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🔗Link to podcast of Part 2
A Way of Life Lost
As is often the case, times of great distress result in increased poverty, homelessness, crime and unrest. A crisis of this magnitude hits the most vulnerable, children, the elderly, the sick and minorities, the hardest. Thousands died, and others were left orphaned or homeless. The way of life they knew was gone, and it would be a long road back.
Families trying to stay together moved on with their meagre belongings loaded into a wagon or vehicle, which was often abandoned on the side of the road when they ran out of gas. Women clutched treasured family heirlooms that they didn't want to leave behind despite the lack of space. These items included dishes, pictures, music boxes, handmade quilts and wedding dresses. Some had brought these mementos across the ocean with them when they immigrated. Those belongings were the only material connection they had left to their homeland.
- Unemployment
As businesses and agriculture operations collapsed, unemployment became rampant. Millions of jobless men became hobos (homeless boys/men who stowed away on trains or hitchhiked). Riding the rails wasn't as carefree as it sounded. There could be 50 to 60 people crowded into one rail car. Although most of these individuals were decent and hard-working, there were criminals amongst them.
Exhausted, people slept with their worn shoes clutched to their chests to prevent them from being stolen. They had to sleep with one eye open, so their bindlestiff (a bindle was a bundle of clothing tied to a stick, stiff meant to steal) was still there come daylight. The best time to jump on a moving train undetected was when it had been inspected and was pulling away from the station, and it was wise to jump off when the train slowed before reaching its destination. When you think about it, there must’ve been a lot of activity along the tracks with all those people jumping on and off the rail cars.
Although some entire families went to the cities or to work as migrant workers, other families remained on the farm while the husband went in search of work. It was often impossible for wives and small children to go along as the men needed to travel great distances. They had to go far enough to find an area that wasn’t suffering the same fate as where they left. If they showed up in the next town over, they weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms as people there felt they were trying to steal their jobs.
In some families with the father away searching for work and the mother also working, kids were boarded out at relatives' and, at times, strangers' homes and farms and worked there to earn their keep. Little children knew nothing but drought; many had never seen rain.
Toronto Star photo 1930s
US workers in a job search line
The message was clear
- Crime
It wasn’t uncommon for rural people in less affected locations to go to their gardens and discover missing produce, eggs disappearing from chicken coops and meat from curing barrels inexplicably vanishing into the night. Clothing went missing off the line; with so many impoverished people on the move, nothing was safe.
Crime steadily increased, and folklore about criminals such as Bonnie and Clyde appeared in newspapers in the US. Many idolize these bandits for going against the establishment they felt was not doing enough to help the people.
- Poverty
Clothing was hand-sewn from whatever materials were available. If there wasn’t enough of one fabric, various patterns and colours were sewed together - the result was a coat of many colours.
Burlap food sacks were recycled to make clothing. Women repeatedly darned and mended to make items last. Companies added a bit of colour to the burlap to make people feel more fashionable. Young boys who outgrew their belts used twine to hold up their pants.
New shoes were a luxury, and every step was squeezed out of a pair of shoes. If the soles wore thin, an insole made of cardboard wrapped in cotton fabric was added to extend the life of the shoes. Being teased for the lack of adequate clothes and shoes by kids that were better off was a fate endured by many.
A 32-year-old mother of seven, surviving as a migrant worker - in California to pick peas
Despair and heartache
- Entertainment
Kids made whistles out of pieces of green willow and slingshots and chased gophers. They played games that cost nothing, like Hide and Seek, Red Light, I Spy, and Simon Says to amuse themselves. A battery-operated radio and the newspaper were the only sources of information about what was happening worldwide.
When the market crashed
it was big news
- Health
Stories about happiness, courage and perseverance are easy to absorb, but tales of despair are harder to swallow. The realization that they had been financially wiped out was more than some could endure. Suicide became a serious issue long before mental health was openly discussed. Men jumped out of their office windows, plummeting to their deaths on the streets below in front of terrified citizens.
Healthcare at that time was user pay, so you can imagine seeing a dentist or doctor was a rare occurrence. People tried to help each other out if someone was injured or ill. If a toothache became unbearable, they toughed it out to let the tooth decay and loosen and then it was pulled out at home with a shot of whiskey and a pair of pliers. Every kid has heard tales of a string being tied to a loose or painful tooth and then to a doorknob. Extrication of the tooth occurred when the door was slammed shut, yanking it out. Problem solved!
There were home remedies for many ailments, a brew for this or a poultice for that. A lot of the home remedies we use today came from those times.
Children and adults who suffered from breathing problems found their conditions exasperated by the hot, dusty conditions. People wore face coverings to try and protect themselves from developing dust pneumonia. Malnutrition, rickets, scurvy; you name it, people were suffering from it.
Faces covered against the dust
This guy may have needed two
shots of whiskey!
Humanity Rebounds
The economy had started to rebound by 1938, and the outbreak of World War II in 1939 effectively ended The Great Depression. Factories were brought back into operation to meet armament needs, and the mobilization of manpower into the service cut unemployment. Men who felt hopeless for years were filled with pride as they went off to fight for their country. Women entered the workforce in record numbers as there was, ironically, a shortage of workers with so many men enlisted.
People are resilient, and many had lived through hardships before; their motto was - use it up, wear it out, make do or do without. When wetter years finally arrived, farmers returned to the land.
Events such as these leave an impact that spans generations. My parents' formative years were during the 1920s and 1930s, and hearing about these events shaped their worldview. They were leery about the uncertainty of change and feared that someone in the family would lose their job, and they told us that we shouldn’t ever quit one because there might not be another. They avoided debt and paid as they went. Their generation feared those hard times would return; that is why they didn't waste or throw things away, and they saved their money to leave to help their kids.
Takeaways - Changes and Safeguards
Times of strife are difficult, but they are also opportunities to learn and can be followed by positive changes. The 1930s forced governments to look at the issue of poverty. In the years during and after this decade, safeguards and improvements were implemented to protect the public, such as:
- insurance regulations for consumer bank deposits
- Family Allowance payments
- the Canadian Wheat Board set a minimum payment price for wheat
- social aide programs
- farm rehabilitation programs - community pastures, dugouts, and tree planting projects
- a national unemployment insurance program
Those years remain a part of prairie culture. What does humanity fear a century after the start of The Great Depression and The Dirty Thirties? We worry about financial insecurity, natural disasters, war and disease. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Thank you for taking the time to read my stories and listen to the podcast. Please share my stories with your family and friends to help me grow my readership. Much appreciated, Norma.
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