My Corner of the Great Depression
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
INTRODUCTION I can just see my sister, or my brother, or others that lived on dad's, Mr. Joe Fitzgerald's, place saying, "Why, that's not the way it was. It didn't happen like that. We didn't do it that way." But these are my memories, not theirs. And whether or not my memories correspond to theirs is immaterial. Mostly, our disagreement would be on chronology, order of happenings, rather than the circumstances. My sisters were enough older than I that they lived in little worlds of their own; and my brother was enough younger that he certainly lived in a world of his own making. The emotional imprint gives different pictures to different people. Just like all history comes to us filtered through the visions and beliefs of authors, this view of life is the one written on my memory. When my daughter asked me to write about what it was like to grow up during the Great Depression, I almost said, "I can't do that. I don't know what the Depression was like." Then I realized that it was my life, my childhood. We were not depressed. The Depression was something we read about in history years later; of which we viewed pictures and felt sorry for the victims. Certainly, I grew and thrived through those years. To us, the participants who had no other time, they were natural. Everyone struggled for the bare necessities. Our location in the country rather than a city or town, made the conditions somewhat better. It is not my intention to minimize the difficulties people faced in those years, to make light of the tragic circumstances of some. As Donald I. Rogers said in The Day The Market Crashed, We grew up in a land where hunger was as near as your neighbor's I've begun each chapter in this book with a quote from sources showing the conditions in other places. The years, marked by the market crash to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, are considered by most historians as the years of the Great Depression. The many programs to give work to the people and relieve suffering, begun during the Roosevelt Administration, were certainly welcome and great help--indeed, life saving to many--but lawmakers being politicians such as they still are and have always been, one program would no more than be set up and operating than it would be discontinued and another started. Those programs, funded by the government identified by acronyms such as NRA, CCC, AAA, WPA, fueled the sluggish economy and renewed hope in the people. I'm sure our situation was not typical--but then, none is. We lived out in the country in Erath County, Texas, no major railroads or highways near, so we did not experience the transients there. Some that dad hired were "starved-out" farmers. They came and found a home on the nursery until they could do better. We had no paved roads and were not on the route to anywhere, so we did not see great numbers of unemployed and "soup lines". Country people had always lived with bare necessities, had learned frugality years before, but were mostly self-sufficient. We owned no paper stock, and didn't know those who did, so stock market crashes didn't touch us. Instead, we were dependent upon the land, the weather and natural fluctuations. In fact, as you will see, our situation was not like that of most farmers. My father, Joe Fitzgerald, was an intelligent, informed man, with a fiercely independent spirit, who was not afraid to stray from the beaten path. He was dedicated to improving the land, to trying many new crops, to learning the secrets of horticulture. My corner of the great depression was unique, mine, but it was shared by so many family and friends who enriched my life. It was a wonderful time--those Depression Years.
home; where, in many towns, the unemployed outnumbered the
gainful workers by a wide margin; where newspapers and kraft
grocery bags were saved to make innersoles for shoes; where little
more than twenty-five percent of the high school graduates could
ever hope to go on to college; where aching teeth were allowed to
rot to stumps because dentists were a "luxury"; where people sat on
flagpoles for prizes, danced in marathons for purses, and allowed
themselves to be buried alive in quest of an endurance record and
a much needed award.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
MY CORNER OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION tells about life in rural Texas during the years from the fall of the stock market until the beginning of World War II. Country life in those times meant canning, hog-killing, milking the family cow, working in the field, saving pennies to go the movies, playing all the school games, fishing in the creek, and learning to swim in mud tanks. It was a life of learning by doing.
With a father who read to them, even when the only light was an oil lamp, and a mother who helped keep them and the neighbors healthy, life was rich and satisfying with very little money. With cows, sheep, dogs, parrots, geese, cats, canaries, and other animals to care for, and the great outdoors to explore, learning came naturally. This book will awaken memories for some, and show what life was like before lights came with the flick of a switch.
About the Author
Mary Joe Fitzgerald Clendenin grew up in rural Erath County, Texas, before electricity and indoor plumbing was available to country folk. Her dad, Joe E. Fitzgerald was a nurseryman who grew fruit trees, shade trees, and other plants for sale. Mary Joe walked to a three-room country school where teachers taught three or four grades in one room. Mary Joe married Ray Clendenin, was mother to three children, and eventually, taught school 40 years during which she earned four degrees: B. S. ( Education with teaching fields of English and Math) Abilene Christian University; M.S. (Natural Science, Math and physics) New Mexico Highlands University; Ed. S. (Guidance and Counseling) New Mexico State University; Ed. D. (Curriculum and Instruction) New Mexico State University. She is the author of nine books and writes a weekly column for the local paper.