00:00:00 .
-Kathy L. Peacock (KP): This is Kathy Peacock,
and I'm talking today to my grandmother,
Mrs. Doris Richardson-Findley,
and today is the eighth of April.
And mom's gonna tell me something about the Depression,
and about some of the years before the Depression.
Mom, you were born in 1903, in rural Indiana.
Can you tell me a little bit about the family
you were born into, something about your mom and dad,
your brothers and sisters.
-Doris Findley (DF): I was the youngest child in a family of 10.
And we lived on a poor farm in Brown County, Indiana.
And I don't know, we never expected to be anything
but poor, it seemed like for most of the people
at that time, if they made the living,
that was the main thing they thought about.
And of course my older brothers and sisters
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were gone, my mother was 42 when I was born
and they were gone away from home for the most part
and earned their own living.
And my father was a big man and my mother was
just a little bit of a woman.
And we had one brother, Harley that died when he was
11 years old with diptheria.
At that time I don't think they had all the knowledge
that they have today.
They did give him antitoxin and they gave him
a second shot later, and it got worse immediately and died.
Which they always thought maybe the antitoxin shot
maybe was what killed him, I don't know.
But since i was the last child in the family
it never seemed to me even though we were poor,
we were highly respected and my father was a very honest man
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and a respected man in our neighborhood.
Some of our neighbors weren't any poorer than we were
but even though that was the way it was
we considered ourselves, sort of,
I think you'd say
we were middle class people even though we were poor.
-KP: Well did you work at all, mom.
-DF: Well I was, after I was out of school,
I went to fourth through the eighth grade
and a high school was far away, it was almost impossible
for me to go, because I'd had to boarded and my folks
weren't able to do that.
I did have a brother that went to high school
and worked for his board, and he went to high school
that way but a girl was a little different.
And so when I got big enough at that time
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girls worked out in people's homes as a housekeeper
and we stayed there unless it was occasionally.
We went home to visit, we'd get five dollars a week.
Of course we got our board, and five dollars a week
didn't go very far but it went a lot farther
than it would today.
-KP: This was in about when 1920.
-DF: Well, about, when I was about 16 years old.
And then I was married when I was somewhat past 18.
Which to most people now seems young,
but I was better equipped because I'd worked out
and I knew how to work and I knew how to cook.
I knew how to manage, though not very much.
And I married a farmer.
-KP: Well can you tell me much about farm prices then,
say during the war or after the war, did they change.
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-DF: During the war, of course I don't remember
so much about, because I wasn't married till after
the war in 1921.
I don't remember so much about prices, only that a man
that we worked for immediately after we were married
in 1921, he had, we had gone to five dollars a bushel.
And he had wheat in his grainery, and of course
he wanted to, if it was high he wanted to get more
and more and he kept this wheat, thinking it would
go higher, and instead of that, later it did
go down and he kept on keeping it until the weevil
got into it and he lost the wheat.
-KP: He lost it all?
-DF: As far as I know he lost that bin of wheat
because if a weevil gets in wheat,
well it didn't fit for human consumption.
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-KP: What now dad rented a farm, right.
-DF: After, after we were married
that's what my husband did, was a farmer,
and of course we didn't own a farm, we rented a farm
on the shares, and gave half of all the crop from,
all the corn or wheat or whatever we raised
for the rent of the farm.
-KP: You were talking about Mr. Van der Verr
is that his name.
-DF: Yes.
-KP: Did I say that right.
-KP: Kept his wheat at five dollars,
he wanted to get more for it.
What's a usual price for a bushel of wheat.
Say now.
-DF: I think this right now, it maybe is around
three dollars, but back after our government
sold a lot of wheat to Russia.
Wheat did go up, and it went to five dollars,
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but it hadn't been that now for years,
so I really don't know just what wheat is right now.
-KP: What did you think about Coolidge
and his policies toward farmers.
-DF: Well, as well as I remember,
we thought Coolidge was a very conservative man,
and of course times were,
we'd never known anything but to live skimpy
I guess you'd say, so we didn't think so much about that.
But then after Hoover came along, well,
seemed like thing was gradually getting worse
but he had a motto I guess you'd say
that we Hooverized, which was to economize
and make everything go as far as it would.
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But sometimes it didn't always go that far.
(laughs)
-KP: Did you like Hoover, did you want
a president that stayed out of your business.
