Ma & the Great Depression

Here is a description that my grandmother, 'Ma', wrote for me when I was working on a project for the 3rd grade (it may have been 4th) 'Social Science Fair'. I was so much 'in' to the work that it was quite possibly the laziest I've ever been on a project, which is saying something. I left the project board bare with the exception of the title which I had printed on a dot matrix printer from dad's Apple IIe (another bit of history there) and a couple charts I had printed & colored. And then there was the 'report' which, I'll leave off as saying it was very similar to what is below.

This effectively served as my 'interview' of my grandmother at the time. Here it is . . . in her own words written c. 1990-2:

The Depression
A piece Ma wrote to help me with a project on the Great Depression.

In 1929, when I was 6 years old, the big “crash”, or depression, hit this country. The shock of a suddenly collapsing economy was nationwide, but, in our small town, it was not immediately apparent.

Then the bank where my father worked closed, and he lost the property he had bought in more prosperous times. We moved to a boarding house, where my mother and I stayed while my father looked for work, which was hard to find. Finally he found a job in Cartersville , GA , and we were there as long as the job lasted. We moved a number of times up until 1939, when we settled in Oconee County , where my parents lived the rest of their lives.

Jobs and money were very scarce. We had a garden and grew corn to be ground into meal, which we used to make cornbread. The fresh vegetables and corn were often all we had to eat. We rarely had “loaf bread” to eat in those days—it was considered a special treat. Sometimes we could trade Watkins Products, which my father sold for awhile, for coffee, sugar, salt, and pepper at local small grocery stores.

We learned to recycle everything and make every resource last as long as possible—from food and clothing to coal and wood for fires and kerosene for light and cooking, in those houses we lived in which didn’t have electricity.

Surplus products such as dried beans, grits, margarine, corn meal, sugar, and flour were available free from the government for people who needed them. The margarine in those days was white, like shortning, with a color packet provided that you added to the margarine then stirred with a spoon until it was well mixed and hand a smooth yellow tint.

At one time my parents picked cotton for our landlord, to help pay rent, while I took care of my younger brother and sister. We lived about a mile out of town then and didn’t have a car, so we either had to walk or catch rides wherever we went. My father caught a ride to and from work each day. So many people were in that same situation, and those who had cars were good about giving others rides. We felt safe “hitch hiking” then. Now, of course, it’s a very dangerous thing to do, but in those days we all depended on each other.

President Franklin Roosevelt started some educational programs in the late 1930’s to help young people work and learn trades at the same time. After graduating from high school, where I worked in the school kitchen and at the local hospital, while learning typing and shorthand in class. We students were paid a small salary for the work we did, and we could go home on weekends.

On Dec. 7, 1941 , Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii , and our country declared war on Japan . Our boarding school closed shortly afterward, as many young men students went to war. Later I attended another school to learn woodworking and furniture finishing, and we made and finished furniture to be used in Army barracks.

President Roosevelt’s economy recovery programs, and then the war, provided jobs and many for more and more people, and prosperity gradually returned. But none of us who lived through it will ever forget the Depression.

Mrs. R.H. Clinton (at the time the events took place she was/is Marguerite Elizabeth Thompson, with nicknames ranging from Rita to Marty to Tommie)

I'll include a bit more later in terms of where she & her family moved, also quite the journey during the depression, almost as if my grandfather's (her husband's family) becoming sedentary signaled her family's becoming mobile, but for reasons no one wants.

AFN
DCC
8 January 2009
UGA, Athens, GA