INTERVIEWEE: Leo and Hazel Peterson

Sevier County Oral History Project

INTERVIEWEE: Leo and Hazel Peterson
INTERVIEWER: Logan Heaps
DATE: December 11, 1997
PLACE: Glenwood, Utah
SUBJECT: The Great Depression

Logan Heaps: This is an interview with Leo and Hazel Peterson. This interview is being conducted on December 11, 1997, in Glenwood, Utah. My name is Logan Heaps. The subject is The Great Depression in Sevier County.

Logan Heaps: Where and when were you born?

Hazel Peterson: I was born in January in 1906.

Leo Peterson: I was born August 23rd of 1907.

Logan Heaps: And where were you born?

Hazel Peterson: I was born in Mayfield in Sanpete county.

Leo Peterson: I was born in Glenwood.

Logan Heaps: Tell about your family circumstances and financial problems during the depression.

Hazel Peterson: We were married the 29th of December in 1929. The Depression was right after that, and I taught school and that was how I met Leo. I was teaching school here in Glenwood. I taught 29 years in the Sevier District. And, of course, I was born and raised in Mayfield, and went to Manti to high school, and went to Ephraim to Snow College. And finished my degree in Logan at Utah State. And now what was you doing? He went to high school here . . .

Leo Peterson: Went to high school in Richfield.

Hazel Peterson: In Richfield. He took all of his high school in Richfield.

Logan Heaps: What kind of movies or music do you remember?

Hazel Peterson: Music. Well there was, at that time we were teenagers, but at home up in Mayfield there was a band. And we had a dance every Friday night, regular as clock work. And I can't remember too much music in elementary, but in high school we had a band and a chorus. Now what did you have in Richfield?

Leo Peterson: All ours was is we had a chorus in Richfield. I did that for a year or two. At that time they put on an opera. In the high school the chorus had done the same.

Logan Heaps: How was the depression good for you or was it bad?

Hazel Peterson: Well, during the Great Depression I was going to say that Leo was working at a bakery in Manti, and that, of course, is where we went to live. And after 1932 we moved back to Glenwood because the bakery closed on account of the depression. And then when we came back here, we had two children, Carmen and Roger. The one was born in 1931 and the other in 1932. And then we had our third child in 1934, so we had three little kids with us in Manti. When we were there, it was during the depression.

We moved about five or six times. We would get a place to live and then on account of depression, either their son or their daughter would lose their jobs wherever they were. Then they would come back to Manti, so then we would have to move again and find a place, and that happened seven different times while we lived up there three or four years. So it made quite a difference because they were out of work, so they would come home and, of course, they needed a place to live. It was their home, it was their property, so we had to move; and then finally we came down here and lived in Glenwood. Do you know where our post office is?

Logan Heaps: Yes

Hazel Peterson: We lived there for ten years. Ranee was born there in the post office; we didn't go to the hospital for births like they do now. Pam was born in a hospital. They gave out stamps for shoes, sugar, gas, what else, it was like food stamps. You had to pay for them, but you could only maybe get ten pounds of sugar for a stamp.

Leo Peterson: Everything was rationed.

Hazel Peterson: Yea, everything was rationed. I remember the time we got our flour in 100 pound flour sacks up here to the Glenwood Mill. And they started to make little designs on them, flowers and different patterns. And a lot of my kids, in fact a lot of the underpants—of course all of the girls wore slips under their dresses—and even Roger's shirts were made out of them. We were very lucky because our three kids were easy on shoes, but I remember older people like me, you know young marrieds, they had a hard time keeping shoes. It was just like it is now; some kids are just harder on shoes than others. That was one thing that was rationed.

Logan Heaps: Do you remember what you were doing or when you heard about when the stock market crashed?

Hazel Peterson: Leo, you would know better.

Leo Peterson: I don't. I just heard about it, that's all I remember about it. It was a hard time because the banks in Richfield closed.

Hazel Peterson: Yea, the banks closed. Did we have radio then? We might have had a radio. Everybody just had a little radio. News just didn't get to us—the banks closed and wages was good for then.

Leo Peterson: After the banks closed, everybody just had a tough time after that. The rich people just dropped down to our level. When I was in Manti, I worked for 15 dollars a week.

Hazel Peterson: And we saved some and we bought a car.

Leo Peterson: In 1930 we bought a coup car, a Chevrolet car.

Logan Heaps: Did you have to sell anything to get money?

Hazel Peterson: No, we never go to that.

Leo Peterson: We never had much to sell (laughs).