-DF: Well I think we did then, but of course
since he was a republican and we were a democrat,
while another democrat come along
which was Franklin Roosevelt, well we thought
he was the savior of the world and really, he was,
to the American people.
At least to the most of people's way of thinking.
-KP: How was it that you were democrats.
-DF: Because my father was.
-KP: But this is a republican state.
(laughs)
Well Indiana usually goes republican.
-DF: Yes but the county that I was raised in
was democratic, but I don't know you mostly are
what your father was and at least you lean that way
unless you marry and your husband is a party.
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But when I married he was a democrat too,
and my father in law always thought that if you were
a democrat and a Baptist, you just couldn't hardly
go along anyway.
-KP: Had to be a democrat and a Baptist?
-DF: Yes, you had to be a democrat and a Baptist
to amount to anything at all.
-KP: Well mom can you tell me what you heard
about World War I or how you heard about it.
-DF: My father always, of course we didn't have a radio
we didn't have a phone, but my father always took
the daily newspaper, the Indianapolis newspaper.
And everyone read it from cover to cover.
And my brother, enlisted in the war.
Verless, my brother Verless, enlisted in the war
and went overseas, and he was a line repairmen.
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The way I understood, and nowadays they have
something that they talk back and forth
but at that time they had lines that they talked back.
And that's what he did.
And he was gassed in the war.
And then after the war was over, he was sent
with the Army of Occupation to Germany and he was there
for a year.
But I remember that each letter that we would get from him,
my father would say and I put that up because
that may be the last one that we get.
And we didn't hear from him for a good long while,
maybe a couple of months after the war was over
because mail took a long time to come.
And we didn't know for a good long while
whether he was still living or not.
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-KP: Well now did your dad think
we should be in the war,
did he think we had any business over there at all.
-DF: Well, I don't think we really did,
but after you get into something there don't seem to be
any other way to try to get out of it.
And I know he didn't want my brother Verless
to enlist, but when my brother was home,
he had said that he thought he was going to enlist
and my father tried to talk him out of it.
But the day he left I went with him down the road
a piece and he turned around after he got down the road
and said, and waved at me and said now you be a good girl,
and when I went back to the house
my father had gone to the barn to cry,
because he thought that was the proper place for him to go.
He didn't want anybody to see him cry, you know.
-KP: What'd your mother say.
00:11:00
-DF: Well she cried at the house.
-KP: Oh.
(laughs)
Well mom what did they say about the League of Nations.
-DF: Well we thought as well as I could remember
seemed like it's been a long time ago.
We thought the League of Nations might be a solution.
Just as the United Nations might be a solution.
But neither one, in my estimation,
of course the League of Nations wasn't a success,
neither has the United Nations, apparently.
-KP: But people at the time didn't feel like
Wilson's plan for the League of Nations was a good idea.
-DF: Well, I don't know, I just can't remember
that they thought too much against it.
We'd been in this World War and we felt like
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there should be some solution to the future,
so we wouldn't always be having another war.
-KP: Well we had a slight interruption
with a visit of Norman, one of mom's sons,
and my uncle.
But we'll get back, we ended up talking about
the League of Nations, and I wanted to ask you
how you felt at that time, about a few other things.
Let's start out with prohibition.
How did you feel about it.
-DF: Well, it looked like it could work.
And I had a brother-in-law, my sister's husband,
that was a drinker and we thought that maybe that
might help solve his problem.
He was a very good businessman when he was sober,
00:13:00
but if he could get something to drink,
well then that ended that.
But of course he got bad liquor, they called it then,
and he did drink it, but I don't believe
if they could have gone one with it,
that the younger generation would have drank as much
as they do today, where they can buy it on every corner.
I know there's a lot of graft and a lot of things,
but they didn't really try it long enough
to see if it really would work.
The only thing that they felt like
that in the Depression and thing when the government
needed money so bad, and Roosevelt was elected
that it would bring in lots of taxes.
That we didn't otherwise have, and of course it did.
00:14:00
But at the same time, it makes lots of taxes
available today, but at the same time
it takes a world of police and prisons and things
that liquor contributes to, to be taken care of.
-KP: Well mom was it only women who didn't want
liquor easily available, they were mostly for prohibition.
-DF: Well I think so, if there was anybody
drinking in the family it was usually the men.
