School Days - Depression Years

Retrospect 1930-1942

The Great Depression was unprecedented.  There was little history to draw upon.  President Hoover’s re-election campaign slogan was “A Chicken In Every Pot”.  At the depth of the depression, many people did not have the chicken and some didn’t even have the pot.

Careers were dashed!  Jobs disappeared!  People became homeless! “Brother can you spare a dime?”  As if these social upheavals were not enough, nature stepped in – the dust bowl from Nebraska, to Kansas, to Oklahoma, to Texas, adding to the woes of these years.  Massive flooding in the Ohio River Valley was another of nature’s challenges hurled at the country.

Family ties were strained – sometimes to the breaking point.  Some children were handed over to homes for orphans because the family could no longer provide basic care.  In some cases, children were abandoned, left on the door step of a social agency or even on the steps of a home deemed likely to provide shelter to a child.  These were indeed desperate acts.  These were desperate times.

Many years later, adults are still trying to re-establish family ties with children, known to have been abandoned.  In a similar poignant manner, children who were abandoned are seeking siblings or any family members who can link them with an unknown past.

Following World Wars I and II, this search for family connections by war refugees was common.  It is sobering to consider that the search for family was also a consequence of the realities of the Great Depression.  No matter the cause, the sense of loss is the same.

Those who endured these hardships were resilient and adaptive.  They made the most of whatever was available.  Survival is deeply ingrained in the human spirit and the need for family is a part of the whole of humanity.

Those who survived the depression had an appreciation for a dollar and for honest work.  Many who lived through the boom years following the war were still driven by the lessons of survival.  Make do or do without!  They braced for that expected “rainy day”.  People my age swap tales of how they made ends meet when they get together in social groups.  There is a degree of pride that they met the challenges and prevailed.  There is a sense of invincibility – if they could survive the Great Depression, they could survive anything.

The classroom of today seems “light years” removed from the classroom we had.  We did not feel deprived – we were being taught those things we needed to know for our day.  We will spend the rest of our days trying to assimilate at least a small part of the avalanche of information, innovations and motivations of today.

Those first innocent days in kindergarten began the adventures of learning and expanding one’s horizons.  Kindergarten in 1930 began the journey through school days that proceeded in lockstep with the deepening depression; school lessons were entwined with life lessons taught by the effects of the depression.

Even these sometimes harsh and austere days and years produced pleasant memories – but as in life – there was both good and bad.  Our challenge was to balance the events of these days and years and keep them in perspective.

I lived through years that are now spoken of as history.  I believe the word history would have more accurately been expressed as “his story”.  It is within this context that I relate my telling of “his story”.

Life is a gift, full of unexpected adventures.  It must be embraced with a conviction to endure and prevail.  It must be lived one day at a time.

In recalling these days of 1930-1942 and the events they contained.  I find images of people who shared those days coming to mind.  Names are once again associated with these images.  Together, we are the cast of characters in this history. 

As I said earlier, what a