This is a continuation of the the stories of people that Studs Terkel interviewed for his book Hard Times, stories of those who were witness to the Great Depression. There were several chapters by Coal mining families, who struggled, enslaved to the company store. It just wrenched my heart to read their stories as they were amongst some of the poorest and hardest worked. It was not uncommon for some of these miners in the late 1920’s early 1930’s to work until they earned 20 dollars. Then the mine might shut down for a few days until the guys spent their 20 earned dollars in the company store.” Every aspect of their lives was company food, housing, furniture etc. They paid higher prices for the convenience of having things close by. According to one miner, as far as Union Organization, the Ku Klux Klan was the only protection for the working man, both Black and White. Many young boys dropped out of school to work alongside their fathers, brothers and Uncles to help sustain the family. The miners were pretty much owned by the company.
                     Edward Sarteller told how his daddy was a coalminer in 1929. Edward chose the path of a schoolteacher and made thirty dollars per month. His early memories of his education were in a one room schoolhouse, with eight rows, one for each grade. There was a potbelly stove and there was a three- holer outhouse.  The author said that the greatest contribution of the WPA was to standardize outdoor toilets for the schools. He recalled a young girl with whom he went to school who suffered from Typhoid. She was completely bald and had no wig. Back then kids would get sick with diphtheria and other illnesses. His dad, Uncle and Grandfather, who was born in a log cabin, were all self educated men. 
                     In 1936 and 1937, the mine where his father worked saw much struggle. The widow of the mine owner was going to sell for 38,000 but she decided to sell to the workers for far less at 33,000. The men gathered together and made a decision to sell their stock and work for free to keep their jobs. In the beginning there were four hundred men. In then late 1950’s there was only eighteen of the original four hundred left to work. 
                     Sarteller thought rootless ness would destroy the country. Much like the 1920’s in Germany, there would be camps etc. The country would not survive.
                     Another interesting man interviewed was Jerome Zerbe. His family had money and he knew a lot of influential people. He began as a painter and lived in Europe on a three hundred dollar stipend, which his father afforded. When the Depression hit, his father could no longer send money so Jerome was forced to come back to the USA. He had this crazy idea to take pictures of his friends and their homes and send them all around the world to gain exposure. It landed him a job at Parade Magazine and people loved reading about the rich and elite. At one point in his career, he worked at a club. In this club, the celebrities wore their vanity when they sought him to take their portraits. 
                     Another chapter told of Joe Morrison, who proclaimed that even though ninety-two percent of the town was on relief, some people refused help. Many kids lost their teeth due to poor nutrition and no medical care and some fainted from hunger. He claimed, “There’s Apathy now.” People were talking about Revolution in the boxcars. There was such a hysteria that sometimes monitors were seeking information in these Hoovervilles to see if in fact there was a reason to worry about Revolution. It was like a police state. Today (1970’s), people are thinking but nobody’s talking.
                    Peggy Terry and her mother, Mrs. Owsley, were both interviewed. They were both considered to be Hillbilly women. Peggy tells how her father took them once to see a Hooverville. She was a kid and recalled being shocked as it was about ten miles wide by about ten miles long. People lived in orange crates, cardboard homes, rusted out cars and piano boxes. Her mother, Mrs. Owsley, told that her husband was a bonus marcher, very feisty. She said she met this family from Oklahoma once who had seven kids. They lived in a hole in the ground, like a cave. It was real nice inside she said, with chairs and table and clean too. At one time, all Peggy’s family had to eat was mustard. Her mother spoke of the Dust Bowl storms and how it ruined their clothes. Normally, one never wore anything like those clothes but they had no choice, all stained with oil. The people were “mentally ill” because they wondered if the tough times would ever end. There were many suicides during these years. Mrs. Owsley joked that her husband was a hell raiser, being gassed by the Germans in WW1 and then again by his own government because he was a bonus marcher. He came home empty handed, like all the rest of the marchers. 
                    Peggy married at fifteen and her husband was sixteen. She used to be quite prejudiced in her beliefs against the blacks until she was treated the same way. She remarked how it was odd that she never felt any common threads between her and her black workers in the field next to her. She thought they had nothing in common. Only later was she shown some kindness when she was pregnant and hitching rides with her husband, offered a place to lay her head on a wagon full of black workers who even had a chicken meal packed in a pail for her the next morning They were not allowed to eat in public restaurants, so they cooked all their own food on the wagon. She realized they were all fighting the same battle. There was one thing she had trouble understanding as a kid. She recalls observing Roosevelt’s fancy cufflinks, a childhood memory, and asking herself, “Why are we so hungry?”
