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Memories
Based on an interview of Cherril Ogden
by Christopher Allende on December 9,1997
With a gentle tone of voice and in a quiet home sat a woman named Cherril Ogden, the person my family has grown to know, love, and call Grandma. Her story of the depression was never a tragic one, but one of good memories.
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I lived through the Depression as part of my growing up years. I'm not sure just when the depression started, but I was born in 1925 and my father made one dollar a day, one dollar a day, and then as I grew older there became five in our family. Of course people had a lot of gardens, and they grew their own meat, and they had their vegetables and people traded things so that there was always [something]. We never were really poor, but as far as money there wasn't very much. We lived over in Koosharem, and still in Sevier County until I was five.
Hoovervilles, yes they were in, definitely. When I was, oh, in grade school. Well, I remember when food was rationed and we had to have tokens and stamps; of course that was close to the war times, but that was real confusing to have to have money and along with tokens and stamps to get food, and clothing. Had to have stamps to get shoes, a pair of shoes. The government issued so many for families, for individuals.
Things really didn't go too bad, only my father was called the "Raleigh" man; he sold spices and ointments and things, and those people just could not pay their bills; so he lost that business. Because they didn't pay; they got the things, but they couldn't pay for them, and it wasn't really their fault because all of a sudden there was no money to pay for them.
After that, he worked for farmers on sharing crops, share croppers, kinda like down in the South. and we had, I think, six Jersey cows we sold the milk to the processing plant over in Monroe, but at that time it was the Creamery. They'd separate the milk and the cream, and ship the cream up North. That was kinda what we called sharing crops.
Some of the people around us were fortunate enough to keep their farms, if they paid enough on them that the bank didn't foreclose on them. So I think that somehow they survived and, of course, during the war our sugar was rationed and that was hard on people not to have, you know sugar just for an example. And you'd have just so much meat, you have to have these when you used up your red tokens which was for meat. People that had the bad habit of cigarettes, they were in a heck of a fix too 'cause cigarettes were definitely rationed.
Do you want to know what we did for fun? School was always interesting and we were always putting on special programs, but what was a real fun time during my junior high and high school times was music with the big bands. We had what was known as the Nickelodeon, where they played records; you put a nickel in, and you get a tune. You put a quarter in, and you got five tunes and such. And the Nickelodeon plays all the big band songs. So in my town, Monroe, there was Monroe Hot Springs; that's where we'd go after our mutual, which was Tuesday night, our social hour in our church, and we hoped that some of the boys would have some nickels, because most of us didn't have very many nickels.
I'd tend children and I'd get twenty-five cents an hour, maybe, but most of the time they'd forget to pay me, but, anyway, what was real important then was the big bands. Of course, we didn't see them here, but we got to hear them on the records, and on the Nickelodeon. That was fun; then we'd listen to the "Hit Parade" on the radio and have kind of a contest to guess the top ten tunes of the week. It was sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes, but we didn't think much about smoking cigarettes. It was just, Lucky Strike's "Hit Parade". That was the most fun; then, of course, we'd have Halloween parties, and everything was right here in our area because we didn't have cars.
I walked six blocks to grade school, and six blocks to high school, six to the senior high. And very seldom did we come over to Richfield to see a movie; that was really rare. The movies, though, they were all G rated for sure. They didn't have a rating system then, but there were very few movies that we weren't allowed to see. They were all good, Gone with the Wind, all of the Lassie movies, I just don't remember how many; but I could say music played the big part of our lives, and the bands. Our high school band was what we were proud of and our ball teams, and our ball games; our ball games were special.
I think most of our lives just revolved around our church, and our home. And we were kinda content to be in just a little valley over there. Like I say, it was a rare occasion we could get to go to the movies, and sometimes in our high school years like our junior, and senior, we'd come over to the movie and then our parents would go shopping, and leave us over; and then we could go home on the bus. It was a bus that went through at night, and we always made sure that we got on the bus because our parents couldn't afford to come back clear over to Richfield to get us. Gas was twenty-five cents a gallon when I was in junior high, but the wages were about seventy-five cents an hour, an hour. Like I say, twenty-five cents for tending children, or cleaning, which I'd do after school, clean houses for people, to get my spending money.
I had a real special girl friend that lived right across the street from me, and we'd have lots-n-lots of parties. We girls would have the parties, and invite the boys. Most of them didn't have money enough to date girls. Like I said, there wasn't a movie house until maybe my junior year, over in Monroe. And it was twenty-five cents to go to the movies. But the twenty-five cents were kind of scarce.
The first date I went on, there were six of us; the cars, I don't know what make they were, but they had rumble seats. There'd be room for, oh three, maybe, to sit in the front, and then the rumble seat was like you'd open up the trunk of your car, only just in reverse. You'd open it from the window part, back, and then the lid of the trunk would be the back of your seat, and there was a seat back there and so mostly it would be in nicer weather. But I remember there was eight of us that went on this date; and my dad said, you can go, but just ride around, don't go anywhere out of the town. Well, we decided to up to Fish Lake. We made it as far as the reservoir, and the car kind of steamed, and ran out of water, so I had a real pretty cowboy hat, cowgirl hat. So they took my hat and went down to the reservoir and got water to cool off this motor. We got home in the wee morning. My daddy was very upset. so I didn't have a date for quite a few years after that. Couldn't trust me at fifteen, but it really was my fault. I could've said no, I'll get out and walk if you're going to Fishlake. Those rumble seats were real special, and, like I say, they were real fun when the weather was nice, This was in July.
My first job was up in Fish Lake, and the telephones were interesting in those days. Our number was twenty-seven. You talked to the operator, and told her what number you wanted, and then she connects you with the number. The Ideal Dairy's was, I think twenty-six, or something like that. You'd crank like this, and then the operator would come on, and we knew the operator, by first name, of course, so the telephone was very interesting.
The permanents they had were real interesting. They had electric machines that put clamps on your hair after they curled them up and had heat in it. And my experience with permanents, I didn't want any more after that, afraid I was going to get electrocuted, but I wanted the first one just because everybody else did. And the grocery stores were very unique; the clerks waited on you. You told them what you wanted and they would go get it off the shelf, and then ring it up. and bag or box the groceries.
We didn't have anything like gas stoves or gas furnaces for sure; we were lucky if we had coal stoves in our house for cooking with, and what we called "Heater-rolla" in our living room to keep us warm, and we were lucky if we had running water in the house, very, very fortunate. I bathed in a number three tub until I went to the big round wash tub in the kitchen till I was about, oh maybe, first year high school we got our bathroom. Oh, and that is so neat. Did you ever think how fun it would be to run out through the snow to the back toilet. My sister and I would coax each other to go out to the. . ., "I'll go with you this time if you'll go with me if I need to." Out through the snow, which would be about a half a block from the house to go to the toilet. So that, I think, was the worst part of my depression. Our grandma had a bathroom and we were real fortunate; she'd let us come down there on the weekends and have a bath; other than that we'd bathe in a number three tub.
If I were to give advice to today's teenagers about another depression, let's see, what would I say? Be careful how you spend your money that you have, so if there's a shortage of money you'll know what's important to buy, not buy silly things, just 'cause they're mod and in. And then, stay close to your family, stay close to your church, and hold on to religion.
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