Not in my time did we know of any women that drank
and of course if the women thought that they could
make it not available, then their husband wouldn't
be able to get it and they'd do better.
00:15:00
And by the way this brother-in-law did get killed,
driving a car while he was drinking.
-KP: You were 17 in 1920, which was the year
that women got the right to vote, and women suffrage
was tied closely with prohibition.
It weren't always the same, the issue didn't always
come from the same people but a lot of people
confused thinking that if women got the vote
then they wouldn't be able to drink.
That there'd be prohibition, or some things mixed up
like that, can you tell me a little bit about
how you felt about women's suffrage
or how your parents felt?
-DF: Well, as well as I remember, my parents
thought women's suffrage was preached foolishness,
00:16:00
because, well, you just didn't think,
you thought the man of the family was one that made
the decisions and it just seemed like
it wasn't even necessary and make a lot more confusion
and things, and I've told my granddaughter that's
asked me these questions,
if she thought that women of course do vote now,
if they had improved the quality of our political officials,
I just really don't know whether they have or not,
well of course women wouldn't have been able to have
any official office, which a lot of them do hold,
and a lot of them do a good job.
-KP: So you think that
they have improved things somewhat.
-DF: Well I wouldn't want to go back to women
00:17:00
not getting to vote.
Even at that I don't know whether they've improved it
so much or not.
-KP: Okay, a few other things
I wanted to ask you about.
About that time, was there any general feeling
on limiting or not limiting families, the size
of families, did the women have any control over that
or were they just, well you tell me how it was.
-DF: Back in my parents day most everybody
had a big family.
I don't know we didn't have the knowledge and things
they have now to know how to control our family,
amount of children.
00:18:00
-KP: We've had another interruption.
If you'd like to continue telling me about...
-DF: I do know when we were married
that a lot of people would like to limit their family,
but they didn't have the knowledge to be sure
that they have now, like if they don't want
to have that many children, they have the knowledge
to not have them, that's all.
-KP: Well mom was it true then that women were
just supposed to stay home and have babies,
is that all that they were supposed to do.
-DF: Well.
-KP: Is that what you wanted to do.
-DF: If they had children they were supposed
to stay at home and take care of them.
And besides that, back then women didn't work.
Not very many women worked away from home.
And if they had an older parent that needed to be
00:19:00
taken care of, they took care of them.
But now, most women work and it's not possible
for them to take care of an older parent
and continue with their job, so most of the older people
are in nursing homes, that's why we have so many
nursing homes today.
-KP: Instead of keeping them in the family.
Instead of keeping the older.
-DF: Yes, that's right.
Because it isn't possible if a woman has a job
and she doesn't want to lose her job,
well, they can't take care of older people
like they used to.
-KP: You still feel like they aught to stay home.
-DF: No, not necessarily, I don't think,
I don't think it's,
I don't even think that makes good family life,
because that added conflict to their life,
I can remember back people that did take care
00:20:00
of their older parents, an uncle took care of
my grandfather for 20 years and there never seemed
to be any conflict about that.
My grandmother died with cancer and my grandfather
lived for 20 years after that and he stayed
with this uncle, and they always seemed to be happy enough.
-KP: Mom there are some other things I wanted
to ask you about the 20s.
Especially about the style of the 20s.
Did you ever bob your hair or did you ever wear
a flapper dress.
-DF: I never had a flapper dress,
and I never bobbed my hair until after we was married.
And I remember my father-in-law, my husband's sister,
and she was married at the time, and she bobbed
her hair and she came over one Sunday afternoon,
and he just almost expired.
He just thought that was, at that time if a woman
00:21:00
bobbed her hair she was,
she just wasn't the right kind of a woman,
that was all.
But later on, I bobbed mine.
(laughs)
We've had it bobbed ever since.
(laughs)
-KP: What about wearing shorter dresses.
What did your parents think about women wearing
shorter dresses.
-DF: well I can't remember that I ever had
too short a dress, but I can remember the flapper
age that people maybe had more clothes than I did anyway.
And they were long and slim and had a fringe
on the bottom and they twirled them around.
(laughs)
They thought they weren't too up and strict, though.
-KP: Did your dad ever say anything to you
when he saw you in a shorter skirt.
-DF: No, I can't ever remember that I had a dress,
00:22:00
that short, that my father said anything about.
