Growing Times, based on an interview of Morris Ogden

Growing Times

Based on an interview of Morris Ogden
by Bryce Jolley on December 7, 1997

In the never-out-of-style living room of the solid white brick house, Morris Ogden relates the effects of The Great Depression both then and now. The aged man relives stories of heart with his smiles adding to the feelings conveyed of that era.

I was born in Richfield, 1905. I'm ninety-one years old.

I guess I lost one of my siblings, so there's seven that's alive. Some of them have died. Some of them on the earth, some in heaven.

I'm the baby in my family.

The thing that was bad for me was I was born in the depression, didn't have any way to make a living. Dad had a little farm.

I'd just been on a mission for two years. I went over to England. I was there for two years and then I went and spent a month in Denmark. That's where my mother came from. She wanted me to go over there and spend a little time with her folks to see what they were like 'cause I hadn't ever been over, and mother's folks hadn't been here; she wanted somebody to go over. So she went over, or she asked me to go over, so soon as my mission was through, then I got leave of absence and I went over to Denmark and spent nearly a month there.

I graduated from high school; that was as far as I went; then I got a job, and the next year I went on a mission. My folks wanted me to go on a mission, so that's where I went. I was going to come back to go to school again, carry on, but I didn't.

My father had a little farm, but not enough for two families. I was the last one there. All my other brothers had left and one of them had died; he got kicked by a horse.

As soon as I got so I could make a living, I got a job. I went to Dad and I asked if I could borrow one of his two horses. I could get a job hauling gravel from one place in my town to build and beautify the roads; I got two dollars a day, me and his team. We had to take that out in tax-credit to pay your taxes on my little home and that's how it bothered me. Part of that money went to taxes, the rest of it went for food whatever you could get. We lived pretty humble during those years. If I hadn't a borrowed dad's team . . . .

We followed the road work all the way down to the southern part of Utah, just about the edge of Utah. We had to go where the jobs were. We made just enough to hold on. We got a job on the road working as one of the managers; we were in charge of the work and so I kept the team ready. Then we jumped back down to Richfield.

Our kids never went without school stuff or equipment. They had the necessities of life. They didn't have anything that deterred them from going to school. I made them a teeter totter once that was good for them to play on. They worked in the summer and went to school in the fall. We tried to get them to save their money so that when they were old enough to go to high school and college they were able to.

We bought a car once, before we went on the road, for four hundred and forty-two dollars. The cheapest you could get at that time. But when you have somebody to keep their eyes out for sales, you'll always have a chance to save money on something.

I think the one thing you should do is to look ahead. Don't wait until your last penny is gone before you say oh no we're out of coal or wood. Save your money for a rainy day, don't spent it foolishly, buy what you need, save the rest. That's what got me by without too much trouble during the Great Depression.

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