I Remember--Synopsis of an interview of Tom Abbott

I Remember

Based on an interview of Tom Abbott
by Owen Peterson on December 12, 1997

Got up at 5 o'clock in the morning and milked the cows. Finished the chores and we came to the house. The family would have breakfast together. Go to school at about 9 o'clock. Then I'd go home and start doing chores again, milk the cows. Get the chores done, and then we'd have supper together as a family. A good family life.

I was born in Paragonah, Utah, April 23, 1920. Born at home. Women didn't usually go to the hospital in those days to have babies. All the children were born at home. Doctor usually come to the house and delivered the baby at home.

We had a three room house and heated with wood, and we had a kitchen stove and the heater over in the front room; and the bedroom was without heat and you drove into the mountains every fall and hauled enough wood for winter.

They also hauled enough wood for the church, and they would have a big church party and dance every fall and your ticket to the dance was a load of wood. If you would go get a load of wood to help heat the church all winter, then you could go to the dance and have a ward party. It took several loads of wood. There was not insulation in those days and many times you could see through the cracks in the wall and mother would roll up newspapers and put in to keep the wind from blowing in so much, and it took a lot of wood to heat the house and keep the family warm.

And, of course, there was no chain saws in those days, so you had to chop all the wood with an ax. My dad was an expert with an ax, so he worked hard. I can remember one time we run out of wood and it was in the winter. We got up way early in the morning and milked the cows and he put a tub in the wagon with some dirt in the bottom of it and built a fire in the tub to keep us warm on the way to get wood and then on the way back with the load of wood it was after dark and I can remember how the wheels creaked in the snow with that load of wood on. Horses were sweaty and steamy, and you could hardly see them from the steam coming up off them. Dad always took good care of his horses; he hurried and unhooked them and put horse blankets on them and put them in the stable so they wouldn't get cold. That was the way things was, worked hard. I remember going with him; I liked to go with my dad everywhere. When we was farming when I was real small, he would set me on the horse and I'd ride that horse all day. That was fun.

I was about ten years old when I first started to feel the effects of the depression. We didn't feel the depression as bad as many people. We had the farm and we had grain and cows that gave milk, but we didn't get things for Christmas like they do now. I can remember most of the time for Christmas we would only get an orange or maybe a ball or something like that; and if you got an orange, you was really in good shape because oranges were pretty scarce. But my dad always helped other people lots. I can remember we would grow wheat and then he would take and load the wheat every fall to the mill. There was mills all over then, more than, not like now. And so he'd take this load of wheat and he would get enough flour and wheat cereal to do the family for the full year. Bran off the wheat. And I remember many times he'd take a sack of flour or something like that, even a ham or side of bacon to people who was in trouble. That's the way I remember the depression more.

I can remember the bank went closed and he had borrowed money to buy some cows, and the bank went closed and a bank from California took over that bank; and that man come to the house, and I can remember him telling dad he wanted the money. Dad says well he didn't have the money. Says, "I don't have any money." The man says, "Well we loaned you money and we want the money." Dad says, "You loaned me money and I bought the cows with the money," and he says, "Your money is in those cows." And the bank man says, "We didn't loan you cows; we loaned you money." Dad says, "That's right, and that money bought the cows," so he says, "You go up to the bank, you build you a corral behind that bank and tomorrow I'll bring the cows up there; you can have them," says, "You get your corral ready and I'll bring them." And the man says, "Well, we better talk about this." But then dad finally got it all paid and it was okay.

Things were tight, but as a family we didn't really suffer much, not as bad as other people, some other people. People in that town didn't really suffer. There was no money but then there was stuff to eat and there was wood to get. And in the summertime we milked the cows and separated the cream and mother made butter out of the cream. Then we would take that butter to the store and trade it for the stuff we needed out of the store. There wasn't much money, but there was lots of bartering going on. The store had the granary and you could take grain to the store. He would pay you so much for the grain and give you groceries. And the same with hay; you could take hay and trade it for what you needed.

A lot of places did suffer during the depression. I can remember the radio. Of course, the radio was new then and very seldom you heard anything on the radio. But you did have the newspaper that come occasionally. You would read about the hard times that many people were having. The government had a relief program that you could sign up for, and they would give you wheat and the purpose of this wheat was to feed the livestock. So, they would crush this wheat so as that it was supposed to not be able to sell or trade, but, gee, you could eat it. You could cook it into cereal and eat it. So, if you can't sell it, eat it. And livestock wasn't worth much. I can remember we gathered, I don't know how old I was, probably twelve or so. The government was buying cattle and dad was worried about getting money to pay the taxes with. And we went on the mountain on the forest range and gathered the cows and cattle. And you could get 25 dollars for a big cow and a calf, and you could get 12 dollars for a big cow, good fat cow. And the sad part about it was that they didn't butcher those cattle or anything; they just drove them out and shot them and left them laying. I thought that was a terrible thing, you know, why should you. You got 12 dollars for a cow and they just take it out there and shoot it and leave it laying. But I couldn't understand that, why they did those things. It was quite a loss. I guess they figured there was too many cattle; and I don't know why they didn't feed them to hungry people, but they didn't.