I think I had a shorter dress after I was married
than I did when I was younger.
-KP: Is it okay to bob your hair and wear short skirts
after you were married.
-DF: Yes, eventually people began to do that
and they didn't think anything about it.
(laughs)
-KP: That's funny.
How did the church feel about things like that.
-DF: Well the church didn't approve of it either,
but it's just like women wearing slack suits
to church today, people didn't approve of that
but there's lots of slack suits worn to church today.
And they begin to not think anything about it.
-KP: Women never wore pants in the 20s.
-DF: At that time, you never did see a woman
in a pair of slacks, that just wasn't even known then.
I never had any.
00:23:00
(laughs)
-KP: Mom in the 20s everybody was buying stocks,
and buying on margin and things like that.
Did you ever buy any stock or?
-DF: No, I guess we didn't have the money to buy,
we lived on a farm and we raised cows and hogs and chickens.
And we had three children I guess at that time.
In the 22, and 24, and 26 and it was just sort of
a normal way of life, we milked our cows and we did
what farming we had and raised our chickens
and made a living and that was just kinda the normal
way of life, I never thought about trying to buy any stock.
I did know in later years that man that did buy
00:24:00
on the stock market and of course they thought
they were making a lot of money to be get on
and then stocks went down and they lost a lot of money.
And one man in particular, George Schepp,
he lost his farm because he lost a lot of money
and he deeded the farm to his wife and then later
he died and she died and their children owned
this farm today but he didn't pay his debts that way.
-KP: Was that common practice, to deed?
-DF: I think they did, I know more people
in the Depression that did that very thing
to save their farm but it wasn't an honest way to do it.
But he's the only one in particular that I know
that bought stocks and bonds like the stock market I guess.
00:25:00
-KP: And then lost.
-DF: Yeah.
-KP: And then lost everything.
-DF: But I do know people that lost their farm
and deeded to their children in order to
not pay their debts.
But that wasn't our way of life, if we had a debt,
we thought we had to pay it.
And did pay it.
-KP: Well how did you save your farm in the 20s.
-DF: Well we didn't own a farm at this time,
we rented a farm and of course we had cattle,
and hogs and we didn't get any money for them much
but we managed to live without losing them.
-KP: Mom another issue in the 20s and the 30s
was unions, do you remember how you felt about them,
how you felt about the unions.
-DF: Well, of course we didn't work in an industrial
place and didn't know too much about the unions
00:26:00
only that we felt like if the unions got control,
well they'd be more or less of a dictator.
You'd have to do what they said.
Which is sort of the way it is, but then of course
they wouldn't be getting the high prices today
if it hadn't been for the union.
But being a farmer we never had much experience
with anything like that.
-KP: Did you kind of feel like the laborers
shouldn't be asking for a certain wage or certain hours.
-DF: Well no, I think that coal miners
and lots of laborers in big industrial places did work,
they worked too long, too many hours a day
and got such little pay.
And I also think that they get too much pay today
00:27:00
because it just goes up and goes up at such a price
per hour that it makes everything else the same way.
It makes everything high.
-KP: Did you feel that unions were un-American,
un-patriotic.
-DF: No, I don't think so.
-KP: I was thinking about the time we talked
before we started this taping, you thought that maybe
unions were kind of communistic, did I misunderstand.
-DF: In a degree that you'd think that they would
control people, that they would have to do what the unions
said and even though they didn't want to strike
if a union called a strike while they did.
And I could say that we might think that that was
00:28:00
more or less communistic.
-KP: Oh I see, I misunderstood then.
In 1929 when the stock market crashed, you were 26.
Can you tell me what your life was like then
and did the crash affect your life or make any difference.
-DF: Well we had three children at that,
we had four children at that time.
And I know we read a lot about it in the paper.
But it seemed like it didn't effect us immediately,
I know we got a new Chevrolet that year,
in the fall, before the market crashed,
but then after it did, well then things began
to go the other way.
And of course gradually began to get lower
and prices cheaper.
00:29:00
-KP: Did you have any farm machinery then.
-DF: We had a Ford tractor in I think it was 1929
and before that though we mostly farmed with horses,
and we still did have horses.
And a lot of times we couldn't get the thing started,
it was about as much trouble as it was help.
(laughs)
Work a half a day to get it started for some reason
or other, of course they don't do that with tractors today
they start mostly.