                     The owner of a successful speakeasy, Tony Soma, referred to himself as a Capitalist. He came to America from Italy with nothing and quickly became a successful business owner. His circle of clients included several noteworthy people. Tony commented that to have noteworthy friends was better than any relationship you could have with a bank. He felt poverty was a result of laziness. Poverty and Depression were signs of mental illness, he claimed. In 1929, the year of the Crash, Tony boasted to have had his biggest year in American life. That was the year he sold three leases for 104,000. “Life is not to suffer”, he would say.
                     One story of interest was that the illegal activities of some people made them very prosperous, both good and bad people. There was a fine line between the good and the bad. Many made a fortune from Prohibition, gangsters and cops. 
                    Sally Rand was age six when she saw Pavlova perform and proclaimed she knew then she wanted to be a dancer. Sally worked for Cecil B. DeMille; a Hollywood Icon. She sold million dollar yachts which were sitting in marinas collecting barnacles because the rich had ceased some of their spending habits. Her clients were bootleggers who paid $10,000 for one of these yachts and she collected her 6 percent commission.
                     Another man, Caesar Chavez, missed a great deal of school as his family followed the crops to try to survive. His father had a corral which ended up getting bulldozed by the bank. The president of the bank was watching all the surrounding land and purchased all of it, near where the Chavez’ had a piece of land. Chavez recalls as a kid lots of hurtful memories such as seeing signs “White Trade Only”, when his family was refused from making purchases on the road. His father was at the mercy of people who would hire the family and later skip town, sometimes only able to feed the family on seven dollars per week. His father never gave up hope on trying to get a piece of land again.
                     One fellow who came from Cuba, Jose Yglesius, told about the cigar factories. The woman cigar factory workers made as much as the men. He realized the Depression was going on when his Aunt no longer charged them rent and there was no food in the house. Interestingly enough the illiterate cigar workers had a podium at work and the workers paid to have speakers come in and read classics like Tolstoy and Dickens. Once there was as a strike at the factory, the employer took away the podium and the readers never came again. It was a way to disempower the workers. His Cuban father despised Roosevelt. He compared Roosevelt to Mussolini.
                      One person in the book told that some of the common feelings were regarding thinking that your father was a failure. Some men who had been successful struggled with taking any old job. There was a great deal of resentment between father and son. Sometimes the sons left very early. The fathers sometimes left to go find work and would be gone for a long time. Another person told that it was good to see the father coming home on his bike smelling of sawdust. His father was a carpenter. When he came home carrying his toolbox, it meant the job was over. Some men committed suicide so their families could get money, according to one person interviewed.
                    Another woman told of the time she rode a train with her brother during World War 1 and witnessed a dying soldier on the train. She said the impact was huge. She never felt that way again until she was motoring under the Michigan Avenue Bridge and saw thousands of men rolled up in their overcoats sleeping on the pavement. She was shocked. She thought that whatever it was that brought on Nazism could now happen anywhere and she feared this.
                    Edward Ryerson, who came from a family of boilermakers and steel men, told of his attempts at getting Federal funds, particularly Chicago. He received twelve million dollars in 1932 which lasted three months in Chicago. Hoover lost the election because people wanted ‘change’. So much of this sounds familiar to what is taking place today.
Diane Morgan, a southern belle, told how her world fell apart when she realized the Depression had affected her family. She came home and there was no telephone, no cook, no maid, and dust under her bed. She had no ice for drinks to serve her visitors. She eventually landed a job with the New Deal program and she recruited people. She tried to hire people she knew who were struggling. She told of meeting her previous maid and feeling so happy to see her. She was able to help her. An early memory she had as a kid was visiting this maid and seeing her walls papered with newspapers. They had different lives but felt the maid was part of her extended family.
                    Mike Widman worked for the Ford factory. He showed up at work his first day at the factory and was in charge of sanding the fenders. He did not know the gates were locked at 8am daily and had no commissary there. He was hungry the first day as he had no lunch. He said he wished he had known he needed to bring his own gloves as his hands were all blistered that first day. If he needed to use the bathroom, he was supposed to check with a foreman first and find a replacement so the assembly line did not suffer while he was gone. There was surveillance at the factory as Ford hired ex cons for this. Once when Widman told a foreman that he had been going to school, he was told that Mr.Ford did not pay for employees to go to school and was fired. Later because he was a friend of the union leader John Lewis, he was instrumental in helping protect some of the black workers who had been afraid of losing their jobs during the big strike when Ford had shut the plant per the governor. 
                    Frank Czerwonka told how everyone was in on cheating the utilities during Prohibition. The gas and electric companies would put a meter up and the folks in the neighborhood would put a jumper on the meter to give it false readings. During the height of Prohibition booze was 40 dollars per gallon and when it was lifted, it was 5 dollars per gallon.