Hazel Peterson: We had our own pigs; we milked cows, so we had our own milk, our own butter, and Leo was farming so we had wheat. And we could take the wheat up to the mill, and they would grind it for us.

Leo Peterson: We had a little grocery store that you could get the other things that you needed to eat.

Hazel Peterson: We sold the wheat to pay for the bills. So it was more of a barter; they would put a price on the wheat and we could take that much money and we had groceries. But the groceries were not like they have here; they never had bread or butter. The only thing that I can remember is they had tomatoes (laughs).

Logan Heaps: Did you ever have people steal anything from you?

Hazel Peterson: We have never had that experience. I know several times that we had friends that were really bare, and Leo would take a sack of oats or a sack of something and stand it down on the doorstep so it would help them out. As far as it goes, we never had anything taken away from us. And I don't know if I ever heard of any.

Leo Peterson: There were no jobs or anything; you just had to make your living off a small farm.

Logan Heaps: Did the depression do anything to your feelings about different things?

Leo Peterson: Everybody seemed to be in the same boat.

Hazel Peterson: I know in Mayfield you didn't travel like you do now because you didn't have the gas money and you were home.

Leo Peterson: You had to make your own entertainment.

Hazel Peterson: We had dances here; there was an orchestra. They would put on plays so for entertainment we had as much then as we have. We went to church; we had a church, and primary would have a little activities and I remember one time in the fall we had an activity in primary and we asked each one—but they didn't have to—if they had an extra squash or something; we didn't care what they were. And then like Thanksgiving baskets we would take them to older people. You didn't ask for money because you didn't have it, but I remember once that we asked for squash. And that's what we took to the old people. And it was a good experience for the kids at that time. They were giving.

Logan Heaps: Has your attitude changed since the depression?

Hazel Peterson: Well, you had to be conservative, you had to. I think sometimes it was hard. You made over; when Carmen grew out of something, we made it fit Ranee. When Roger needed something to wear, he had his brother-in-law's old pair of pants that I could make clothes for him. You just didn't go buy because you didn't have any money. You made over and done what you could.

Logan Heaps: What advice would you give to a younger generation if there was another downfall in the economy?

Hazel Peterson: Be conservative; have supplies on hand is what our church told us. You have to take care of your things. If you have another depression, I have said this two or three times, maybe that's what we need to bring us back to the ground. It would be hard on the children; it would be hard on the young people. It would be hard on our family, a lot of them. You need storage in both food and clothing. Even in my day when we got married, my mother said to me I want you to buy one sheet every year. If you buy one sheet every year, you will never run out of sheets. Always buy a hundred pounds of sugar in February; of course, that is when sugar was on sale. She said never buy anything that you can't pay for. I think that would be the best advice you could give anyone. If you can't pay for it, go without. As mother would say if you get that hungry, you come home and have something to eat (laughs). But we would give that to our kids; that's one thing you would do, not charge in the store for something to eat. There are big thing that you have to go in debt for, but you don't need to go in debt for food. Of course, we had our meat, bread, and milk, and we always had two or three pigs that we killed in the fall and salted them down. We didn't have fresh meat, but we did have home cured meat.

Logan Heaps: Is there anything else that you would like to add about the depression?

Hazel Peterson: Not unless you got another question to ask (laughs). I think the way we ate during the depression, you always had three meals; your dinner was at noon. I remember that when we got married we ate a lot of potatoes. You had fried potatoes for breakfast. Then you had mashed potatoes for dinner. And then you would eat salad or something and fix different things for supper. Potatoes are one of the staple foods. In fact, everybody used potatoes, everybody grew potatoes and you could keep them. And at that time I know everybody in town had a garden and they took care of it. They put potatoes and carrots in potato pits in the ground. They would keep them, have a little bench, one for carrots and one for potatoes, and then they would have their onions.

In fact, down at Grandma's we raised cabbage, and then we would just pull them up and put a string on them and hang them from the ceiling down in the potato pits. They would stay; then you could cut one down, then take the outside leaves off; then you would have your nice cabbage. We dried a lot of fruit: plums, apples, and those were the two main things. We didn't have any pressure cookers, so you always grew corn, but you dried it. When it's dried, you could put it in your containers and then you would let it soak over-night. Then the next day you would have corn. But you didn't bottle because you didn't have pressure cookers. The things that could be down in the basement: in fact, I put even beets down there and they kept good; your squash would keep. So you just plant a garden; then you would take care of it. We bottled tomatoes but you had to cook them for three hours before they were safe to eat. But you just pretty much took care of what you had and hoped times were better and they are better.

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