-KP: Well did you have to sell anything.
-DF: No, we didn't, we did sell, we had to sell
things to get some money but it was things that maybe
you would have sold.
I know in the fall of 1932 our county taxes was 16 dollars.
00:30:00
And we sold 100 bushel of corn at 16 cents a bushel.
Your job and not having anything at all.
I know one time chickens, they would bring about 35 cents
a piece, about seven cents a pound.
And I took three old hens to town and sold them
for a dollar and a nickel, and got a sack of chicken feed
that cost a dollar and a man put it on the fender
of the Model 8 Ford, and I lost it before I got home,
and didn't know it.
And my husband got right in the car and went back
and thought he'd find it and couldn't find it,
we had to go to the elevator and charge it,
because I had to have some chicken feed,
that was all.
And then one time in the fall of 32, we had 10 nice hogs
00:31:00
to sell, and he sent them to market and they didn't weigh
quite 200 pound.
And the morning that we expected the check,
I went to the mailbox and it didn't come.
And well, I wondered why we didn't get the check
that morning, and so at the supper table
I said to Wendell, my husband, well you know
that check didn't come.
And he said I got it, and he had, as he went up the road
to shuck corn that morning, he had got the check
out of the mailbox, and it was such a little
that he didn't say anything about it.
And the 10 hogs after expenses were paid,
brought 53 dollars, that was slightly over five dollars
a head and that wasn't very much.
-KP: For 10 hogs and this was in 32.
-DF: That was in the fall of 32.
-KP: That just sounds awful.
00:32:00
Now 33 was supposed to be the worst year of the Depression.
32 sounded bad enough, now you had four babies
by this time and married to a farmer,
this just sounds like an awesome responsibility to me.
With the Depression and the drought and everything,
what did you think was gonna happen, did you worry about it.
-DF: Well of course you worried about it
and I know that winter we didn't have money to buy coal
and we hadn't had such good corn, and we burnt corn
for fuel at different times and you could go out.
All the neighbors would know you were burning corn
because it has the smell of roasted corn.
Which, well, in the year of 33, we had a small baby,
00:33:00
Dewey was our youngest child at that time
and I know when the banks closed and our oil man
as usual for him to come on that day,
we didn't really have any money in the bank
so we didn't lose very much but we had a small egg check,
or a milk check I can't remember which.
But we needed oil because we didn't have electric lights
at that time, we didn't have any money.
But we did have this check, but he wouldn't cash it
because the banks had closed and if we didn't have
the cash we didn't get the oil.
And I can't remember I guess we done without
far as I know I don't remember, we didn't have it anyway.
-KP: What kind of oil.
-DF: Just kerosene oil for the lamps
00:34:00
and we did have an oil stove.
Of course we had a range that burned coal, too
but we had an oil cook stove.
-KP: Now was this when FDR closed the banks
for a four day holiday.
-DF: Of course that was just a matter
of about three days is that right, is that how we did four.
He wouldn't cash a check, nobody would because
the banks were closed, they just wouldn't cash the check.
-KP: Did you think that that was one more
bad thing happening with so many things.
-DF: Yes you really didn't know what was going
to happen but you lived through it
and I remember that winter,
of course we raised potatoes in the summer
but we didn't maybe have such good luck.
And we got 100 pound of potatoes and the children
00:35:00
were just so happy that we had 100 pound of potatoes,
we thought we had something to eat.
We never were without anything to eat because as I said
it wasn't like living in town and being out of a job
we did have milk and eggs
and things that we had on the farm that we could use.
-KP: Well mom you said you took the 16 dollars
from the sale of your corn to pay your taxes.
Now that could be taken as something to say that you
still believed in the government enough to pay your taxes.
Is that true.
-DF: Yes, we owed taxes and if we owed anything,
we thought we had to pay it.
We never thought that the taxes had to be paid
we never gave it a thought that maybe since everything
was in such a bad shape that we didn't need to pay it.
00:36:00
That was, if we owed a debt that was the way
we were raised, it was supposed to be paid.
-KP: But you didn't feel like the government
was failing, that it was all going under
and things would never be good again.
-DF: Well no I don't think so,
I think maybe a lot of people did but it's like
any other hard times, you think that you'll live through it
and things will get better
and it eventually did, and three years later,
it was 37 when Roosevelt had the electric lines
put through, the rural electric lines,
and we had our first electricity in 1937.
