My Grandmother is 89. In 1929, she was 10, living in Duquesne, PA, a steel mill town not far from Pittsburgh.
Grandma is still a story teller, although Alzheimer’s has mixed up the palette of her recollections, which makes for some interesting mash ups. Before Grandma’s synapses got all Web 2.0, it was the Depression stories that fascinated me the most.
They were even better than the WWII stories, which were pretty good because she worked in an ammunition factory, but that’s a story for another crisis.
All of Grandma’s Depression stories, from the time a truck carrying oranges jackknifed on the road right before Christmas, to the beautiful indoor pool, gym and library that Carnegie built (where Aunt Emma secretly played basketball), to the truant officer chasing down Uncle Joe, all of them had a three-part moral:
- We were dirt poor.
- You don’t ever want to be that poor.
- Save your money just in case anything like that happens again.
As I got older, I started to understand how being a “Child of the Depression” had molded my Grandmother. The bargain shopping. Walking across the parking lot of the A&P stooped over not because of age, but because she was looking for dropped change. The look of disbelief Christmas morning when my brother and I sat in a pile of un-boxed toys surrounded by shreds of wrapping paper a foot thick, looking for more.
The lingering impact that living through the Depression had on my Grandmother used to interest me as an exercise of amateur psychology, a topic I’d toss around with my parents to show them they got something for the four years I spent doing keg-stands at URI: She was conditioned. Using a tea bag twice is a mild sort of PTSD. Aren’t I clever?
I don’t feel so clever, now. Now I’m recalling Grandma’s somewhat more reliable pre-Alzheiner’s stories looking for tips, or hope, or something…She did always say, poor as they were, they were happy. That’s something, right?
This morning a friend forwarded me a link to something that is on the Wikkipedia page for The Great Depression, a page that probably has gotten more traffic in the last two weeks than it ever has.
There is a section called “Inequality of Wealth and Income”, and I know the title alone already has the Republicans wishing they hadn’t read this far, but its a fascinating read no matter where you come down on the ideological spectrum or on the the bailout that is being decided as I write this.
The whole section consists of an excerpt from the memoirs of Marriner S. Eccles, who served as FDR’s Fed Chairman. Here’s a snip, if you see the resonance, click through to the rest and see if you, like me, wonder how we managed to forget these lessons within my Grandmother’s lifetime:
“…a giant suction pump had by 1929-30 drawn into a few hands an increasing portion of currently produced wealth. This served them as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied to themselves the kind of effective demand for their products that would justify a reinvestment of their capital accumulations in new plants. In consequence, as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.”
The rest is here.
Satire and the financial crisis says:
I grew up with a step father who went through a time of great hardship when he was a kid, and because of that, he had some very interesting spending habits, or should I say lack of spending. I think it is time for the American people to learn how to save a little.
October 1, 2008 — 8:48 pm
Cheryl Johnson says:
You must be younger than me. The Depression stories I remember are those of my mother, not a grandmother. 🙂
The one story I remember best is how my mother’s father would invite the wandering hobos in to share dinner. My grandparents, while certainly not rich, were managing to get by, and they were anxious to reach out and help others.
And what strikes me most in thinking about that story today is how utterly impossible it would be now. Violence, and the fear of violence, has increased since the Great Depression.
I do not invite the homeless person passing by in to my table, because in doing so, I would fear for my life; and in today’s society that fear would be justified.
Strange thoughts for strange times.
October 2, 2008 — 3:42 am
John Rowles says:
@ Satire: We may not have much choice…But what I left out and want to add now for the record was that not all the resulting habits were spendthrifty.
Grandma, for example, had a shoe collection that could have gone toe-to-toe with Imelda Marcos’s collection. And she loves the lottery and bingo. In fact, she complains that the stakes at nursing home bingo are too low (candy and whatnot) to make it any fun.
@Cheryl: That is a sad commentary. On the other hand, my Great Grandparents were Eastern European immigrants and they stuck to their own, just like the Irish and every other group did when they weren’t at work. They learned good old fashioned American racism a lot faster than they learned English, and now we have Barack Obama running (and currently leading in the polls) for President.
October 2, 2008 — 4:49 am