INTERVIEWEE: Luzon Peterson

Sevier County Oral History Project

INTERVIEWEE: Luzon Peterson
INTERVIEWER: Cory Dalton
DATE: December 18, 1997
PLACE: Richfield, Utah
SUBJECT: The Great Depression

Luzon Peterson: I think that the depression started, for me, when my father died in 1922. At that time I was eight years old. This was a new experience for me, of course, having a death in the family; and at this time I had an older sister that was on a mission in Hawaii when father died.

There was eleven in our family, seven sisters and four brothers. And that was quite a large family for my mother to take over. It was pretty difficult for her. Of course, like I said. I was eight years old and I was the ninth child.

We lived on a big farm. Dad was a farmer, cattle-man, and land owner, and he raised horses. Not race horses, but nice horses and would sell them to the farmers there. That's what they used to cultivate their land. We didn't have all the fancy equipment that they have now.

Life, as I remember was good. We had a large house; we had to have a large house with all that family. It was about a fourteen room house. four bedrooms, parlor, kitchen, formal dining room, and bath. The thing about these old homes, that I grew up in, we didn't have any central heating. They had big cook stoves that burned wood and coal and heater-rolos were coal stoves in the other rooms to heat the other rooms.

After dad died, my two older brothers tried to take over and run the farm, and from then on things sort of went into reverse. Some of the horses died, seemed like the bottom fell out of everything. And at that time, the banks closed, where my mother had her money and this was in 1929. This put everybody in a bind and mother had to borrow money to keep things going through this bad time. But at this time, after two or three years of my brothers trying to keep the farm going, they decided to turn the farm over to my much younger brother and they went away to find jobs and would send money home to help the family.

Cory Dalton: What kind of jobs did they have?

Luzon Peterson: My older brother went to California and got with a firm building homes and big buildings. The salaries were very, very low. Nothing like they get now. But he did help send money home.

The other brother went into driving big equipment for a big company here in Utah to build roads mostly. He helped send money home.

Through the big depression in '29 I was about fourteen years old then. It didn't seem to affect me too much. I don't recall too much about it, but my mother and my older siblings in the family would mention it quite frequently in the early years. At the age of fourteen, I don't recall too much except money was scarce. We had plenty to eat. We always had cows to milk; we always had pigs to kill, had chickens, had beef. There was always plenty to eat. My mother always had a garden that we all helped with. This was one thing about the depression. Everyone had to work. We all had responsibilities and we all pitched in to keep things going.

As I said, we didn't see too many dollar bills or silver dollars. If we had an abundance of eggs that we didn't need to eat, we could exchange that for groceries. Everyone was doing this. I mean it just wasn't my family. What I'm doing, is just giving you what my family went through, but I will say that everyone was about the same. No one had much money.

We kept the farm going and some things were expensive; we couldn't afford a lot of clothes like the people have now. They have to have name brands. During the depression there was no peer groups. We were all in the same boat. We all wore hand-me-downs. My mother was a good seamstress and made a lot of the clothes. Some of the under-clothes were made out of 100 lb. flour sacks and 100 lb. sugar sacks—if you could imagine that. They were 100 percent cotton and after being laundered a couple times, they made pretty good underwear for mostly the younger boys and girls. A lot of the clothes were made from cheap material that people could buy. One girl in the group did not dress any better than the other girls. We all had about the same amount of money to spend. Shoes we needed and had to buy. No one could make the shoes for us.

Cory Dalton: Did you ever hear, on the radio, about people committing suicide?

Luzon Peterson: One of the bankers here, of course I was real young when this happened, did commit suicide. I'm sure all over the United States there was a lot more than that, but I don't recall of hearing too many.

The thing is that we worked hard, but we appreciated everything we got and we took care of things. We couldn't get a new dress every few months. We would wear what we had until it wore out. And it was the same with everyone else.

Luzon Peterson: Do you have any more questions?

Cory Dalton: No.

Luzon Peterson: At Christmas time, I remember a lot about the Christmases, because at that time in my growing years money was scarce. We didn't have an abundance of Christmas presents. You would see a lot of toys like kids get now. The children would get one or two items and that was about it. But there was always a Christmas tree, and there was always some decorations on it—most of it home-made, with stringing popcorn; I think some people still do that, and make out of crepe paper, colored paper, make different designs and hang on the tree.

Cory Dalton: You still had a lot of fun though, right?

Luzon Peterson: Yes, we had a lot of fun. We would all get together and we all believed in Santa Clause until we became a certain age and we would go to bed early like some of the children still do now. We could always hear Santa Clause come. We could always hear his sleigh-bells—of course, it was our imagination, but it was fun and we would get together with my mother's sister and her family for Christmas dinner. One year it would be in our house, and the next year it would be at my aunt's house.

My aunt had three daughters and two sons. We were all comparable in age and we would get together and we would have a lot of fun. We had to make our own fun. We did one year get ice-skates and we did a lot of skating on the rivers and the canals.

They used to freeze over and we would skate—I lived out in Central, on the farm; and just about two blocks west of the place was the Richfield Canal, that runs through the village now, or through the county. We would walk up there in the winter, and we would skate up to what we called the central square, where the old school-house was, and during the holidays we would build bon-fires and have little get togethers that way. Then we would go back on the canal and skate home, which was about a mile.

Cory Dalton: What happened to your farm?

Luzon Peterson: The farm is still there. My one brother that took over the farm became very successful with it. It was hard work and we all worked at it and he brought it back and times changed. During the winters, though, he would go up to Bingham Canyon and work at the Utah Copper Company for about three months during the winter when the farm work was slack. He didn't have anything to farm. So it was up to my younger brother and me to sort of take care of the milk cows and feed them; and when he came home, he would take over the farm and this was through 1929, '30, and '31; '29 was the depression, and the aftermath was '30 and '31 and '32.

