An Instructive Survival Story from the 1930s

Do you thrill to read pulse-quickening stories of survival where individuals triumph over extreme odds? How about a survival situation that didn't occur over a period of minutes, such as a tornado....or a survival situation that didn't occur over a period of hours, such as a hurricane ....or a survival situation that didn't occur over a period of days, such as a flood. What about a horrifying survival story that dragged on year after year with no help, no rescue, no hope, no end in sight?

Fearful survival stories of the last Great Depression abound, but we are losing those that lived during that experience through old age. Their stories of triumph and hope need to be heard and remembered.
Do you know personal stories of privations and suffering that are told and retold, first-hand from family members?

In recent days we've read on SurvivalBlog about the poorly coping, unemployed Indiana family living on the edge -- yet still buying Pepsi, cigarettes, beer, Subway sandwiches, and car washes -- and then about other individuals faring better by taking jobs that they never could have imagined working at, such as the poultry farm worker.

All my life I was taught lessons of the Great Depression that had affected my parents' lives. Yes, my mother had stories to tell, but my father was the real survivor in spite of his sad growing up years. As Ann Landers once said, "The fire that melts butter also forges steel."

Two experiences defined my parents' lives: The Great Depression and World War II.
The Great Depression was such a dreadful event to survive that they could never let it go. I would give anything for my parents to still be alive so I could probe their memories and learn more from them. On the other hand, I'm very happy they are not here to see that history is repeating and the uphill struggle they overcame during their lifetimes may be coming around again. My observation of that Greatest Generation is that surviving the Great Depression left people with one of two approaches to money. Either they became tight-fisted to the point of miserliness or money had no meaning, that is, money was for the good it could accomplish and human relationships were tantamount.

My sweet, precious father was the latter type. He should have grown into a bitter, greedy, driven man, but he was the kindest, sweetest person I ever knew. His life was defined by generosity and a gentle, loving, giving spirit.

I feel like people today have no idea where we have come from and where we could be headed again. The depths of a Great Depression are not in the realm of reality or feasibility today to many people.

Here is my Daddy's story:

Daddy was born in 1920 into a working class family in a small, dusty Texas town that sits near the Red River and Oklahoma border. His parents were loving parents although a bit bigoted. His father served as a city councilmen, volunteer fireman, church deacon, and proudly was active in his Masonic Lodge. The family owned their own little wooden house on a dirt street and had many friends through church and civic activities. My father was the eldest child. Grandmother had gone to junior college for one year and had grown up on a farm and had the usual farm skill set. She knew all about food preservation, small livestock, and all the handiwork imaginable such as sewing, tatting, quilting, crochet, and knitting. The family was well-respected in the community.

My father's world turned upside in 1931. Daddy's father worked as a railroad engineer, work that seems to have been some type of job transferring trains onto different tracks at the train depot. His work did not involve any travel and he was home in the evenings for supper. Until he died, my daddy hated the lush plant called "cannas" that he knew as "depot plants" because of the sad association in his mind with trains. My popular grandfather was so liked in the town that he had made an enemy, a mean, hateful, spiteful one. His immediate boss was jealous of my grandfather's standing and fired him without cause or reason according to family oral tradition. In 1931, the Great Depression had been going on for two years with years still left until recovery. There was no work to be found anywhere and no social safety net. My grandfather was not afraid of hard work or any type of job, there just weren't any jobs available. By this time, the family had now grown to 2 children in the family and my grandmother was pregnant with the third.

Out of desperation to feed his family, my grandfather visited a man in town who had some connections and business around Texas to ask for, even beg, for a job, any job. This man said that the only work he had available that he could give my grandfather was a job in another town many hours away working on unloading trains. While it meant leaving the family, it would provide some income for the family. Unfortunately, my grandfather was a tall, big-boned man and somewhat overweight. He moved out of town to work in the 100+ degree humid east Texas summer. The work was so strenuous that one day in the high temperatures, he collapsed from a heat stroke...not heat exhaustion...heat stroke. They took my grandfather to lie down in a bed out of the sun, to try to cool down. Of course, air conditioning and Emergency Department Trauma Centers were only pleasant future dreams. Then they called my grandmother and a friend of hers had a car and money for gasoline, so together they drove many hours to east Texas t o retrieve my grandfather. They loaded him up and drove back to their hometown. Grandfather rested at home for a few days then went back to work in east Texas out of desperation because without him working, there was no money. He was dead within a few days from a relapse heat stroke. I can't begin to imagine the depths of despair my young widowed grandmother felt when facing the future with three small children. She was on her own to survive.

