Notes from Barb: The Great Depression

(Ed note: This article is dated Nov, 1987. This was just after the largest percentage decline - to that date - in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It was a nervous time for many.)

Events on Wall Street these past few weeks brought to mind some recollections of the last big depression. The market crashed in '29 far away in New York City and was of no particular concern to us. Sure, we knew some rich folks lost a lot of money and some of them took their losses very hard, but that was their affair. Little did we know. It took nearly two years for the full effects to reach the mid-west. We lived in Two Harbors, a one-company town. Rather than wholesale lay-offs, the Company cut the shop workers down to two days a week. My father, a shop electrician, made 88 cents an hour. But prices were so much less, too. A loaf of bread went for a dime; butter, a quarter; gasoline was about twenty-cents a gallon; a soup bone was a dime . . . or if lucky, sometimes it was free. A night at the movies cost a dime with a free glassware dish to entice in customers on certain nights. (I thought these free dishes were crappy then and even now, knowing what collector's items they have become, cannot work up any enthusiasn for them. I still have some pieces as I just don't throw away anything in working order.) The best part of living in a one industry town was that everyone was in the same boat . . . no one had any extra money so there was no peer pressure. People took pride in getting by. We ate, we paid the rent. And we often waited through several pay days to get a much needed item like shoes or a coat. We made clothes over from cast-offs and we ate a lot of hot ceral and stews. But I don't recall ever feeling underpriviledged . . . was that term around then? We all took pride in "making do."

President Roosevelt started many government programs . . . alphabet programs such as the W. P. A., the N. R. A., the C. C. C. etc. How those bureaus have grown! I often wonder if anyone in Washington knows what all the letters stand for? Most of the young men from Two Harbors went into the C. C. C. from which we have a legacy of beautiful forests now. And the W. P. A. made the lovely stonework buildings at Gooseberry State Park, a monument to the Depression and a joy for many years yet to come. The C. C. C. also strung many miles of rural telephone lines back in Lake and Cook counties. You could spot those lines for years by their red-topped poles. There was no Social Security, no Welfare, no Medicare. People laid away for a "rainy day" and for their old age. I recall one woman remarking about a family whose father was laid-off. "He worked steady for ten years so the must have enough laid away for at least two years!" So we survived and kept a measure of pride.

I guess what I am saying is that if a depression should follow this market crash, we are going to be dealing with a whole different type of people .  .  . and a whole different attitude in Washington! It won't be the same.