Reflections Upon a Blessed and Exciting Life – No.12: Early Childhood: Poverty and Politics

I grew up poor. I was born in 1927. The market crash was in 1929. National unemployment rate rose above 25%. Income from farm products plunged. Dad’s salary was about $50 a month. Often the congregation was unable to pay even that. At one point the congregation owed him (I think) $300. They had a special fundraising effort, raised $150, gave that to him and called it even.

We never went hungry. We raised lots and Mom canned tons of vegetables. When all else failed we had boiled potatoes covered with beet juice. I loved it. I can still smell and taste the homemade bread. We raised and ate our chickens and pigs. The heifers were sold and we bought the beef. Even after our family grew to 7 members Mom would send me to buy $1.00 worth of round steak and it would feed the whole family. When we “butchered hogs” the meat was cut off the bones and made into sausage. But the bones were kept. (Some of them canned.) When things got tough Mother cooked these bones, we applied mustard and ground off the remaining bits of meat.

I had my first ever food in a restaurant when I was 14, a hamburger.

For me the Great Depression is associated with the anti-poverty efforts of President Franklin D Roosevelt. We listened on the radio to his fireside chats and made fun of his references to his dog, Fala. In those days we were all Democrats. (I don’t think I ever met a self-proclaimed Republican before I went to college!)

Two of the New Deal programs, which provided some government sponsored employment, were the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Worker Progress Administration (WPA). As one part of its assignment WPA built better “out-houses” and one was built for us. Of course, we had no indoor toilet facilities and that outhouse was a welcome luxury. (And yes, it was always supplied with a Sears Roebuck Catalog. Real toilet paper was only for “the rich people”.)

Even though we benefitted from the WPA it was ridiculed and looked down upon by the adults whom I heard speaking about it. Those WPA workers were considered poor citizens for “relying on government handouts”. The belief was that if you were in trouble you just got by, trusted your family and if you got hungry then subsisted on “jelly bread.” I do not believe that a single member of Zion Lutheran Congregation ever “stooped so low as to go on public welfare” and take one of those government jobs!

In the midst of it all, we kids always took along our Sunday church offering, a nickel every Sunday! In reflection, I feel sadness at how hard my parents struggled to meet our needs; yet I am also grateful. Those years taught me “to be content with what I had”, to always try to find some kind of a job, and to be a very conservative spender. It also taught me to have a very deep appreciation for those rare and special days at our church picnic. I was given a nickel and for that got a big double scoop of ice cream!