Sharing the Past, based on an interview of Lorna Jensen

Sharing the Past

Based on an interview of Lorna Jensen
by Amy Naser on December 4, 1997

Lorna Jensen's first husband died of a brain tumor. Left with a child, she went away to cosmetology school to support herself.

At her home in Richfield, Lorna Jensen describes her life and family experiences through the Depression. She expresses her thoughts, cheerful memories, and some of the hardships that she had to face. She has grown from the trials and learned crafts and skills which have helped her appreciate what she does have. She is a hard worker, very skilled in handwork, a loving person filled with enthusiasm, and she is very talented.

I was born in Elsinore, Utah in the year 1914, the 24th of April in a lovely brick home in Elsinore. It was considered a very nice home. There were five in our family. I had a first brother, who was born, Elden. He died quite shortly after he was born, about fourteen months. There were three of us sisters and another brother and another sister, so there was five of us in our home. We had a lovely home and never knew much about anything bad. We got along real well. We were a happy family. We enjoyed each other's company. We did the things that young people do at that age. During World War II, my youngest brother was born.

The Depression started when I was about nineteen, but I married at that time. We found out that the Depression was on at that time and we had quite a rough time. In fact, my husband would have to go pick up subsidies because it was during the ERA Depression, is what they called it then. We'd go each week to get subsidies. My mother and father would help us a lot.

My parents stayed right in Elsinore and we lived right in Richfield. They worried about the Depression because it was hard for them, too. Their circumstances weren't so easy either, but they shared with everybody. What they did have they shared with other people in the same conditions. During that time my father passed away and mother was left a widow. She still helped us a lot with our living. We had a fairly good living, but it was very meager. We lived on lots of potatoes and white gravy. .

Everybody was in the same shoes; we had lots of friends that were in the same conditions. My husband planted beets and that was the year they had blight in them; we had kind of a rough time.

We lived in Richfield during the Depression. We got along pretty good, but my husband was ill. He had a hard time with his brain tumor and problems with his health. Then, he finally got a job, when we first got married with the WPA. That's when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president. He had the big "New Deal" we'd call it. He got a job as time keeper and then we had a little bit better living conditions for a while.

I had a little boy at that time and his name was Bob. We just more or less got along with what we had. Our house wasn't very modern like the one I had been raised in all my life, but we were happy. We thought we were doing just great and having fun. We spent time with our friends that were all in the same boat. We had to make our own fun, because we didn't have any money to spend.

We tried to save what we could. We always thought it was real exciting when we could gather together twenty-five cents for a show ticket, go to the old Lyric; that was kind of fun. We played cards and we took in the mutual dances and the get-togethers.

We'd get some of our clothes here in Richfield. The clothes that we could get, but mostly I sewed clothes for my children, too. We didn't buy very many things. We didn't have much money, but we got along. We were happy. During the depression it was hard because we had to have stamps for about everything. To get our sugar and nylons etc. We had to have wheat ground for flour and other essentials.

We didn't go to college. I didn't go past high school. My husband didn't either. We were both at that time just right out of school. It was kind of rough sledding, but we were happy at that time. He worked for the WPA and that's about all he ever did and the ERA. First, it was the ERA then it was the WPA, the Great Deal during the Depression.

Things changed and my husband passed away. Then I had to go away to a beauty school and get a degree in cosmetology. I got remarried and the WPA was going. Tell, my husband, got a job at the WPA. He worked with that for a long time. Then he worked for the city for a long time. Then he went to Provo and worked at the Geneva Plant. I was up there in my beauty shop in Springville. Our lives just went on and on. We were in Provo for quite a long time and in Springville. Then we moved back to Richfield.He worked for the city again. Then he got a job with the Indians, the Bureau of Indian Affairs. So we've had a pretty good life.

I'm still quite thrifty because I've been so used to saving everything. I knew that every dollar had to be used wisely.

If we had another Depression, I would say if you could, learn a craft that you could use even if you weren't able to go to school. Anything that would be interesting to you, like sewing or cooking. I think it's good for young people to learn how to take care of the home, how to do those things that they kind of like to get out of now-a-days.

I think we appreciate what we do have now. We have it so much better. I just had the one little boy when I married Tell. Then I had the six other children. It made me happy to have more children to raise and love. I used a lot of my skills with sewing and homemaking in raising my children.

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