At the age of 11, my father, just a child, became "the man of the family," as his mother told him. Until his own personal health collapse at age 13, Daddy brought home the only cash the family lived on. Grandmother took the three children back to the family farm (her parent's farm) each summer for a couple of weeks to can and bring home some food to live on for the next few months. The family kept a few chickens in the backyard in town and my Daddy wrung chickens' necks when they decided to splurge and eat one. Breakfast was often apple pie. An ugly, old biddy hired my Daddy to deliver the local newspaper twice a day in town. While Daddy had a bike, out of spitefulness, this woman insisted "her" paperboys deliver on foot. My father grew six inches in two years, while attending school and delivering newspapers. And then his health crashed. Daddy was dying of starvation here in the USA, the son of a family with standing and respect in the community during the early desperate days of the Great Depression.

While there was a family doctor in their small town, my grandmother took my father across the river to Oklahoma to visit a different doctor who had been recommended by a friend. Years later, our surmise is that the starvation was so embarrassing that grandmother wanted to see a doctor who didn't know the family. The Oklahoma doctor declared that my father had tuberculosis (TB), a diagnosis that saved Daddy's life. Perhaps this was act of kindness by the doctor. Who knows?

At any rate, when 13 years old, Daddy was sent to a sanitarium in west Texas, situated in a dry, sunny locale. Daddy was fed three nourishing meals a day with forced, silent bed rest for hours each afternoon. His mother never came for a visit. In fact, there were no visitors. Travel was out of the question, just too expensive. A family friend gave him the beautiful gift of a newspaper subscription. A radio on the ward provided entertainment and during afternoon rest, the children communicated by spelling words via sign language. While friends at the sanitarium died, after six months Daddy recovered enough to finally go home.

Even though Daddy was pronounced non-contagious, in fact cured, his mother wouldn't allow him in the house. He slept in a shed in the backyard all by himself, while still just a child. To understand how primitive the shed was, the main house didn't have running water and toilet facilities until many years later. Grandmother sold angel food cakes made with the chicken eggs and got hired to work in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Sewing Room teaching women how to sew. Daddy never again was the main breadwinner for the little family. The rest of his life, all x-rays showed no scarring from TB, his skin tests always turned up negative results, and he was able to play the trumpet. Daddy never had TB, he had survived starvation.

My father possessed a quick, brilliant, complicated mind. He excelled in high school academics and eventually graduated. Until his death, he had many life-long friends from his little hometown. Grandmother was determined that all her children would get an education and have inside jobs. Daddy's uncle was an old maid who worked in the oil fields. He generously sent my father $25 a month to go to college, which was all the cash Daddy had to live on. Daddy graduated from the college that eventually became the University of North Texas in Denton. Through all four years of college Daddy lived in a boarding house and ate only one meal a day. That's all he could afford. He died in 2008, a few days shy of 88 years old. Throughout my entire life, I never saw Daddy leave any food on his plate or anyone else's at the table for that matter. Some habits are hard to break.

My daddy's life story is one of love and triumph. But, his story also full sadness and of people who did not rise to be the best they could in a terrible time. They let their baser motives guide their actions. Daddy's family survived because of church and faith, family, community, the little backyard garden and chickens, and everyone in the family working together for each other to stay alive, including an 11 year old child . That Indiana family has no interest in survival, no instinct for survival. Where is their garden? Where is their sense of urgency to pull together and everyone contribute to the family's survival? They are whining and waiting to be saved, and it's not going to happen. They must depend on themselves.

It's so hard to believe that conditions could ever get this bad again, but as my parents always said, "Life turns on a dime." I fervently hope we never see a return to the dark days of a Great Depression.