And that was really something wonderful.
-KP: He changed a lot of things for the good then.
-DF: We had a refrigerator.
00:37:00
And before that we had an ice box that we bought ice
occasionally when we could afford it,
but that was the first, and of course we just had
maybe one bulb, but it was a light,
we didn't have to have oil lamps.
We wondered how maybe we'd pay the bill,
but it wasn't very much compared to what it is now.
-KP: Now when his agencies first came out,
all of his ABC agencies like the CCC and the WPA
and well, the NRA was one of the main ones,
what did you think about them, did they change your life.
-DF: They didn't really change our life,
because we weren't working at something like that.
But they did help a lot of people and then there was
00:38:00
some people in our family that I remember did work
on a CCC and they cleaned a lot of brush,
they cleaned out lots of ditches,
and they at least, we talked about them then,
we sort of laughed about them leaning on their shovel
and maybe didn't work very hard,
but at least they had to make an effort to earn the money.
They didn't just give it to them like they do
the welfare today, which I think was a good thing,
even at that time.
And they did do lots of good, even though they spent
lot of money for the amount of work
that they got done sometimes.
-KP: Was there ever any talk that things
were getting too socialistic and too militaristic
in the CCC and it was sounding a lot like Hitler youth.
00:39:00
-DF: No I don't think so,
it didn't seem to me like we thought of it like that.
We thought, well at least it did make work
and they could support their family
and if they got a certain wage which seemed to me like
they got about 35 dollars a week or 37,
and they had to give a certain amount of that
to their families, and most of it.
So at least it did tide people over,
where we had had soup lines and bread lines,
and I remember reading in the paper,
to us on the farm, that just sounded terrible.
00:40:00
-KP: The soup lines.
-DF: Yes.
-KP: Well now there was another agency,
one of FDR's policy changes was the Agricultural
Adjustment Act.
Do you remember anything about that where they pay you
so much to not produce.
-DF: Well, I can't remember so much about that
although later on I do remember they thought it'd be
best if they just raised a certain amount of hogs.
And if you had over the percentage amount
that you had been in the habit of having,
why you had to kill the little pigs,
which of course they talked about a lot of times.
The killing of little pigs so they wouldn't have so many
to flood the market.
00:41:00
You'd hear people talk like that maybe killing pigs
was a crime, but that wasn't the crime.
They killed them after they got big,
so that didn't really mean a crime at all.
But I know I had a brother-in-law one time,
he was supposed to have a certain amount of hogs,
and the did get paid for just raising a certain amount.
Was that it.
-KP: Yeah and then they decided they were supposed
to kill so many of their farm animals.
-DF: Yes and he built a little pen down in the woods,
and it had a few extra down in the woods.
I remember that very well.
-KP: Do you remember having to plow under
every fourth row of corn.
-DF: I don't remember that we ever did do that.
-KP: Okay let me ask you about,
00:42:00
what did you think about people on relief.
-DF: Well, to us it seemed awful bad.
We would have almost starved to death before we would
have taken charity but we knew that if they didn't have
a job, that something had to be done about it.
But to us it seemed like, we never even thought
of such a thing because we lived with whatever
we had and that was a disgrace to be on charity.
-KP: Well were there ever men that came around
begging for food or begging for work,
what did you think about them.
-DF: Well we used to have what we called tramps.
But in that day they weren't all tramps,
they were just people without a job
00:43:00
that did ask for meal, and I can remember that we did
have some and you always felt a little afraid about it
but you usually give them something to eat.
And we didn't, if they asked for work,
we couldn't do that because we did our own work
and we didn't have any money to pay for any extra work.
-KP: Did you pay them with food.
Did you pay them with a meal.
-DF: No, if they just asked for something to eat,
we gave them something to eat.
But we didn't have and money to hire anybody.
-KP: You mentioned a little bit ago about
when the banks closed, I wanna know what did you think
when the banks began to fail,
and when people couldn't get their savings.
00:44:00
-DF: Well you were scared.
We didn't have any money so we didn't lose any.
I can't remember that we even had any savings
in the bank, but we did know people that just got
a certain percent of their savings.
And lost some and never did get them,
which was awful bad.
-KP: Mom, what did you think about when FDR
closed the banks, was it kinda scary or?