                    Clyde Ellis said the whole country had lost many young boys in WW2. Clyde told how he became a schoolteacher and worked hard to get power in Arkansas so folks could have electricity. He served as a Congressman and was affiliated with the National Rural Electric. Electricity finally came to Arkansas and he recalled his mother crying when she flicked the light switch. He lost his own younger brother who quit school and volunteered for money in the military as there was no work. 
                    The farmers saw great struggle, so much that many lost their farms for cents on the dollar. The price of corn was more than the price of hogs. In an effort to raise the price of hogs, many sows were slaughtered to merely raise the price and the farmers were paid to slaughter their pregnant female pigs. The farmer could not afford to feed his cattle grain. This eventually led to slaughtering cattle to raise the price of beef. Riots were not uncommon and farmers blocked the roads so their produce wouldn’t go to market. One story tells how approximately 1500 farmers came out of the woods angry, and sometimes violence erupted. There was a fleet of trucks sent to Sioux Falls to get food for market and thirteen roads were blocked. The stockyards were emptied and the farmers were not going to allow anything to get to market. It was comparable to the American Revolution. There were farm auctions where local town folk bought things for pennies on the dollar, only to return everything to the farmer in the end. Judge Bradley, who facilitated foreclosure on many farms, was nearly lynched by a group of angry farmers. It was not his fault as these were the times; however he was not quite right after that. Many people interviewed remembered the incident.
                    Farmers in Kansas had different experiences. They had the black blizzards when visibility was no more than three or four feet and they had droughts. They also had Alf Landon who appointed three men to each county to try to assist the farmers. These men called the bankers and insurance companies to beg for more time so the farmers could try to meet their mortgage payments. Landon established farm moratoriums. He even called the bankers at times also. There were no riots in Kansas he claimed.
                    One man told how FDR was hated by the people that he helped and loved by the people he harmed. When Hoover was in office, it was said there were Federal Funds to feed the animals but no Federal money to feed people. You had to rely on your neighbor for help. When cotton was four cents a pound and it cost ten cents to produce it, the fields would be plowed over to drive up the cost. The Secretary of Agriculture, Col. C.B. Baldwin, told of these troubles. He stated that tobacco went down to four cents per pound and could not be produced for that price. At this time, unemployment was sixteen million; WPA offices were set up quickly so people could get work. This only lasted about six months, as Congress would not support it. Interestingly enough, a program was established like a farmer’s cooperative. It included fifty farming families, similar to Russian Collectivism. They all did fairly well and split the profits, however…this fascinated me. Even though they did not go hungry and did fairly well… in the end they all still had a desire to own their own little piece of land, something that was not part of this original plan. The human spirit is to try to be a better person and to try to get ahead in life. It shocked those who had set up this little experiment, that the farmers still wanted a piece of their own land.
                    The stories are numerous and every one a different experience from a different piece of American Fabric. I will end with two short stories of interest. Sumio Nichi was a very prosperous farmer. He was a man of integrity I think because he paid for everything as he went. At times when inflation was bad, he struggled but he paid everything in full for his farm equipment and his mortgage. He ended up losing nearly everything because of the policy to send the Japanese to Interment camps. He had 80,000 worth of farm equipment which went up for auction and received 6,000 for it. He lost everything because of the war experience of the interment camps.
                    Another story is that of Emma Tiller. She was a black woman from Texas who recalled 1914 when the worms ate all the cotton. She claimed she could hear the crops being destroyed by the pests. Her memories of the Depression were waiting in long lines with all the other sharecroppers for food at the Relief Station. Sometimes they waited two or three days. Some people ahead of her were given rotten meat. One particular instance, she remembered a three men coming one day who were hungry. They brought their guns and one of the fellows was very angry he had received rotten meat. They said they were not leaving until everyone had been fed. They said they were not going to harm anyone. The man running the relief station was reaching for a phone when one of the gunmen grabbed him by the tie and told him he would kill the man. Emma Tiller said that day everyone got fed. Those fellows with the guns went to the penitentiary. Later it was found that the man running the relief station was storing food in his own warehouse and depriving those he was supposed to be helping. This was not uncommon. 
                    I suppose my reason for telling you about some of the people in this book was mainly to help us all realize that this indeed happened in America. If anything can be taken from these stories, I think it is that we need to be more self sufficient and rely less on the government. As you can see by these stories, the government did not do a very good job helping anyone, except themselves. Those who worked for the government did not go without the necessities.
 

 http://blog.likes2write.com/2009/04/21/interviews-from-the-great-depression.aspx (PART 1)