Home | Essays | Photos | Interviews | Project Information | Resources
"If Ye Are Prepared Ye Shall Not Fear"
Based on an interview of Clara Anderson Jensen
by Kimberly Jensen on Dec. 4, 1997
|
On a sunny December afternoon I went to the little red brick home I know so well. While others during the Depression found themselves, well . . . depressed my Grandma really didn't have the same experience. She really had a happy childhood, and you can still see the effects. Her happy countenance and ready laugh still show the carefree life she's lived.
I lived in Emery, Utah, and I was the youngest in a family of four children. My brothers and sisters were all a lot older than I. I was born in December 6, 1924. My dad was a farmer; he grew alfalfa and grain, and he had some cattle and sheep. All my brothers and sisters were home in 1929. We weren't hit hard by the depression. We had always been out of debt, and we didn't have any debts when the depression came.
I remember that some of my friends' parents had no employment whatsoever. At least one of the families moved to California thinking they would be better off in California than they were in Utah, but they soon moved back because they realized that here they at least had a home and a garden and things like that, where in California, why, they didn't have those things to take care of their family. I know that a lot of them were really, really poor.
We didn't have a lot of money. I remember that probably I had very little money of my own. Probably once a week I'd get a nickel to spend. My older sister made nearly all of my clothes. But, I had nice clothes and we never had to go without that I remember of in my own home. I had friends who really didn't have as much as I did.
My father didn't give out loans, but he did a lot of helping, helped his brothers and his good friends. My dad was in the bishopric at the time, and I know that he always helped. The ward really struggled, and they did lots as a ward to help the other people in the ward.
The town was only around 800 people, just a really small town. I don't recall that any children were deprived of schooling for any reason. Probably, a lot of them didn't go to high school and very, very few people went on to college. I went to college, but that was after the depression. My older brothers and sisters went during, though.
There were very few jobs, since it was just a farming community. There were coal mines, and the people that didn't own their own farms had very few jobs available to them. They had to work for the farmers in order to have a job, but there weren't very many jobs like that. Most people in the area were farmers or ranchers and most people had their own farms.
My mother never worked except in the home, but she was a very efficient homemaker. She did a lot of things for herself like making her own soap and quilting. She always took care of the garden; we always had a big garden. We canned a lot of fruit. She would dry a lot of food, like corn and things of that sort. Our home was very self- sufficient since we had a home and a farm; we grew nearly all of our own food. I don't remember us buying anything but things like sugar, and I remember we had to buy kerosene, and probably salt and spices, things like that out of the store, but we had our own eggs, our own milk, our own butter, and our own meat and vegetables. What we grew we preserved. We were very self- sufficient that way.
I remember when I was in grade school the government started the first school lunch and our school lunch consisted of some kind of soup or beans, or some kind of dish like that, and milk, and probably bread. I remember that was our school lunch, and I'm sure it was important for some of the families. Probably everybody participated. I don't remember how much it cost, but it was . . . maybe a quarter. Something like that. I also remember that with that nickel that I had I could probably buy a soda pop, ice cream, candy bar, popsicle. Few things cost more than a nickel at that time and they were about the same size that they are today. We could buy a hamburger for 25 cents, gasoline was about 25 cents a gallon. Not many people had cars, but we always had a car. That's one of the things my dad helped other people about with. He would drive them to other towns.
One of the things that was interesting about Emery was that the Emery Ward had a picture show, a movie house; they had it in the ward chapel. It was only ten cents for children to go. They had it twice a week. It was sponsored by the ward, and it provided the ward with entertainment and paid the ward budget, completely. Part of the revenue they used to send missionaries out into the field. I know my parents were in charge of the picture show. We just called it a picture show. My parents collected all of the money and ordered the films, and things like that. That was part of their ward calling, and it was very unusual activity. Some of the other wards copied this after that time. It started out with silent movies and before I was grown, why they had sound and color. Actually for a dollar a month the whole family could attend. So if it was a big family, and they were poor, they could still go to the movies. They kept it within the boundaries of people's incomes.
I notice that I'm a lot more careful with money than my children, and my grandchildren. I think part of it was going through that period of time, and also my parents. Like I say, they were always very self-sufficient, never going into any kind of debt. It's what they told me, more than the depression itself, affected my life. The teachings my parents gave me made me the way I am.
My advice is still the advice my parents gave me, the advice that the church gives today. Stay out of debt. Live within your means. The people that were affected worst were the people that had big debts.
|
One thing that was interesting is that my sister, my older sister, had a teaching certificate and taught school during the depression, and she received 100 dollars a month for her teaching. When she got married, she lost her job because women were not allowed jobs in the teaching profession if they were married. They didn't necessarily have to stay home, but there were so few jobs that they were given to married men in preference to married women. I don't know whether it was the law, but at least it was their custom not to hire married women. So she couldn't teach as soon as she got married, even though she was a good teacher.
My brother taught school, too. The only job he could get was in Wayne County. He taught in a little town in Wayne County that isn't even there anymore. It was called Caineville, down by Hanksville, but it's not there anymore. Anyway, the only job he could get was that in a one-room school house. He taught eight grades. He and his wife lived in the school house, and they didn't even have a car when they went to Wayne county. When my dad found out how remote the town was, he bought a car and took it down there, so they could get out. Then he gave up school teaching and got a job being a policeman in Provo, and that was. . . unusual.
My sister's husband didn't have a steady job, so my father helped them start their own business. They started a service station in Emery and it became very successful. They needed the help of my father to get them started.
I don't remember the depression years being an unhappy time. It is a little town, like I say, we had our own picture show, and they had dances all the time. That was part of the recreation; and since it was a Mormon community, why, everybody went to everything. I was quite small during the Great Depression. From 1929 to probably 1939, during that period of ten years, there were a lot of people who didn't have money, but from my viewpoint the people weren't greatly unhappy. I know people didn't have money.
We didn't really see any bums or hobos because we were pretty small. It was not a main highway. The government started PWA, Public Works Administration, and I do remember that they gave jobs to people in the town and they improved the water system and they also graveled the roads through town. They made the roads through town better during that time, and that was a government project. Also I remember the CCC camps; that was when I was probably like, you know junior high age, and there was a CCC camp probably about 30 or 40 miles from Emery, and they worked on projects like building bridges and roads in the forest and areas like that. A lot of them were boys who had come from the city, young men who had come from the cities, who didn't have jobs. That was another government project.
I had a friend who went to college with me and, during the depression, she lived in West Salt Lake. Her father had no job. They lived in just a little shack of a house, and she remembered when they had nothing to eat except beans; that was the only thing they had to eat in the house. Hardly anything, she said it was such a struggle to even exist and they had to rely on other people to give them food and things in order to survive. It was really hard for her to remember that situation.
In your grandfather's family there were eleven children, but they did have a farm and they did have a garden; they had their own pigs and cattle and chicken and milk cow. They never went without food; that was something that never happened in their family, but they probably had just very basic clothes. The children never had any money to spend unless they could get a job somewhere else. The family just didn't have money to give them. They never really suffered to the extent that they had to rely on other people. They didn't have anything but basic things. One of the reasons was that your great-grandfather had a bank debt of a thousand dollars and during the depression they were never able to pay anything but the interest on the loan.
Home | Essays | Photos | Interviews | Project Information | Resources