-DF: Well I think I said that it was scary,
and you felt like it was in a crisis I guess,
but somehow or other you live through that.
And we lived on.
-KP: Did you feel like he should have closed the banks.
-DF: Well yes, I really think, we really didn't know
what the outcome of that would be because nothing
00:45:00
like it had ever happened before.
But then in a few days time, you could see maybe they were
going to do something about things
and adjust it somewhat.
-KP: What did you want him to do
when you elected him president.
-DF: Well after Hoover,
I don't know whether we knew what we really wanted to do
to do or not but we felt like that he would do something.
He had promised to and he had the personality
that when he talked you wanted to listen.
We had our first radio I think in about 1925.
And we always had a newspaper,
but we listened to him on the radio
and we listened to his fireside chats,
and his personality showed through and it really assured
00:46:00
you that he would do something,
and he did do something for America,
because we were in desperate constraints
and things that he'd done that nobody else
had ever undertaken, like the CCC camps and things.
But at least they were beginning to have an effect
on the people.
-KP: What did you think about Eleanor.
-DF: I always admired her.
I never did hear her speak but one time,
but I had niece that was a dean at a college in Ohio.
She met Eleanor was to speak at this college
about something and she met her at the train
at that time and took her to her apartment,
and took her out to eat.
00:47:00
And she said she had the most gracious personality
of any person that you even forgot that she was homely.
Because her personality made you forget that.
And she was a nice person.
-KP: Did you feel like she did a lot of things
for the American people, as much as FDR did.
-DF: Well, not really as far as things that,
just like the RENC, she couldn't do things like that.
But people did admire her, of course I know a lot of people
make fun of her looks and things, but she was really
and intelligent, good person.
00:48:00
-KP: Were there any other prominent figures
at that time that you remember.
How about Huey Long.
-DF: Well we read a lot about him in the newspaper
and it sounded like he had far out ideas
and things but to really know too much about,
you didn't know as much about things as you do now,
where you sit on the news every night and think more
about it, but beside that I think it's been
a long time ago.
(laughs)
You sort of forget things.
-KP: What about Dr. Townsend,
the one that wanted Social Security for older people
and things like that.
-DF: Well that seems like a far fetched idea,
00:49:00
and ya didn't think it will work
and I can remember when a farmer didn't pay
Social Security when it first come in.
I don't know why but they didn't think it could
apply to them I guess.
And I remember my husband saying ah it'd fall through
before I ever get anything of it.
And he died at the age of 59,
and I had the youngest child, 11 years old
we had to raise.
And the benefits that I got for her and for myself
as a dependent widow did help to get her through school.
Somewhat, I didn't get so much but any amount helped.
-KP: He died in 1960.
-DF: Yes, at the age of 59, with a heart attack.
-KP: So he didn't really see the benefits.
00:50:00
-DF: He had thought I know I heard him say that.
He thought Social Security would fall through
before he got there, but of course it didn't fall through.
I don't see how they can ever allow it to fall through,
because so many people would be back in the soup lines.
I guess if it did.
-KP: Mom what about that priest, Father Coughlin
do you remember him, or.
-DF: I don't remember about him.
-KP: How about Upton Sinclair, do you remember him.
-DF: No.
-KP: Well I'd like to ask you about
some of the heroes of those times.
Can you tell me, who were your heroes.
-DF: Well, our children didn't go to show very much,
but of course if they did, they seen Shirley Temple,
00:51:00
and Bing Crosby would sing on the radio,
and Will Rogers was something that we really admired,
I remember when he got killed on a plane going to Alaska.
And going back to the Ku Klux Klan,
that wasn't a hero, but I remember we had some neighbors,
we didn't have any black people in our county,
any black people but it was a thing of people
that they got afraid they were going to, I don't know.
Anyway these neighbors tried to get my husband
to join the Ku Klux Klan and I know the wife
wanted me to go to a meeting with her one night.
And I did go and this woman that spoke,
00:52:00
she horrified me, she said that she was from the South
and it wasn't safe to even ride in a car or anything.
We'd never even thought of such a thing,
of course we didn't know anything about black people
because we never associated with them.
But you couldn't hardly believe that this was so.
And I told this neighbor lady when we got home
that I didn't want anything more to do with it.
At all.
-KP: Did they ever come around again.
