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Evansville area residents recall tough times of their youth

Photo

Photo by Bill Olmsted

Area residents gathered in Evansville to participate in an oral history project on the Depression of the 1930's.

EVANSVILLE — Many kids growing up in the Rock County area during the Great Depression didn't know their families were poor.

Mothers always found food to put on the table.

But kids still went without shoes until they were several years old, and "hobos" still sought work from many area families.

Those are common themes heard from about 30 Evansville-area residents who gathered Monday to record their memories of growing up during the Great Depression.

With the help of senior center and Primetimers staff, Evansville native John Ehle organized and moderated the event, which is the third of its kind in Evansville.

Ehle first started the recordings with a group of World War II veterans in 2006 to submit their oral history to the Veterans History Project, a permanent archive run by the Library of Congress. Last year, Ehle spent a day recording the memories of Vietnam veterans.

Evansville High School students videotaped this week's event, and the results will be available to the public through the Eager Free Public Library.

‘I didn't realize we were poor'

Charlie Nelson's family was poor, but he didn't know it. Born in 1931, Nelson was just a young boy when his family struggled to make ends meet during the Great Depression.

His dad worked only one to one-and-a-half weeks every six weeks as a telegraph operator for Northwestern Railroad.

"The rest of the time he'd have to look for work," he said.

The family couldn't afford to rent a home until Nelson was 4 years old, so the family took turns living with Nelson's grandfathers.

"Back in those years, there was no welfare system. Family took care of family," he said. "We always ate well, and we had all we needed. We had lots of love in the family."

"I had everything a kid needed," Nelson said. "Didn't have any shoes probably until I was 3, but I had other things."

Kids at that age didn't know any other life than one in a depression.

Angela Wyse recalls her mother saying, "We're poor, but everybody else is poor, too."

"So it didn't matter," Wyse said. "It isn't like the division we have now between the very rich and the very poor."

Back then people didn't have computers or cell phones to miss.

"We were all children of people who really had to deal with the depression. I don't think people had as much to miss then as we do today," Wyse said. "We played cowboys and Indians with sticks."

‘Always enough to eat'

For many families, living on a farm provided all they needed.

"I never knew I was poor either because everything was supplied on the farm," Charlotte Collins said.

"We never went hungry," Lilas Miller said. "Mother and Dad made sure of that because they would slaughter something or they would go to the garden."

Ruby Bernstein's family raised everything they possibly could. While she said she wouldn't want to go through the Depression again, "we always had enough to eat."

"But never could we go to the store and buy junk," she said.

Pat Engendorf's family grew a big garden, and her mother canned "anything and everything."

"I can't tell you how many different ways she could can corn," she said.

Fish from Lake Leota also provided many meals, as well as squirrels and rabbits, she said.

Lifestyle

Born in 1922, Tom Kennedy grew up in his older brother's clothes.

"If his clothes were worn out or had holes, my mother would patch them, wash them and iron them, and they were ready for me to wear," he said. "My mother would never let us go to school looking ragged."

His mother was a good cook, and she sold angel food cakes for 75 cents. If it had icing, it was 80 cents.

"That helped meet the expenses in our house," he said.

She used a lot of rice and noodles, such as spaghetti and macaroni, to make other foods go further.

"So actually, she was using Hamburger Helper before it ever was available in the store," he said to laughter.

Wyse recalled taking piano lessons—50 cents for a half hour or 75 cents for two per week. Her brother decided he wanted to start taking lessons again after a break.

"My parents could not afford to give two of us 50-cent piano lessons," she said. "Now that just seems incredible."

In the early 1930s, Kennedy's household had a telephone, but it wasn't used for "frivolous" talking. One day, he asked his mother if he could use the phone, and she asked who he wanted to call.

"I said I want to talk to Bob Gibbs."

"Well Bob Gibbs lives just one block over on Second Street," he said. "She says, ‘If you want to talk to Bob Gibbs, you walk over there and talk to him.'"

‘Hobos'

Nelson recalled a day at the train depot when "one of these men" was sitting next to the platform. Nelson, probably a first-grader at the time, said to his dad, "There's a bum out there on the sidewalk."

"Dad said, ‘If you ever say that again … These are traveling men,' he said. ‘These are not bums. If you ever use that expression again, I'm going to spank your butt.'"

"He'd been one of those traveling men, so he knew," Nelson said.

Those "traveling men"—referred to as hobos during that era—often hopped off the train in Evansville to find any type of work that could provide even one meal.

"No matter how scarce the food was, my mother always made sure they got something to eat," Kennedy said. "It was usually a fried egg sandwich."

Engendorf, who lived on the corner of Church and Maple streets, said "the hobos were stopping by to see if there wasn't something they could do to at least get a sandwich."

In the summer, Wyse's mother would feed the hobos on a bench in the backyard. But one time, one came at supper time.

"I can remember we ate in the kitchen, and the hobo was sitting out in the living room eating off a tray while the family ate in the kitchen," she said. "We trusted them; we weren't afraid that they would steal anything. They were honest men; they just didn't have anything to eat."

While people look back at the Great Depression as one of toughest times in the nation's history, those recalling the era said basic needs always were met.

"I never realized we were poor because we always had a roof over our head, we had a warm house and we always had food on the table," Kennedy said.