie down and cross their legs.

In all the years I knew my father, I never saw him eat collards. He always said that my grandmother had “cured” him of collard eating during the Depression. It seems that my grandmother would cook fifteen or so pounds of collards every Sunday for dinner and she’d use her largest pot...an old copper-bottomed thing that she also used for mopping floors. There were always collards left over, so she would warm them up (in the same pot) to be served with Monday's dinner. Grandma wasted nothing, especially food, so sometimes re-warmed, leftover collards appeared on Tuesday's menu, too. Dad said that those Tuesday-evening, thrice-warmed collards were so strong that after you ate them, your mouth tasted brassy enough to make you think you'd sucking a propeller shaft.

AF

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

On my Father's side of the family, my grandmother and step-grandfather lived in an Illinois Railroad town. My grandfather worked as a fireman on the Wabash Railroad prior to WW1, so he'd had his job for quite some time when the depression hit. Grandma worked at home, and as a telephone operator. She also provided the sacramental wine for two Lutheran churches in the town. Grandpa was a bartender and worked on the WPA while waiting for a day's work on the RR. According to Grandpa, he made as much in one day on the RR as he did all month on the WPA. They had a huge garden, a milk cow, and chickens. They were poor, but did have enough to not need handouts (other than the WPA).

My Grandpa mentioned that he wished he could have had the money that the very senior Engineers and Fireman had. Many of the senior Wabash workers worked a full 40 hour plus a week job during the whole depression. They were effectively RICH as all get out. According to Grandpa, all of them that he knew personally, drank and gambled all of their money away, many of them in the bar he worked at, and playing Pinochle against him. In general, a full time RR worker during that period could have bought a whole farm for cash after the first year, and one a year after that.

One story from my Dad (born in 1919 and still around in February 2011) is that he came home from school and fed the chickens. The rooster clawed him pretty good. He was sitting in the window rocker with his feet up when Grandma came home from the telephone office. She asked him what was for Supper and he said Fried Chicken. He also mentioned that they needed a new Rooster.

Grandpa told one on my Grandma. There was at least one old boy who came by the tavern every morning at 6:30 AM or so to get a shot of Vodka before going to work on the WPA. There wasn't an open bottle out, so Grandma just opened one and poured him a shot, which he drank, popped a coin on the counter and left. Grandpa came in and saw the open bottle of full grain alcohol. You weren't supposed to open the full grain except mix it with water to make Vodka... He asked if Grandma served the full-grain stuff to someone, and she said, "well, I can't tell one bottle from another." He asked if the old boy said anything and Grandma said no. Grandpa said "Well Jesus H. Christ, he probably couldn't talk anyway."

 

[AtomicEraTom]

My grandpa has told me many stories about the depression.

My great-grandpa on Dad's side married into a family which owned a very successful trucking company in Milwaukee. During the depression, my great-great grandpa Rosenow had bought 2 new Pierce Arrows. Being penny wise and dollar foolish, he put water in the radiator in the winter, which expanded in the block, thus cracking and seizing it.

Grandpa and his folks did not sit well off just because Great-Great Grandpa was. They lived in one of his many houses and had very little. My grandpa's favorite depression stories is about the lard sandwiches that Great-Grandma would make him to eat. He would go fishing all day and by lunch the lard and bread had become such a mess, that he would usually use it to try to catch catfish!

 

[sheeplady]

My grandmother was one of 12 children, she was sent to be a maid at 12. She worked for a couple cleaning their house, cooking, and caring for their business until she was around 14 (I think) then she went back to the farm. Her parents lost three farms to the bank. She got married at 16 to my grandfather.

My grandfather was kicked out by his father when he was 12 or 13. A mechanic took him in, and let him sleep on the floor of the garage and fed him one meal a day, in turn for him working everyday. My grandfather needed to heat the garage himself in the winter (and he didn't get any money), so he belonged to a gang. The rival gangs of kids went into the coal yards and "fought with each other" mainly faking fighting and really throwing coal over the fence. After the fights the kids went and picked up the coal outside the fence. His training paid off: he ran whiskey in later life (people who do that need mechanics) and was a mechanic during the war.