-DF: No it wasn't long until they began to feel like
it was the same thing, that they shouldn't ever
been associated with it.
We talked about heroes.
Dillinger, of course the great bank robber
and he just lived a few miles,
00:53:00
I expect 15 miles from where our home is.
And we knew where he was raised, they talked
an awful lot about him, and he wasn't a hero,
not to us he wasn't, because of course he was a criminal
but a lot of people did sort of make a hero out of him.
But to us he was almost well-known because we didn't live
too far from where he lived.
-KP: Did you ever see him.
-DF: No, not in person.
But I do know they brought him back,
when they buried him, they brought him back
to Morrisville, and they stood in line
for hours and maybe all night to file past the casket.
00:54:00
Of course we didn't do that, but a lot of people did.
-KP: Well you were mentioning before
some of the entertainers you knew, like Will Rogers
and people like that, but you said you didn't go
to the movies too much.
-DF: Not too often, of course by this time
we did once in a while be able to go to a movie.
And it was really fun to hear Will Rogers.
-KP: Well what did you do for entertainment
when you couldn't go to the movies and stuff.
-DF: Well, she thinks that we had to go to the movies
or out for dinner to have entertainment
but I can remember back in that day, we visited.
Maybe lots of times, we'd have Sundays taken up
for several weeks, either somebody of our friends
was going to visit us for a dinner,
00:55:00
or else we were going someplace else.
And we made ice cream.
We had a two gallon ice cream freezer, and of course
we had plenty of eggs and plenty of milk,
and the ice didn't cost very much.
And the neighbor friends came over, we made ice cream
and then some other nights we went to their house
and ate ice cream and that was always a celebration
on the fourth of July, we had friends and ate ice cream.
-KP: I think that sounds like fun.
-DF: That was good entertainment.
Things like that was our entertainment.
-KP: Didn't cost a lot of money.
-DF: No it didn't cost a lot of money
and we associated with other people
and that was one form of entertainment
that they don't do today that might be nice.
-KP: Mom I just got two questions for you left.
And it ends up with, I wanted to end up the Depression
00:56:00
years with what did you think about what happened
at Pearl Harbor.
-DF: Well, we were really terrified about that,
and we had a radio at that time,
but for some reason or other, we didn't hear it.
Maybe we didn't have the radio on, and we went
to Sunday night service at our local church,
and we didn't know it until we got to the church.
And they were telling us,
and I know people prayed that night about Pearl Harbor.
To us, it just sounded like it was really something awful
and it was.
-KP: Whose fault do you think it was,
or at that time who did you blame.
-DF: Well.
-KP: Did you think the navy was asleep or.
00:57:00
-DF: Well it did seem like our officials might
have known something, should have known something about it
but we never thought that they did.
Of course we thought it was Japan, we'd always
sort of been taught they were sneaky and deceitful,
which one of their officials was in Washington
at the time, talking with our president.
It was an awful climate and an awful blow
and I can just remember how stunned we were when we went
to church that night and heard it.
-KP: You heard it at church then.
-DF: We went to church that night
and other people knew it that had had the radio on
but we didn't know it until we got to church.
-KP: You look like you're tearing now
was it that bad even to remember.
-DF: Oh yes, I think so.
It was really bad because we didn't know
00:58:00
what was coming next.
-KP: You didn't think we should be in the war,
did you think we should have been in the war before.
-DF: No, I don't know.
When you think about getting into war with Europe
and the East at the same time, you don't know
what's gonna happen.
No more than we'd know what would happen if we would
get into a war with Russia today.
I think you'd have to be really shook about it.
That's all.
-KP: You had two boys that were old enough
to go to war.
-DF: Yes I had one boy that was in China.
He was in China when peace was declared
and he was so homesick all the time he was gone,
00:59:00
but when he did enlist, he thought well that
would really be something to go off in the navy,
but he was really homesick and then our older boy
was a good farmer, and of course farmers were allowed to,
you had to have food as well as you had to have ammunition.
And our oldest boy was allowed to stay home and farm,
which some people did talk about, how they did talk about
that then but I think he was just as valuable
as a farmer as our other boy was to go into service.
-KP: Mom I wanna thank you for your time,
and for sharing your experiences.
Would you like to say anything else in closing.
-DF: It's been nice to talk to my granddaughter,
and I've lived a full, happy farmer's life,
and that's about all I...
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