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| Winnifred and Norman Iverson |
Grandpa Iverson's story:
The Great Depression was in 1929 when Norman was 19 years old and attending college. He remembers the stock market crash quite well. His father was running the general merchandise store at the time. He remembers that prices on wheat and cattle went way down. Cattle went for only $19 a head. Sometimes the government stepped in and killed the cattle and destroyed all their parts. He mentioned, "In the case of the store, sales were very low. Many days, we got as little as $10 sales the entire day. Often times that wasn't all money. Some of it was trade. For instance, someone would come in with half a dozen eggs and trade it for a quarter pound of sugar or other necessities. Dad provided food free for a lot of people because they couldn't afford it. We did stay in business but didn't make any money during that period of years. We charged to many people and were never paid."Norman can remember the dust bowl of the 30's as well saying, "The yearly rainfall in North Dakota is now about 14-15 inches. During the time it was down to practically nothing. Instead of rainfall, there were dust storms. Dust covered the fences, as well as Canadian thistles. It's hard to even imagine how bad conditions were.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was a very important figure during the Depression. Norman remembers, "Generally speaking, people liked him very, very, very well. For this reason: he did provide jobs for people even though it was at a very low salary. Many community buildings in various towns were built by people in that time."
The Depression left a deep impact on Norman. He said, "You never knew what was going to happen the next day. It was an experience I hope you never have to go through."
Norman became a teacher during part of the time of the Depression. He stayed in a place for three dollars a month for board and room. He said, "People were glad to rent it to me for that amount. Almost no one was renting during the depression. Very few people were working. Thousands of people were out of work in the United States." Norman's lowest salary as a teacher was $90 a month. He was principal of the high school, taught six or seven subjects, and taught singing. When it came time to be paid, the teachers were not given a check to be cashed, but rather a note. The banks did not have the money to cash the notes, so teachers had to find someone who could cash their notes. Norman's father cashed the notes for Norman and then later was refunded the money from the school district.
Grandma Iverson's story:
During the Great Depression in 1929, Winnifred was 15 years old and she said, "I can remember one of first things: the banks closed and people were outraged because even the Boy Scouts' money was taken." She recalls that the beginnings of the Depression didn't affect her father's farm very much because most of the children were already on their own. She said, "We were living off of milk and cream and chickens. We had no money, just what the farm was able to provide. We didn't lose the farm, but the farm was not so productive because of the drought. We kept everything." Winnifred recalls the Dust Bowl as well. She said, "The boys were still on the farm. I remember the grasshoppers. Clouds of grasshoppers stripped the grain right out of the field. One time there was a big group of rats that came and ate anything they could get a hold of. My brother was out pouring feed into the trough. This big group of rats came through, got a little food, and continued on their way."
Franklin D. Roosevelt was a huge symbol of hope for Americans, including Winnifred's family. She said, "One thing the people liked was that Roosevelt started the Fireside Chats. Everybody in the country loved him because of his consoling voice, and what he had to say, : 'Anybody who doesn't have a cream check will be able to work and feed his family.' Through government programs people built dams to hold water so that animals would have water. Everyone cared a lot for Roosevelt.
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| Lois Ann and Harold Alber on my graduation day |
Grandpa Alber's story:
In 1929 when the Great Depression began, Harold was 15 years old. Harold remembers the stock market crash in October of 1929. He said, "My Dad had made some investments earlier, but was not hurt very much by the crash. We were fairly well off." He remembers the Dust Bowl of the 1930s as well. He said, "The dust was piled up in heaps on some of the farms, like a snowstorm. The wind was blowing, no rain, soil blowing around. It even covered some roads in Nebraska. Once I went with my dad up to South Dakota. We came into a field that had been wheat. Now it was just sticks. It was a sad-looking sight." Harold was not too fond of the nation's leader, Franklin Roosevelt. He said, "I never really liked Roosevelt because he wanted to allow 3.2 beer to be legal, which he succeeded in. I never voted for Franklin Roosevelt. All of those times he was elected, I voted, but not for him. He was a good leader, but that was just my prejudice." Harold's life moved along, despite the Depression. He said, "Our family did not feel the effects of the Depression because my dad had a stable job. We were fairly well up on the scale. We got a new Buick in 1928 and used it for many years."
Grandma Alber's story:
Lois Ann's family moved to the farm in 1928, before the stock market crashed in 1929. Lois Ann was in fifth grade at the time. She said of the stock market, "It didn't affect us so much right away, because we grew vegetables, did a lot of canning, and butchered our own pork." The family had no money in the bank, so they were living from one crop to the next. The girls got to make three new cotton dresses every fall. They would wear one for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and they would wear another one Thursday and Friday. They washed all the dresses on Saturday and started out on Monday with the third dress. The family had special Sunday clothes to wear to church.
"By 1935, when I graduated from high school, we were really affected by the Depression. We got one pair of new Sunday shoes every year, and wore the old ones for everyday. The soles would wear out, and we had to put cardboard in our shoes. We had hand-me-down clothes and dresses made of flour sacks. My dad would buy a lot of flour at one time so that all the sacks could make one entire dress. We used the sacks with funny designs to sew our own underwear. My dad sold two loads of calves in 1933 and got what he had paid for one cow in 1928. He had to sell them in order to buy shoes for us. My parents got so poor that they couldn't even butcher our own meat. My brothers shot pheasants out of season, rabbits, squirrels, possum, and ducks for our meat."
Lois Ann remembers eating lots of potatoes, milk, and eggs during the Depression. They canned corn, beans, and tomatoes and made pies of mulberries with rhubarb. Lois Ann's mother made a one-egg cake using just a cup of sugar and flour. The cake was big enough for everyone in the family to have a piece. Lois Ann remembers that when her brother Bill helped to beat the cake, it always turned out better. There was no electric mixer, and so Bill was the strongest cook. Bill liked to cook.
To sum up what stood out to Lois Ann the most about the Depression, she said, "I hated being poor. I hated peanut butter sandwiches. I hated pancakes. They were a cheap food for breakfast. I felt people were always looking at me because I didn't have nice clothes. A lot of people were poor, but I still felt people were looking at me."
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