Home | Essays | Photos | Interviews | Project Information | Resources
Appreciating the Past
Based on an interview of Jean Anna Hobson Meacham Rowley
by Lori Brown on December 4, 1997
|
Jean Rowley discusses the depression at her home in Richfield, Utah. The depression changed her life in many ways. She learned to appreciate what she had and has now. Through sharing her remembrances others will grow to value things in their own lives
I was born in Laramie, Wyoming on March 27 of 1916. In my early life my father worked for the government, in Laramie at the University of Wyoming. They called him back to Washington D.C. to head the 4H club work when I was three. I had one other sister by that time. We had gone through the flu and seen a lot of people pass away because of that epidemic. It hit our family so that my mother was bedfast with her baby. My father was down with the flu and the neighbors had to come in and fire the furnace for us and keep it going so we'd have heat during the winter time.
My father was head of the 4H for about five years and he was the manager of the boys and girls club work called Junior Achievement. He loved boys and girls work and he was in that for about five years. We were living in Springfield, Massachusetts through those years in Junior Achievement.
Then he went in as a stock broker with two other men. He enjoyed that so much. We moved back to Washington D.C. My dad went down there for six months; and while he was there and was setting up his own brokerage, the crash came in '29. He struggled and tried to keep it going, but it just didn't work out. We lost everything we had. It was quite a drastic change. We came back West and lived with my mother's folks, in Ogden, during the depression.
The stock market break took so many people by surprise. My father knew that the stock market would come back up, so he put everything up on margin and that's why we lost everything. Mr. Shirley jumped from a three story window and ended his life. Several of my father's friends, bankers, committed suicide, shot themselves. It was a very traumatic time. It was hard because everybody blamed my father because they had lost their money in the stock market. He had put it in the stocks for them. They came back on him and wanted their money back. They were the ones who WANTED to make the money, but to lose it was a different thing. He set up a fund for them and tried to put a little money in it. If they wanted to draw on that, they could. But it didn't work out. Later on he went into government again.
We went back to D.C. again, but it didn't work out, so we moved back to Ogden, and my mother became very ill. My father lived in Connecticut when my mother died. When she passed away we moved back to Washington D.C., but I didn't stay. I came back to Utah and thought maybe I could do some genealogy at the library there in Salt Lake.
I turned thirteen when we lived down in D.C., that year in '29. All through high school I lived in Ogden. I had one dress to my name, one pair of shoes, floppy soles. You were very lucky to have anything. High school days were very hard. Daddy sent us five or six dollars a month to live on. We lived with my grandpa and he kept us going. I don't know what we would have done.
We lost everything we had, all our heirlooms. My mother told me they weren't important, we had one another. We were happy. There were so MANY people who were standing in line for food, and we didn't have to. My grandpa took care of that. It was hard enough on us, but we were a happy family, a close knit family. We learned to depend on one another that way. We learned to appreciate everything we had in life.
The depression itself was hard on us physically, but we would still get along with little things. We didn't expect a lot. If the stock market should break now, I don't know what people would do, with all the things they have. We had one little tiny radio and we were happy. Our values were different. We played games, and that was our entertainment. We would see a movie once in a while because our grandfather would send us to the movies. We just enjoyed one another. We knew one another in our family. That was such a good part of the depression in that it kept us very close.
We didn't have any money. We couldn't even buy penny lolly pops. Once in a while we could get a sucker. We just were lucky. At Christmas, we each got a bag of nuts. I got the Book of Mormon. There were tears; my mother cried because she couldn't do any more.
We were very fortunate. Our family was never without food because we had a grandpa. It came around that Grandpa was really keeping us because Daddy was sending us maybe five or six dollars. My daddy tried for a long time to keep his business going, and it didn't work. That's when he finally went back to the government again. But Grandpa was keeping us in food. We didn't know until years later that he was writing to a couple of his sons and asking for some money so that he could buy groceries for us. They sent the money each month. We didn't realize that he was down to his last penny.
We were living in one of my grandpa's apartments. My mom got to make apartments of two homes. It actually had been one big home with his family living in it, and then they split it and had two homes. Guess we figured he had the money we didn't. Grandpa was keeping us while my dad was back in D.C.
The girls started working at Hartford, an insurance city, and all three of us worked there. We gave our mother ten percent of what we earned for upkeep. She made us pay our tithing and kept the rest for our clothes. All the necessary things. I bought my mother a quilt for her bed, pillows, and blankets. We didn't have an opportunity to save money, but we did learn to be very frugal. I did know how to put money away when I came back here after my mother died. I always put some money away.
Roosevelt was our president at the time. There were long food lines. We were fortunate to have a grandpa that kept us going so we didn't have to stand in line for food. Many families stood in line for food.
The government started building roads and improving them. That's when we started getting our good roads. Roosevelt put crews of men out to build roads. That was a life saver when they started building those roads up into the mountains and forming camps. The best thing that could have happened. Then we got back on our feet little by little.
We had one of the first cars. My mother took it into town when we lived down in Maryland; Daddy had purchased a farm. We needed some groceries; my mom and Aunt Alta didn't know how to drive, so mama said I'll drive. She drove into Washington and she didn't know how to stop the car. She got it going as slow as possible, and Alta jumped off and went in and got the groceries and brought them back and mama had gone around and around and around. Finally ran out of gas. Alta got back in and we had to go find a telephone someplace and call my dad to come.
The depression taught me to be very careful. I was pretty frugal for a long time. It was good when we were first married because the war was on and there was a lot of things we couldn't have. You couldn't drive your cars; but when you had to, you had to use gasoline stamps. The government gave you stamps and when they were gone, that was all you got for the month. You learned to be very careful with what you had, and appreciate what you had. I look at the parking lot over at the school now, easy come, easy go.
I appreciate life more because of the depression. Life can be wonderful. You make it what it is. Don't expect somebody else to do it for you. You have to do it yourself. I love life, I'm grateful for my family. I think you have to have hardships to appreciate the good. I think if we hadn't had that, we wouldn't appreciate what we have; you don't, unless you have something to work for. We had to work for it all our lives, I had to work for it all my married life. Things didn't come easy. I think it was good for us.
It frightens me now when I see the conditions we're in 'cause I think we're ready for another crash. I don't know whether we'll be able to handle it or not. If we faced a depression today my advice would be to stay close to the Lord. I don't know what we'd have done if we didn't have the church. To know what it is to kneel and pray, that's what gets you through. Just stay close to the Lord.
Work! Don't be afraid of work. Don't expect somebody else to do it for you. Get out and do it yourself. It will make you. If you know how to work, you'll be all right. Stay close to your parents, they're wise.
They were hard times, people were hungry. They took care of themselves. They didn't depend on the government. Now the government takes care of us a lot. In those days we took care of ourselves. We are very fortunate to have a government that takes care of us. We have to remember what the government gives us we're giving to the government, in the long run, and not to expect the government to do everything for us. We need to depend on ourselves more.
Home | Essays | Photos | Interviews | Project Information | Resources
