The Great Depression

Wow, I never would have thought I would ever end up losing my home. When the Great Depression came about, people were becoming unemployed, and homes and cars were being lost. It wasn’t just me that ended up on the streets, it was my family, as well as many other Americans. Many of us started building shacks along the streets in public places.

We named these shacks after President Herbert Hoover. They were called “Hoovervilles”. We would go roaming around the streets looking for whatever we could find so that we could build them to the best of our ability. We mainly used scrap wood, metal, stone, and or whatever else we could find. It wasn’t easy finding all these things because we were at competition with other people.

The Hoovervilles were not very big, they were about 8 feet by 8 feet. The size probably wouldn’t have really been an issue if it was just me and another family member, but this wasn’t the case. It was my mom, dad, brother, 2 sisters, and I living in one of the Hooverville. There wasn’t much room to be able to move frequently and freely without being in someone’s way or bothering them. We weren’t always a close family. We liked our space and done stuff on our own. Now, we’re gaining a better connection. We’re all about family.

I never thought that a drought could be the start of life changing events for my family and I. All because of the drought, lack of crop rotation, high winds, and overgrazing, the dust bowl was created. My family and I now were staying in a Hooverville we had built ourselves, in the middle of Oklahoma when we lost our home. The challenges that we faced during our move were unbearable. Despite all of those sequences of events throughout, it taught our family to come together and work as a team.

On April 14th, 1935, we experienced the worst dust storm that ever hit our region. The winds were phenomenal. No matter how many times my mom and I cleaned the house, when the winds struck, it was useless. Our Hooverville was never at perfection. Sometimes the winds were so strong, it would blow down our door, open our windows, and all the dust would swarm in. Our Hooverville wasn’t very sturdy so the wind would keep shaking it, and almost destroy it.

Dust pneumonia was at an all time high for children my age. Unfortunately with my luck, I was diagnosed with this sickness. We were forced to flee from the Great Plains with 2.5 million others. This would make our third time moving from one location to another. With a lot of faith, our trust in God grew to the extremes. We didn’t worry as much as we did because our trust in Him guided us and protected us through every circumstance.

I overheard my dad telling my brother that he couldn’t deal with seeing our family struggle like we were. He told my brother that since they were the men of the household, they were going to leave and find work. I guess leaving and not seeing us hurt was easier than staying here and struggling with us. Hearing that upset me, so I went and told my mom what I heard. In the nicest way possible, she confronted my father.

“I’m only trying to figure out what’s best for our family. I can’t stand to see the struggle anymore. I’ve got to do something about it.” My dad said to my mom. I didn’t want my family to break apart. We were finally doing better than what we were. We might not have had jobs, or a car, or a decent place to live, but we had each other. We were in a new location, and everything seemed better than it was. Things were looking promising. “We have no money. We have nothing. I’m not okay with living like this. We’re leaving to go find work, and we will contact you and the girls when we get there, if we can.”

Everyone that was effected by the Great Depression lost their cars, so I asked my dad how they were going to go all the way across the country to find work if they didn’t have any way of transportation. He told me that they would be “riding the rails”. My sister asked what that meant. My dad said, “riding the rails was one of the most dangerous and illegal things people could do. You had to run along the side of a freight train, grab ahold, jump and pull yourself up on the train. If you weren’t successful, you either lost your life or your legs.”

That was the last thing I wanted to know and hear right before they left. My mom said that she wished she didn’t know that because now her nerves were going to be shot the entire time they’re gone. After they hugged and kissed us by, they left. This was going to the hardest thing we have to deal with.

Ever since my brother and dad left, the rest of the family finds ourselves doing nothing. We’re trying to cope with all the changes, and trying to take our minds off of it. It seems nearly impossible. We’ve always had the guys around to count on to make things easier and better. Now that they’ve left, we don’t know how to be happy and content.

I was cleaning up the best I could, and going through random boxes that I came across, and I found a radio. I don’t know where or how it got there, but it was there. I walked to where my mom and sisters were at, and sat the radio on the table in front of us. My middle sister turned it on. When she turned it on, we heard President Roosevelt talking. We left that station on, and just listened.

After listening to him speak for awhile, my mom said “He’s giving his evening fireside chats.” I asked her what that meant and where she got the name from. She said that one of our neighbors had been listening to them for awhile, and during these chats, he gives us hope for better days. Roosevelt done this so we would continue to keep moving forward and not give up. He was letting all the people around the world that was being effected by the Great Depression, know that he was here for us and that things were going to get better. This was beginning to help us cope with everything.