My first job was chopping hay. They put hay up loose then, they didn't have bailers. And my first job, I got 25 cents a day for chopping hay. The next year I got 50 cents a day, I was a year older. It's good wages, 50 cents a day. I was really in the clover. And when I got a little older, I worked out and I would get a load of hay a week; they would pay me a load of hay a week for working, and I could earn enough hay during the summer so when I got to high school in FFA, I bought a milk cow. The dairy financed the boys in the FFA. The dairy financed them to buy cows if we'd ship the milk there. And I bought a cow, and I paid five dollars a month for that cow and shipped the milk. That was how I got through high school. I could get about 10, 12 dollars a month besides the payment on the cow and I was doing all right.

Owen Peterson: Could you explain a typical day during that time?

During a typical day in that time period we got up at five o'clock in the morning or four-thirty, and milked the cows. We got the chores all done and we come to the house and we'd all have breakfast together; mother would have breakfast ready. And we'd have breakfast and we kids would change our clothes and go to school. I had to walk to school. It was about nine blocks, just under a mile. School started at nine o'clock in the morning. School let out at twelve and started again at one-fifteen. So, I would go home and eat my lunch, and go back to school, and school got out at about four-fifteen or four-thirty. And I'd go home and start doing chores again, milk the cows. Get the chores done, and then we'd have supper together as a family, a good family life.

I can remember the first radio was really something, and radios were not too good. If you got right up close to them and listened good, you could tell what they said. They had the big antenna that they'd put up a big pole and ran a wire, a long wire from that pole to the house to the barn or somewhere there was a big long wire to catch that [signal]. If you got up close, you could hear that radio and what was going on.

I can remember when they first got the lights in the house, it was just a single cord hanging down from the ceiling with one light bulb in it. Then you run a cord to run the radio. You had to go outside to get a bucket of water and in the winter when it was cold, you'd leave the tap running so it didn't freeze. When you washed clothes . . . mother usually washed every Monday and you'd have to put the . . . she'd get up early and they had big copper boilers. They would make hand-made soap in the fall of the year, and when they'd butcher the pigs, the animals--they'd usually butcher a pig or two-- they'd keep the fat, and then you'd cure the ham and bacon yourself. Then you would keep that meat for the whole year so you could have ham and bacon all year round if you cured it good. To keep it, there was no refrigerators; to keep it you would put it in a nice sack and bury it down in the grain somewhere; the grain would keep it cool.

With that fat, when they butchered the pigs in the fall, they'd make soap, and that was what you used to wash your clothes with. To make that soap you would make it outside usually, and you'd put fat in a big bucket and hang it over a tripod over a fire and cook it with lye and all sorts of stuff; I can't remember what all went in it. I know my job was to keep that fire going and keep that soap boiling until it got cooked. [Then] Mother would test it to see when it got cooked. She'd have enough soap to do her all winter, all year. They used to boil the clothes on the cook stove in this boiler. They'd put the clothes in this boiler and boil the clothes, and then they would rinse them out and hang them out on the line to dry. I don't remember having a washing machine early; later on they got a washing machine, but for a long time they'd just boil those clothes and wring them out with your hands, rinse them, and then you'd wring them out again, hang them on the line.

Life after the Depression gradually got so you could get more things; by then the radios were getting better, by then automobiles were becoming available. I can remember my dad and his brother, my uncle, the first car they had was a Model T Ford; they owned it together. One of the main troubles they had with those things was keeping the tires up. You'd go somewhere and you always had three or four flat tires. You'd have to stop and take the tire off and take it off the rim and patch the hole and put it back together and pump it up with a hand pump, and then you'd go on your way for a few miles. I remember when my dad got the next car, he bought a cloth-topped car. The next one he bought had a hard top, four doors and rolled up windows, and that was a 1928 Chevrolet. Nice car, nice car we thought. Had good upholstery in it. It's warm to sit on and everything. Them things just gradually become available. Things just gradually got better. More things available, more clothes available, more food available, more of everything available, and things just gradually picked up. It got so as that you could go get a load of coal if you had a truck; you could get a load of coal instead of hauling so much wood. So, things just gradually picked up and got better.

I think young people maybe haven't realized the full value of getting along and making do and fixing and repairing and getting along with what you have and being satisfied. You never get enough of something you don't need because it never gives you happiness. You do better enjoying the things that you have that you need. If you don't need it, then it don't bring you the joy that it would if you really needed it and appreciated it; and maybe that's what I'm trying to say. I think that we need to get along better. If we had another depression, we'd have to do more trading and getting along better and making do with what we have, and raise gardens, and raise food. You know you can raise a lot of food just in your flower garden if you had to. You could plant your flower garden to vegetables. You could do a lot of things to make do.

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