Vergie Matherly's Memories of the Great Depression

Jonathan Range

 
The Great Depression began in October of 1929 when the stock values in the United States dropped rapidly. Thousands of stockholders lost large sums of money-or were even wiped out. Many people had to depend on the government or charity for food. Many of the stories about the Depression have been told about the large cities and their struggles to live a life of poverty after being used to the luxurious lifestyle. However, those accounts do not reflect the true damage caused by this economic plunge. The many "country folk" that inhabit the area around Tennessee had a somewhat different recollection of this time period. The stories told by the people who had lost all of their  money in the stock market are stories of doom and despair, but those told by the people who didn't have anything to begin with are filled with memories of family and friends helping one another in a time of need. In a personal interview with my grandmother, Vergie Matherly (eighty-seven years old) whom I call "Nanny", I learned first-hand what the Depression was like in a small community located in a very isolated area. Her accounts of family struggle seem to dwarf those accounts of the rich tycoons who lost it all in the stock market. A book entitled Stories and Recipes of the Great Depression of the 1930's contains several pages of anecdotes written by various people who lived in small towns during this time. This book goes hand in hand with the memories of my Nanny.

In 1929, Vergie got married at the age of 17 to a man by the name of Jim. Jim was a coal miner in Hampton, Tennessee,  and was injured when the mine collapsed on top of him. Vergie recalls this  accident,

They had to take five wheelbarrows of stuff off of him right here (motioning to her lower back). He couldn't walk no more and he could just lay in bed and when he needed to sit up, we had to prop him up. He died, the stuff crushed his insides.
Before the death of her husband, Vergie had to do anything possible for money, because Jim was unable to work in his condition. She took up the job of washing and ironing for several of the CC boys. When asked how much she made from doing this laundry, she replied, "I washed for nine of them (CC Boys) and uh, a dollar and a half a piece." That is a lot more money than most of the people could make during this hard time. The death of her husband brought a single check from the government for the amount of thirty seven dollars. The money that she earned was used to buy some food, mainly "beans and potatoes and cornbread, milk and butter and eggs." Food was in the most part grown right there at the house. A small garden provided the necessary vegetables, a cow provided milk, and chickens provided eggs and Sunday dinner. The animals were primarily kept for the services that they provided, but when they needed food, the cows, chickens, and pigs were there for the eatin'. Rita Van Amber, the author of Stories and Recipes of the Great Depression of the 1930's, quotes a women by the name of Audrey Samplowski as saying, "We didn't have beef often at all. Unless the cow didn't get pregnant or broke a leg or something.(Amber 18)"

The feed sacks that held the food for these animals were printed with different designs and they doubled as material for clothing, They would be cut into a pattern and stitched together by hand and then worn by the children. This process and through the charity of  her sister are the only ways that Vergie remembered getting clothes. Van Amber's book tells about a person named G.V.:

All discarded clothing was recycled into new items, The seams were carefully ripped apart and the pieces washed, ironed and the basic pattern was used on the reverse side. This side was always colorful and looked like new....Old overalls were made to fit the smaller children and its and pieces were used to make mittens(Amber 12).
The holidays were one of the few happy times that Vergie had during this time. The Christmas after her husband Jim died was described by her in this way,
Well, uh, the Christmas after the children's daddy died, he died the 7th of December, and it wasn't too long til Christmas, you couldn't get in here for the toys that people had brung, Carol (daughter) had 13 dolls. And we had boxes of stuff under the bed and everywhere. Bags of oranges. People were so good to us.
This recollection of Christmas brought back some memories of Easter as well.
One Easter mama had, she called it, she had fifteen laying hens and, uh, I forget how long we had before Easter that me and my sister, Juanita, the one that died, you know, ....she told my dad that we would have to buy some eggs this Easter, said the hens aren't laying good. You know what happened? We were getting those eggs and hiding them.
The reason that Verige and her sister had been hiding the eggs was that they had overheard their mother say that they would have to buy eggs, so they were stealing the eggs from the hens so that no one could cook them. Later, when asked if they had store-bought candy for Easter, she said that the only candy they had was popcorn balls and on occasion, she said that her mother would send her to the store to get a quarter's worth of beans, but she would only spend twenty cents on beans, and use the remaining nickel to buy handfuls of candy.

Even though the Great Depression is usually made out to be an entirely bad time, there were many happy memories that arose because of this experiences. Friends had to remain close, and family even closer. In a time when no one had much, everything was shared. Many lessons have been learned by the survivors of the Great Depression. According to Van Amber,  "We have learned that their personal experiences in striving to make the best of it taught us dependability , self-reliance, awareness of the needs of others and money management. Although we lost a part of our childhood by having to help out, the deprivation of enjoyment matured us as children beyond our age(Amber 3)." Good things did come out of the bad circumstances, while some people thought it was the end of the world because they had lost their money on the stock market, many people cherish their memories of the hard times and look back on them as being an event that shaped who they are today.
 

WORKS CITED

Amber, Rita Van. Stories and Recipes of the Great Depression of the 1930's and More From     Your Kitchen Today. Van Amber Publishers: Neenah, 1986.

Matherly, Vergie. Personal Interview. November 28, 1999.
 

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