Published: March 14, 2009 11:49 pm         

Residents talk about Great Depression, tough times

Enid resident Roy Hollrah remembers well the heartbreak of the Great Depression.

“My mother died when I was 9 years old,” Holl-rah said, staring straight ahead with eyes filled up with the past, “and my older sister had to kind of take her place. And then my father took his own life ... That was during the Depression.”

Hollrah is one of many seniors remembering the lessons of the past these days while struggling with the economic problems of the present. Some economists say numbers such as the nation are seeing now haven’t been recorded since the 1930 Depression era.

Many of those who lived in this area during the Depression say it wasn’t as hard in Enid as elsewhere in the country — a historical fact that seems to be repeating itself today, as the area is holding its own — but Gar-field County was not immune to the effects of one of the darkest periods in American history.



‘We just lived life as life’



“I can remember my friends being so hungry, that they didn’t have anything, and they were so glad my mother would give them something,” said Velma Roggow, “and I can remember, I just vaguely remember these old tramps coming to the back door and wanting to know if there was any food, and my mother would feed ’em. I can remember that, but I didn’t suffer, but I know that others did.”

Because Roggow’s father worked at the rural Imo elevator, her plight was not as bad as some in Enid. The farmers would give the family food or small farm animals to raise, she said, and they had large lots next to their Enid home in which to grow garden vegetables.

Her husband, Herman, said his family fared well on their farm near Breckinridge.

“We was farmers,” he said. “We didn’t hit it, it didn’t hit us like, you know, somebody in town ... You just lived life as life, and that’s all there was to it.”

Chester Berruti managed to get a job after college, and that made the difference for him.

“I can remember going to work for the Federal Reserve in St. Louis ... I got a check every two weeks for $55 a month, and I was able to put back a little bit of money, ’cause my dad told me a jackass could work but it took a smart man to save it.”

Jefferson Schlesinger also said having a job staved off the worst of the effects of the Depression.

“I wasn’t hurt as bad as a lot of people who didn’t have any job. See I was working for a flour mill, and the flour mills kept operating mainly because people had to eat and make bread and that sort of thing.”

Life was pretty good, too, in the grocery business, said Dorothy Harbough, whose family ran the only store in downtown Arkansas City, Kan.

“I don’t think it affected me one bit,” she said, “and I’ve tried to figure out why, because that sounds kinda funny.”

But the grocery business didn’t falter as badly as some industries, and what money people had during those times they spent on food and other necessities.

“As far as suffering, you know, I think probably the grocery business would have been as good a business ... maybe we were on Easy Street, and I didn’t even know it.

“No ... I would say, I ... I didn’t know there was a depression.”

That would change, as Harbough earned her teaching certificate and searched for a job. While she found a position, within three years she was being offered less money because of economic hard times.

Those hard times are remembered well by Edith Finley, who lost her chance for college because of a lack of money. She did find experience in the work force, however, and was able to help her family financially.

“I had to help my family,” she said. “It just took all of us ... to pay the rent and all that.

“When the market crashed in 1929, we were living in Beaver, Oklahoma, out in the Panhandle. When the market crashed I was about 13 ... I didn’t even know what the stock market was. News didn’t get around like it does now.”

Her family eventually moved to Dodge City, Kan., where the railroad industry was shoring up the local economy, but life was a struggle.

“Well, it was just tough. When you got low on food, we ate a lot of beans and cornbread and fried potatoes because potatoes were cheap, and beans went a long way.”

People grew up fast in those times. Hollrah said his sister was 19 and had to give up her dream of teaching to raise him and his eight siblings after their parents died.

“It wasn’t too exciting, I’ll tell you that.”



Every cloud has a silver lining



“I knew we were poor, but I didn’t know it was because of a depression,” said Evelyn Radcliff, who now lives at Greenbrier homes with her husband, Ralph. “I just knew we were poor, but we didn’t mind. We had a good time.”

Family was the key back then, she said.

Berruti remembers his father buying shoes that were too big for him and his brothers and stuffing them with newspaper so they could grow into them.

“I wore hand-me-downs from my brother, and then my poor younger brother, he got the last of it,” Berruti said. “I could go on and on, but it was bad financially, but I think it was a good time to live.”

