When compared to the Great Depression, many people in today’s recession have it good. People who lived through the Great Depression talk about memories ranging from having to eat their pet goat to neighbors coming together and helping those who had no food.
Georgia Maddox
Georgia Maddox lived in Colony during the Depression. During that time she had a pet goat, and when the family was low on food, the goat was slaughtered and showed up on the dinner table. Maddox remembers what she said during dinner that day.
“Please pass me a piece of my own friend,” she said.
Maddox said she was a child at the time and despite the facts on hand, didn’t have a problem with the concept of eating her pet goat. Her mother did , however, after hearing her comment. Her mother wasn’t able to eat the meat after that, Maddox said.
Maddox said the family had plenty of milk because they had cows. The family would go to the ditch and pick wild onions and have onion gravy.
Maddox also recalls her sister delivering milk in the morning before school so they could have new shoes. She also recalled her father picking apples in Texas. Her father wanted to give the children one, but the person who hired him said no, they had to sell them all.
Maddox reflected on whether people today could survive through the Depression days.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think they want everything and they have everything. If you take that away a lot of people won’t live.
“There would be a lot of suicides.”
Maddox said her family moved to Emporia in 1936.
“My father got a railroad job and things started to look up,” she said.
Elma Moore
Elma Moore taught school during the Depression. She received $45 a month and rode a green-broke colt to get to where she taught. She grew up halfway between Hartford and Olpe. Later, Moore moved into a place where she had to pay room and board, which was $15. That left her $30 for the month.
“We had to go without everything,” Moore said, adding that she could buy shoes on her salary, however.
Growing up, the family butchered its own meat.
“We had meat to eat and potatoes,” she said. “And sometimes that was all.”
The year before she taught school, she did housework for people for $2.50 a week.
Even though the family didn’t have much money, they really didn’t know it, Moore said.
“We didn’t know we were in a Depression really,” she said. “We were just plain happy.”
Moore remembers having to do things herself, like carrying wood in for the stove and ashes out on the farm.
“We didn’t worry about it because everybody else did the same thing,” she said.
Despite hard times, Moore and her siblings were able to come to Emporia for high school. Her father rented them a room in Emporia. The siblings went to high school two at a time. Moore said she had three sisters and one brother, who was the youngest.
“We got 25 cents a week for spending money,” she said.
And there was a lot they could do with 25 cents, Moore added.
“If we could set five pennies aside, by the end of the week we could get a Three Musketeers bar and split it between us,” she said.
Ed Dillon
Ed Dillon, who grew up in Butler, Mo., remembers his family churning 125 pounds of butter a week to deliver. The family also had lots of fruit and berries.
“We gave a lot of food away,” he said. “The Depression didn’t affect our family as much as it did other families.”
Dillon said his family had a lot of resources and were even able to share with other families. His family had 25 cows to milk. The family also had sheep, hogs and chickens. They were lucky.
“It was pitiful the way some people lived,” he said.
Dillon said hot lunches for schoolchildren weren’t heard of during the Depression and some kids would come with a biscuit and a piece of salt pork.
“That was their dinner they brought,” he said.
Dillon said today it would be very hard for this generation to go through the Depression because back then families didn’t have a lot to begin with.
Laura Schlobohm
Laura Schlobohm recalls Emporia during the Depression. She lived on Chestnut Street and recalls how she and her friends didn’t need money to have fun. Schlobohm said she would have 20 to 30 friends over because they had a house with an unfinished basement and they didn’t have anything like Coke to drink for snacks.
“When we got hungry, we went upstairs and fried eggs,” she said. “We were all poor. Nobody had any money.”
Schlobohm said she had one friend whose father was a banker, and her friend went into a department store and charged a blouse.
“I thought that was heaven,” she said.
Schlobohm said she dreamed of the day when she had enough money to go into a store and charge things, but as she got older and was actually able to do that, it wasn’t as good as it sounded.
“You had to pay it back,” she said with a laugh.
Schlobohm said for fun, she and her friends would go to Sunset Inn, which was near Soden’s Grove. Sunset Inn was a place to go for entertainment.
“You could get in for a quarter,” she said. “That was our entertainment.”
Other entertainment took the form of sledding. Schlobohm recalled one year when it was icy for about a month in Emporia and kids sledded down the slope on 15th Avenue near St. Mary’s Hospital.
“You could slide clear up to Merchant Street,” she said. “Most of our entertainment was like that.”
Schlobohm babysat for a couple that ran La Petite Inn near the hospital. She made 10 cents a night.
“I thought I was well-paid,” she said.
She remembers the best place to eat in Emporia was Coney Island on Sixth Avenue. The Coney was a nickel and a bottle of pop was a nickel.
Despite not having excess money, Schlobohm said, they didn’t have it so bad.
“We were never hungry,” she said. “There were families with kids that were hungry. They didn’t have all the social agencies that helped you.
“Families took care of other families and that was it.”
Kenneth Harlan
Kenneth Harlan, who grew up north of Madison, was 11 years old in 1936. At that time, grasshoppers were eating everything in their path. His father had a field that was about eight acres. There were only about two to three acres of crop left.