In '32 I decided to go into nursing school. I was 17 years old, and I think the reason I decided to do this was because the money was scarce. I had three older sisters. One went to BYU, graduated. And two went to the University and graduated and became teachers. They came home and were teaching here in Sevier County. The other sister that graduated from BUY got married and settled out in our home town and raised a family. I had another sister, older than I, that went into nursing school, and as she graduated, then I went in. I think maybe she was my role-model and was what to do with my life. And another thing was because we got room and board. There was always the nurses' home where we had roommates and we lived there three years, going to school working in the hospital and going up to the University of Utah to take classes. Next three years I became a registered nurse and that was in 1935.

By then, the depression was sort of over. I worked on a job down in Cedar City and worked there for two or three years.

Cory Dalton: Would it help your family a lot when you became a nurse?

Luzon Peterson: When I became a nurse, yes. I still do some nursing. People call, you know, and ask for advice and have little blood pressure checks and things like that. But I helped my younger sister after I graduated form nursing in '35. She was wanting to go to school, so I would send what little money I could. At the time I was receiving maybe sixty dollars a month, nursing, and I think they get several times more than that now. As far as I was concerned I thought that was a good job. I went to Cedar City. There was a nurses' home there, so that was taken care of. All we had to do was supply our uniforms and shoes, and things like that.

Cory Dalton: Did you ever get frustrated when you wanted something really bad and you knew you couldn't buy it?

Luzon Peterson: Yes, I think so. I think that when I went into nursing school in '32, I had to furnish my own uniforms and shoes and things and at that time was the first I ran into peer-groups. Some of the student nurses there and their families was more affluent than my family and some of the others; but on the whole, we all stayed within our limits and, yes, I got frustrated one time when I was having foot trouble and painful feet and you know a nurse is on her feet most of the time. This is how I made my living, was walking up and down the halls, up and down the steps, walking into patients' rooms. Always on my feet, and I had painful feet at one time and I saw an orthopedic doctor and at that time I was wearing cheap shoes. That's all we could afford. And he just took one look at my feet and said my arches were falling and that's why it was so painful. He just took my shoes and threw 'em clear across the examining room. And I became quite frustrated because that was the only pair of shoes I had to go to work in. Anyway, he laughed and he said OK, but you're going to have to get in more corrective shoes or you're going to have problems. But he said put those shoes back on, and I explained to him and my mother was a widow, that she had other children that she had to support and help through school and that's why I was wearing these cheaper shoes. We couldn't afford more expensive shoes. After writing a letter to my mother when I told her how much a good shoe would cost, she sent the money. And from then on I have always tried to wear very good shoes, and I have never had any problems with my feet since then.

I'm sure that there were some people that had rougher times than we had. I'm sure that the people that didn't have any farm land, that didn't own their homes, that didn't have where they could supply their children with food and a good balanced diet, I'm sure that other people had many, many bad times. But where I lived, it was a small town, Central Valley out here, there was no one that had any more money than the rest. We were all about in the same boat except one family. Any more questions?

Cory Dalton: Did you move anywhere around or did you just live there all your life?

Luzon Peterson: We just stayed in that home. That was the home my dad had built when my mother and he had built it. They moved in there after they had the first three children. And then the rest of us were born right there in that big house. It's still standing out there. My brother that took over the farm, his son now owns that house, is living in it, and is running the farm part time. They have sold some of it. My younger brother got part of the farm and he graduated high school and he went in the service—World War Two—but when he came back, he lived with my mother and took care of the farm with her because my other brother got married. But now my nephew lives in that house and is running the farm; so it's still in the family and I think they're making a pretty good living with it.

I know my younger brother is two years younger than I and he had some rough times after he got married and started having his family, but everything seemed to turn out all right after the depression. We had to work hard.

Cory Dalton: Did you ever think something like this is perhaps going to happen again, like the stock market crashing?

Luzon Peterson: People talk a lot about it and my husband and I have discussed it and we think that it could happen, but I don't think the government would let it happen. I think there's enough insurance through finances for the banks, but I don't think that any of them will shut up again like they did in '29, but it could happen. Who knows maybe we could go to war again. I certainly looks like Iraq is dragging their heels and wanting to do something desperate.

Cory Dalton: How has it changed your attitude? Do you save money as much as you can?

Luzon Peterson: It has certainly made me more conservative. I'm not one that gets a dollar and runs right out and spends it. My husband and I are conservative, and I think the depression had made a lot of people that way. More conservative. They appreciate what they have and we started saving for our retirement years and years and years ago. We've been retired twenty-five years. We've had a nice life, but I'm sure that people, back in the depression, couldn't enjoy the things that we enjoy now.

Cory Dalton: What would you tell kids today about making money?

Luzon Peterson: I would tell the kids today to finish school, to get their education, to either go to universities or to trade schools, whatever they feel comfortable with. But I think education is the best thing that a person can do because that means a lot in looking for a profession or jobs. The more education you have, the more degrees you have, the more money you get. And I would also advise children, after they do get their education or find a job, to start thinking about the future. A lot of people didn't and that's what causes welfare, a lot of people that didn't start saving or thinking of the future. But then again, if we have another big depression, we'd all be in the same boat again. Even though we've saved, and planned for the future, this could happen. It would all go down the tube. That's my husband. Do you have anything to add? I think I've given him all the bad things. Have I told you enough?

Cory Dalton: Thank you.

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