Firsthand Accounts From the Great Depression

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After reading the following accounts from the Depression. Give an example from each of the following categories: Education, Food, Jobs, Frugality, Advice, & Kindness Towards Others. Place these examples on the sheet given to you in class.
“We grew corn, popcorn, potatoes, tomatoes on one-acre garden. We ate a lot of popcorn for dinner the first few years”
– Don Trietsch, age 89, Centerville
“We were a family of eight and my father was a carpenter. During the Depression there was almost no building going on. Because of this, my father had very little work. When he did work, the owner of the company was often unable to pay him. and my mother would go to him and have to beg for a couple dollars to buy necessities, like flour, to help her feed the family. My sister and I peddled papers in Zoar. We also had to clean the two-room school every day after school. My oldest brother had to go to school early every day and build a fire in the downstairs and upstairs stoves so the school was warm when it started. In the summer, we would sell bouquets of wild violets for a nickel to people visiting Zoar. Around 1930, the Zoar Dance Hall was built. At 15 and 16 years old, my sister and I got jobs working there selling tickets and making sandwiches. We would walk home alone at 2 or 3 in the morning. As with all our jobs, the money went to our parents. If we found a penny, we thought we really had something.”
– Irene Class Haueter, age 94, Bolivar
“To make a buck, we would sell newspapers for the Telegram News. We would sell old rags and scrap iron, bottles and aluminum to the scrap man. We would caddie for doctors, attorneys and their wives. In early spring, we would rake the leaves and trim the hedges, and in the winter, we would shovel snow. They would feed us and give us out-grown toys, such as bikes, skates, wagons and sleighs. They were good to us. Farmers would have work for some of us. They were cheap payers and we walked five miles to the farms. The little money we made, we gave to our parents to help out.”
– Joe Trolio, age 83, Hubbard
“Eating was different in those days, too. We didn’t come to a table and complain because the food wasn’t what we liked. There were not many choices. We ate or went without. Some days bread and gravy tasted very good.”
– Maxine Bartelt, age 85, Columbus
“I lived through The Great Depression and can remember eating beans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner when I was four years old but at least we had something to eat. Others didn’t. ”
– Marty Bryan, age 82, Columbus
“Mom and her siblings, except for (her brother) Paul, only made it to sixth grade, and then it was only part-time. They had to share books and clothes, so each kid could go to school one day a week, maybe even two weeks. Only Paul went back years later and got his GED… Mom was an avid reader until she died at age 80. She read everything she could get her hands on. She even kept a small dictionary with her to look up words she didn’t know or understand. Her two favorite books were her dictionary and her bible.”
– Joyce M. Pack, age 69, Toldedo
“For a refrigerator we used an empty gallon can with a rope tied to it, which we lowered down a dug well to sit on the top of the water. That would cool a pound of bologna… For a while before we had electricity, we heated the irons that we used to do the ironing on the cook stove. We bathed in a large wash tub that was also used to wash our laundry… Naturally, this was before air conditioning. So, during a very hot summer in, I believe, 1936 or ’37 we slept on the front lawn. It was just too uncomfortable to sleep upstairs… Also, when our car or truck tires got a hole in the tread, we inserted a ‘boot’ which consisted of a piece of an old tire to cover the hole. That was before tubeless tires.”
– Lester Baiman, age 82, Colton, CA (formerly of Hamilton)
“During the winter, we disconnected the refrigerator to save electricity and kept spoilable food in a window ‘icebox.’ You opened the window to put food in, and then closed the window to keep it cold. We didn’t have freezers then yet.”
– Thomas Rosmarin, age 85, Columbus
“My parents and I lived across the street from the ‘hobo camp.’ The neighborhood kids and I would go there and eat with them and listen to the stories they had to tell. They were family men looking for work wherever they could find it. They would come to our door asking for a potato or whatever food we could spare – Always offering to do work for it. We didn’t have much, but my mother always gave them a little something.”
– Jeannette Mellott, age 78, Plymouth
“Am I glad to have lived through the Great Depression? Yes. I learned to appreciate the simple life and to have compassion for those truly in need.”
– June M. Baden, age 79, Westerville
“I learned from my father that I should pay myself first and save a portion of everything I earn; to save not just for what I want, but for what I might need; to not spend what I don’t have – but to wait until I can afford it whatever it is. I learned that before agreeing to work, I should know what I will be paid, to determine if my time and labor will be best spent in this endeavor. Finally, I learned that there are times when anyone, including me, might need help, and, recognizing this, when others need help, I must step forward, if I am able, and be the helper.”
– Stanley L. Blum, age 79, Dayton
“And, my mother made soap. The hard soap I remember had an unpleasant smell and was tan in color. The soft soap was a gelatin-like goo. These were used in the washing machine. We did have ‘store bought’ soap for our bathing.”
– Thelma Thomas, age 87, Port Clinton
“We grew all our own vegetables. We had our own orchard. We had our own cows, had milk, made our own butter, did a lot of canning. My mother at one time had over 800 jars in the basement of jams, jellies, meat, fruits, vegetables, all these different things. We ate very comfortably because we ate from our own supplies. Many of my classmates did not have families that were well prepared for the difficulties of acquiring food as our family was. Many of them had small gardens or none at all. There were things that we could share, but there was not much more we could do for them.”
– Dean Bailey, age 82, Lordstown
“What I remember most is my high school days 1932-1936. We never received new books issued to us. At the end of the school term, we would all get a book, scotch tape and eraser. It was our job to mend the book, erase any marks and make the book presentable so that the next class could use them without trouble.”
– Pauline Bandzk, age 91, Hubbard
“In the thirties, Mom and Dad had their hands full financially raising us five children. Dad only worked two days a week at Goodyear – these days they call it rotating. Mom was an excellent seamstress, but was short on funds for buying sewing material. A friend of Dad’s worked at an auto wrecking yard. He volunteered to cut the headliner out of quality cars, so Mom had all the material she could use, thanks to Packards and Cadillacs.”
– Robert Schwalbach, age 82, Akron
“As I grew up, I had a variety of jobs. My father had three jobs at times, in a steel mill, a screw factory and did side work, concrete sidewalks and driveways and other things. My mother, while we were small, was a housewife. I worked in a shoe shop, washed cars and worked in a bakery. I shined shoes on Madison Ave., from west 73rd St. to west 110th St. I would go to public square on weekends and shine shoes in front of the terminal tower. As I got older, I delivered all three newspapers (Plain Dealer, News, Press) at old St. John Hospital before and after school. On Saturday and Sunday, I would shave old men patients at the hospital.”
– Daniel P. Gentile, Sr., age 70, Parma
“My dad had a Victory Garden on Detroit Rd. during the Depression. From that, he loaded the tables for all our neighbors, and he loved it. It was quite a bit of work for his garden, as we had to haul large bottles of water out there to keep the plants alive. I was a slim girl in those days, and the bottles of water were heavy… but when I knew that this garden meant so much to him, I gladly did it. I am now 88 years old, and still happy I did that.”
– Jean Lee, age 88, via e-mail
“From these humble beginnings, each of us children survived and grew up to have families of our own. In my case, I helped raise three generations of children. Early lessons of the importance of family helped me maintain my perspective during these times. I am grateful for the love and support of my family during our current economic downturn. The lessons of my life have taught me that things can always be worse and can always be better than they are today.”
– Marty Bryan, age 82, Columbus