Both of my grandparents said that the people who took them in were generous. Neither of them finished 8th grade.

My other grandparents were older. During the 30s, my grandmother was told that she could be grandfathered in as a teacher or go to college and earn the degree that would soon be required by the state. She was in the first female graduating class at the college she attended. She later married my grandfather and they lost their first daughter during the depression. They had more children in their 40s.

 

[1961MJS]

Hi again, a friend of mine from Tennessee had an interesting story about his neighbors. Wes was born in about 1959, and his neighbors were married when the dust bowl hit in the mid 1930's. When Wes was older, his neighbors bought a house in town and retired. Wes's Dad asked if they had their farm up for sale, they said "Nope, never owned it. We got tired of drivin' around after the dust bowl got our old farm, so we stopped and moved into the house. We got some seeds and a couple of cows and just stayed. Never even said nothin'". They had lived there from a minimum of 1940 until 1970, and probably 1935 until the 1980's. They didn't bother trying to claim squatters rights, and I never found out what happened to the farm. Basically, the bank forclosed on a farmer who left, the bank went under and was taken over by a second bank, which went under and was taken over by a third bank, which didn't even know that they owned the farm. Farming for 40 years, no rent, no taxes. Gotta love it.

 

[Big Man]

This is a great thread with some very interesting stories.

My family didn't have a lot, but worked hard and "made do" with what they had. I think they would have been insulted if you called them "poor", as "poor" to them was more of a state of mind (if not lower social class) than the actual absence of money in the bank.

When the market crashed in 1929, I don't get the feeling there was any significant impact on rural western North Carolina for at least a couple years. My grandfather had a steady job at the McDowell Hardware Company. They had a four-door 1927 model Oldsmobile car to drive, and in 1930 added electricity to the house. By 1932, my aunt Hazel had already graduated college and was teaching school, and my aunt Sara was a senior in college. My dad was 8 years old. Then, in March of 1932, my grandfather suddenly died.

I got the impression by talking with the family over the years that when mu grandfather died it put a tremendous strain on the family. I recall my grandmother telling that when they were on their way to my grandfather's funeral, they stopped to pick the March flowers along the driveway so there would be flowers on his casket.

I remember my grandmother telling how she took in laundry for people, took in boarders, did cooking, sold produce from her garden, and many other things just to make a little money. I recall her saying that one day she was walking from Nebo to Marion (a distance of about five miles) with a big basket full of eggs to sell. She said that a well known business man in the community who had a big car passed her by on the road and waved at her, never even thinking of stopping and offering her a ride. I think she held a grudge against that man for the rest of her life.

Another interesting story she told was how the men and boys in the community would hop on the train as it pulled the grade coming into Nebo, then throw coal from the cars. When the train had to pull another grade coming into Marion, they would jump off and walk back down the tracks picking up the coal in sacks.

Yes, times were hard for the family, but I don't think they would have considered themselves "poor" by any means.

 

[p71towny]

Lard sandwiches or so says my grandpa. Actually, since he lived on a farm it wasn't so bad for him growing up as far as the food was concerned.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Lard sandwiches by you too, eh?

Lard sandwiches or so says my grandpa. Actually, since he lived on a farm it wasn't so bad for him growing up as far as the food was concerned.

 

[Guttersnipe]

My family has many stories about the depression. My great grandfather was a very wealthy man before the '29 crash, but the bulk of his fortune was lost in the stock market crash. Luckily the family had other tangible assets to fall back on, which saw them through hard times, so they never ended up homeless or on breadlines. Eventually necessity forced them to sell their large, custom built, home and the department store, in Oakland CA, that was the source of the family's wealth to survive. My grandmother once told me that the loss of the department store, which took him a lifetime to build, broke her father's heart and he was never recovered from it. The silver lining of the story is, though, that my grandmother's family likely never would have permitted their socialite daughter to merry my grandfather, who came from a more humble and less refined background, if it hadn't been for their reduced circumstances . . . in 1934 a young doctor, just beginning his residency at San Francisco General Hospital, asked Herr Friedman permission to court his daughter, and the rest is history!