“Oh, there was a lot of happy memories, you know,” said Wanda Nation, who spoke about her experiences along with several others during a Learning Circle exercise at Greenbrier. “It wasn’t all bad. Mother always seen to it that we were cared for. ... We just loved one another.”

She said they didn’t have much, but they had each other.

Finley, who lives at Golden Oaks now, said she and her twin brother, Edwin, used to do a lot of things together so her brother wouldn’t have to spend so much money on a date.

They worked together for the family, she said, and they prayed together.

“There was a lot of things ...” Berruti said. “I would say that during the Depression families were closer together.”



Learning how to get by



Also during the Depression, people got really good at surviving, Schlesinger said.

“Everybody got by one way or another, you know, they had to,” he said.

“We relied on ourselves. In other words, we ... we raised all the food we could, and, what we couldn’t eat, why, it didn’t go to waste. We just, we canned it, you know, and took care of it.”

Gardening is a major theme when it comes to discussion about surviving the Depression, according to many who lived during those times.

Living on a farm, Roggow said, his family raised their vegetables and chickens and cattle, too. They did their own butchering and sold eggs in town.

“We always was careful about buying, you know,” Roggow said. “We never took a mortgage on the farm or nothing. If this made enough, why we bought us a tractor ... and so it was a different living.

“Farmers were set up pretty good, and this and that, on the average,” he said.

“Folks used to help other people, feed them,” said Venita Secor. She said they helped their extended family members who were without, and everyone shared.

Lois Lauppe said her mother’s friend, who worked in a dry goods store, used to give them material scraps they could use for clothing and quilts.

“Otherwise, my dresses were hand-me-downs or given to me from other families.”



The current economic crisis



“The Great Depression ... You didn’t come instantly aware of it,” said Finley. “It trickled down, and it took longer to trickle down than it’s probably going to take this one.”

Finley said people now are going to have to change their buying habits.

“Well, everybody’s going to raise their prices ... in anticipation when it does hit, and that was the problem then,” she said.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say I think we haven’t really felt it here yet.”

Fellow Golden Oaks resident Harbough agrees, and she’s not sure people today understand how serious the situation will become.

“Well, it’s pretty bad. I don’t think people know how to save money. I just don’t think we’re used to living that way, and I think some of those people who made those outrageous salaries need to be tied up and shot, and need to have them divvy up half of what they have, and maybe times wouldn’t be so bad,” she said, referring to bank and corporate officials who earned large salaries while their companies were going bankrupt. “You know someone has it, and that’s not right.”

While she is not sure young people today can take care of their money, Harbough said they need to learn.

“Well, someway or how they need to be taught the value of a dollar,” she said. “I don’t know how Mother or Dad can do that very well, but I think it ought to be one of their primary steps.”

Edna Wilson, who will turn 103 on her next birthday, thinks people today are too spoiled, but fellow Greenbrier resident Nation said they will have to learn to do without.

“There just isn’t any money,” she said.

The same could be said 75 years ago, Berutti said, but there is a difference today.

“Families were closer together. This is one thing that I think has changed drastically,” he said. “Things were a lot different morally. ... I think this is what is going to sink the country ... is the morality ... going down.”

“It’s one of them things,” Roggow agrees. “Woke up too late, too many people, you know, they went along there in life ... and thought nothing of life, I guess. They just borrowed and went right on living, and new cars — your cars are what kills ya, you know — and you buy those cars, and this and that, and that’s what gets the best of ya.

“It’s a different world, as far as that goes, I’d say,” he said. “You didn’t go into debt like they do today. Them days, you kind of slipped into it and kind of thought things over ... is this the right thing to do? Today, they go to town, it don’t make no difference, brand new tractor. You know what tractors sell today? It’s terrible.

“I don’t think people took as much chance then as today,” he said.

Back in the days of the Depression, Schlesinger said, the man worked, the woman raised the family and they worked through their hard times together.

“I think that’s probably part of the problem right now,” he said.

But Schlesinger said it is not all doom and gloom: “You take things as they come, and do the best you can with ’em, because you never know what is going to happen.”

Finley’s advice is to accept times will be hard and prepare for it.

“I don’t know how long this will last,” she said. “I hoped it never would again in my lifetime, but it has, and I will face it ... I have been wanting to tell people who say, ‘Look how hard I’ve got it.’ Look at me. I’m 94. I survived.”