His father asked him to cultivate the field. Harlan took his shirt off and put it on the fence post. When he was done he recalls his shirt being full of holes.
“There were thousands of holes in it,” he said, adding that the grasshoppers had eaten his shirt, which was made out of a flower sack.
Harlan said his mother had just made his shirt and was upset it was destroyed.
Harlan said the grasshoppers destroyed everything in their path and when you walked through the weeds it was like water parting from the grasshoppers jumping away.
The Depression for Harlan meant he couldn’t have things he desired, such as a bicycle.
“But we had enough to eat,” he said. “We were poor but we didn’t know it.”
abc123 (anonymous) says...
This is a testament to how spoiled, greedy and hung up on immediate gratification our world is today. I would wonder how many could survive a time like the depression now? Amazing stories and I am so glad they were published.
March 7, 2009 at 10:57 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
madpoet (anonymous) says...
I agree we're spoiled today. I've been trying to teach my toddler he can't everything he wants. I remember in college there were times when I did run out of food right before payday. I sometimes had to chose between putting gas in my car to drive to work or buying food. I worked at a fast food restaurant so could get cheap food there, at least. We've had to cut way back and are doing all we can to save money. Compared to friends who are laid off and have their home foreclosed, we're doing pretty well, though.
March 7, 2009 at 11:26 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
Good story. I agree with abc123, many people wouldn't make it today because they are so accustomed to having what they want on the spot. There is no such thing today as "make do or do without." I remember how I had to economize as a young military wife in the early 60's. Every penny counted. People today pout and go nuts if they can't have what they want when they want it. And they don't know how to take care of others by being charitable either, only themselves.
Helping your neighbor was the original type of social program. Now people put down social programs as being Socialism. People helping people is all it is, just like during the Depression.
March 8, 2009 at 10:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
neighbor (anonymous) says...
I have worked for spending money since I was in grade school when I worked in hay fields or weeding crops for neighboring farmers. My first "real job" was for a construction company as a laborer at 13 and continued to work thru my school years while also participating in sports. I bought most of my clothes and paid for my car as well as everything associated with car ownership without my parent's paying for any of it. By the time I was 18, I was making $300/week. I moved out at 18 right after I graduated from high school. I have worked up to three jobs at a time to make a living only having one day off a month for several years. I have only lost one job in my lifetime, having been laid off from a company that ended up shutting down completely. Anyone that says they cannot find work is not looking hard enough or is not willing to work in the first place IMO. I would survive today if we went into a deep depression, I know many that wouldn't.
Social programs funded by tax dollars are not compassion driven acts of charity IMO create, big difference between them and caring about your neighbors. You had the choice which neighbors you cared to provide assistance to back then, there are many getting public assistance now that don't deserve the "help" now. The woman who recently added 8 more to government teat is a prime example of the type I'm referring to.
March 8, 2009 at 11:34 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
oh4theluvof (anonymous) says...
I have to disagree with you also this time, create. If the government is forcefully taking my money to pass it out to others as they see fit, it is not charity (love) or compassion or any desire on my part to help--it is simply stolen. Back in the days of these inspiring stories the ones who didn't find every honest dollar they could were the ones who didn't survive. Generosity came in the form of sharing, but not money usually. Trading services, lending tools and household goods, even sharing a home with others who had enough income for food or shelter but not both, boarding one child for an especially poor family in exchange for chores or childcare, etc. Resources were so limited that generosity was limited and if people didn't see you making every honest effort to make your own way, they'd drop you like a hot rock--they weren't going to carry you. But now, 70 years later, we have a relatively large percentage of the population, many of them the great grandchildren of those very depressioners, looking for every opportunity to be carried. Call me stingy, but I have nothing to give them except a firm "NO." For those that have legitimate needs, however, I will help find every available resource.
March 9, 2009 at 12:02 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
open_eyes (anonymous) says...
I have an honest question to ask of those who are old enough to actually remember in some way the days of the Great Depression. Another article in the Gazetts talked about FDR's WPA programs, and how many jobs it created from 1935-1943. Then it says "Almost anyone who needed a job could get one".
Ok, I'm really honestly confused by this statement. A quick check tell me these were the average unemployment statistics through the decade:
1930: 8.7%
1931: 15.9%
1932: 23.6%
1933: 24.9%
1934: 21.7%
1935: 20.1%
1936: 16.9%
1937: 14.3%
1938: 19.0%
1939: 17.2% (buildup begins for WWII)
So, yes, unemployment did drop compared to the first half of the decade, but "almost everyone who needed a job could get one? Almost everyone? An average unemployment of over 17% for that period? Am I interpreting things wrong? Were jobs plentiful, as the author of the article claimed, but just didn't pay enough? Or were there really that many rich people then, who either didn't need jobs, or were there alot of lazy people, who just didn't want to work? Could someone in the know enlighten me? Was it really true that "almost everyone who needed a job could get one"???????
March 9, 2009 at 10:04 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
Okay, okay I give up. I'm guilty for generalizing about social programs and am hanging my head down, down, down. Way down. Lo siento mucho mis amigos.
March 9, 2009 at 6:40 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
neighbor (anonymous) says...
We still luv ya create :)
March 9, 2009 at 8:24 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )