Surviving the Great Depression
By DAVE PAYNE Sr., dpayne@newsandsentinel.comArticle Photos
PARKERSBURG - Many wonder how they will get by if the current economic times get worse, but for those who lived through the Great Depression, self-sufficiency was the key during the hardest of times.
"It was a different world then," said H.C. Stanley, owner of H.C. Stanley and Son at 610 Pike St. in south Parkersburg.
Stanley was a young boy when the stock market crashed in October 1929 and was a young man helping his country beat Hitler in Europe by the time historians say the Great Depression ended. He spent most of his childhood and teen years working in his father's store.
There was little money anywhere, let alone discretionary income. Even if there had been, there was little time to spend it, Stanley said.
"You didn't have spare time. We worked six days a week in the store, 12 to15 hours a day. We opened at six (a.m.) and closed at nine that evening. On Sunday, you went to church and had the only good meal you had that week," Stanley said.
The store would be just as likely to accept fresh eggs from customers in exchange for goods as money, he said.
"People were self-sufficient in those times. They had to be. There wasn't much money anywhere. People improvised. They raised their own food and traded for what they needed. People survived. But even before the depression, people weren't used to having much. If it gets that bad now, I don't know what people would do, they aren't used to that. It would be a completely different world for them," Stanley said.
He said most everyone had a garden to sustain their families.
"That's what people had to do then. Most people had a garden. People plowed their garden with horses, there was somebody who came around with a plow and a horse and plowed gardens for people. People on southside had chickens, pigs and cows and people were always bringing eggs to the store and trade. I just don't know what people would do today, of course everybody on southside had to get rid of their chickens and hogs when it was incorporated into the city later," he said.
When Amma resident Howard Carper Jr. was a boy in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he and his family survived on what the land would provide and little else.
Unlike many families in more urban settings, they had meat at most meals. In the fall, they butchered hogs. Otherwise, the woods around the farm yielded the family's meat.
Every day after school, Carper and his older brother, the late Roscoe Carper Sr., scoured the woods near the farm for whatever small game they could find. There were no deer in that area then, so they kept the family fed with small game.
It was a daily routine, the boys came home from school, their mother, Annie Carper, would perhaps thrust a biscuit in their pockets, Roscoe grabbed a .22 rifle and off the boys went in search of game. As night fell, they returned home and their mother cleaned the game, soaked the meat in saltwater and stored it in the cool spring house for consumption the following day.
Carper said the boys learned a great deal about animals. They learned how they behaved and knew where they lived.
"The groundhogs, muskrats, squirrels, rabbits, possums, skunks and raccoons sure had a hard time when me and Roscoe was boys," Carper said.
Their hunting style bears little resemblance to most hunting today. It was Depression-era hunting, hunting that the family not only relied on for sustenance, but with a maxim of shooting only when absolutely necessary.
Larger animals, such as raccoons, Roscoe dispatched with the .22 rifle. Squirrels, however, the younger Carper brother sometimes killed with his bare hands. Shells, after all, cost money. Minor injuries from bites did not.
"We hunted with dogs and when the dogs would tree a squirrel and he'd go in his hole. I had a pair of lineman's spikes and I climbed the tree, reach in the hole and pull him out by the tail," Carper recalled.
Squirrels have long, sharp teeth for breaking into hard nuts for the meat inside. Those teeth also are very efficient against the hands of young boys reaching into their dens.
"Squirrels have sure got some teeth. I've got scars on my hands today from those squirrels," he said.
One of the worst scars comes from a time when Carper was locked in a life-and-death struggle with a squirrel and the only weapons the boy had were his thumb and forefinger.
"I stuck my fingers in his hole to pull him out by the tail, but as I was reaching in, he was coming out headfirst and latched on to my little finger. He about bit it plum off. I was up in the tree trying to choke him with my fingers and Ross (Carper) yells up 'You can't fall down, it's about 100 feet straight down over the hill.' It took a good while, but I finally got that squirrel strangled with my fingers. I've still got a scar from that," he said.
Just as in Parkersburg, Carper said there was virtually no actual money circulating in the Roane County economy. Muskrat hides, however, were an unofficial legal tender in Roane County. He traded 13 muskrat hides for his first rifle, a .22 single-shot Winchester.
For money Stanley delivered handbills in south Parkersburg.
"I delivered those handbills all day for a quarter and it took all day to deliver them. If I needed something, I saved it, if not I could take it and go to the Virginia Theater for a dime, buy a bag of popcorn for a nickel, then buy a hamburger and a coke with the other dime, but I only did that once every couple of months. The rest of the time, I needed it for shoes or clothes," Stanley recalled.
During the depression, people in south Parkersburg had far less meat than the Carpers. Typically, meat was consumed only one day a week - Sunday, Stanley said.
"Everybody had a chicken on Sunday. It was the cheapest meat and nobody had meat on other days. People didn't have much meat at all. It (the chicken meals) was a delight. The rest of the time, you ate cornbread, soup beans or whatever you could get, but we survived," he recalled.
Luxuries most hunters enjoy, such as warm clothing and Thermos bottles of hot coffee, were unknown, Carper said.
"There was a lot of times we went out and there'd be snow on the ground and we weren't wearing much more than a shirt," he recalled.
On the daily hunting foray, the Carper boys might have a fried-apple biscuit - the biscuits were made with water instead of milk - in their pockets or a glass jar of coffee. Once, the younger Carper fell onto his backside while carrying a glass jar of coffee in his back pocket.
"Mom spent all evening picking glass out of my rear end," Carper said.
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Lookin4truth
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03-09-09 10:50 PM
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roadhog,"maybe we need one more standing-knee in Washington." Do you mean "Wounded Knee", roadhog?
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LilyOValley
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03-09-09 9:31 PM
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Sorry, the truth is the links of banks that you describe don't really exist. But at least you recognize they are inter-linked, and that is good - even if you don't understand how. So anyway, my point is the same: To protect both the public and the capital system itself, don't we have to regulate this so it doesn't happen the way it did? And is not the failure to have such regulation in place really MORE of 'the problem' as is a personal philosophy of "looking to the government for a handout or bailout" when something goes wrong?
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LilyOValley
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03-09-09 9:27 PM
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Well then, if brokers are so crooked, don't you think it might be a good idea to have stricter laws and regulations governing the types of mortgages that can be sold, and how they are sold? And give that 'all banks go together' (although you didn't really explain what that means), should not there be protections whereby the bad risks that one banks take cannot so easily 'infect' or link to another? Makes sense to me.
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roadhog
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03-09-09 7:45 PM
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Lookin...From your statement I do believe that our ancestors were here first...maybe we need one more standing-knee in Washington.
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roadhog
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03-09-09 7:43 PM
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In reference to the real estate broker, there are so many crooked and in WV cases are being settled everyday because the brokers overcharged for services, appraisers inflated the value of homes and now some brokers have already served jail time, appraisers have lost their licenses, some have served jail time for predatory lending practices and overcharging of fees. This went on all over the United States. That is why the real estate market is in the shape that it is in. The people couldn't afford the loans and the brokers, lied finagled, blew things out of proportion letting people borrow money for homes they could not afford. And now they want to blame the homeowners because they can't make payments, can't sell their homes, because they now owe more on it than it is worth. Brokers arranged loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the people in Congress that was overseeing all of this says they were as sound as a dollar, but the problem is the dollar is only worth 27 cents.
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roadhog
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03-09-09 7:38 PM
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Lily...you missed my point as usual. It's not just about the person making forty dollars an hour, and you wanted me to explain how other countries went down like USA and how countries defaulted on loans. If you have a retirement plan or a 401K, your money is not only invested into the America companies, your money is invested in stocks in Europe and in Asia and when in turn, their money is invested in our stock market, so when we go down, they go down, Same way with banks...all over the world. The small countries that borrowed money from banks all over the world they lost so much money when the market went down all over the world, that had to go default because what they were paying loans with was the dividends from the stock market and banks. No money, everything dried up. Even with good credit, you could not borrow money.
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roadhog
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03-09-09 7:32 PM
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Joyfultoo....naw I'm still kicking, been on the road a lot so people can buy things they can't afford
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joyfultoo
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03-09-09 4:50 PM
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What delightful stories. And I agree, there's wisdom in them for all of us. Roadhog, nice to 'see' you. I thought you gave up posting here.
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Lookin4truth
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03-08-09 8:04 PM
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roadhog"his road has been fine since the day it was built...ask the Indians." Huh? Don't get us mixed up in this mess! We're doing all we can now just to survive!!!!
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LilyOValley
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03-08-09 4:47 PM
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By the way RoadH, I know you didn't refer to it as 'a game'. I did. And in a way, it is a game. There are rules that apply to people and institutions. Some people/institutions get advantages others don't, and some people/institutions break rules and get away with it and others don't. That is all I meant. Society has rules. The economic system has rules. It always has had rules since there was a 'system' more complicated than trading beans and cows. I didn't mean to imply it was fair, good or right. And yes, it is "real life" too. That's the point.
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TSmearman
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03-08-09 3:40 PM
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what about surviving now?? How many people can survive now, what will people give up to do that now? See how many of you can live on $400. a month electric - 25.00 mo. telephone/internet - 86.00 mo. water/sewage/garbage - 35.00 mo. gas - 75.00 mo. roughly $225.00 a month the rest is for food, keeping the car running, and keeping the home try it see if you can do it, many people could if they would give up everything they DO NOT NEED. If you want to ask next if I get any help from anywhere, the state allowance is $378.00 per month, and as you can see I make more than that
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LilyOValley
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03-08-09 3:16 PM
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Think about it one more time Roadhog. Use your brain. How is it that bad mortgages in the USA, or overpaid auto-workers can bring down a European bank, or cause a smaller country to default, or cause a municipality in Norway to be broke. How? That this CAN happen at all shows that inappropriate controls were in place in the system and that financial transactions were NOT being regulated appropriately. It is fine to say - rather self-righteously I might add - well, we should all just not 'look to government' for help when we want something. But show me any serious business that DOESN"T do that these days. That is a problem, but I don't think 'small town folk' are really any exception to it either. But more to the point, even without that, if you have badly designed rules, the system can break down, and that is what we had; bad rules. It takes time to fix them. It isn't an overnight process. Arrogant screaming at anyone in power doesn't help either.
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ladynoogs
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03-08-09 3:11 PM
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i forgot s u c k s is censured.
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ladynoogs
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03-08-09 3:10 PM
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Amen Roadhog (to your last statement) just because you read it somewhere doesnt mean its the Gospel (even the "gospels" are inflected with time, culture and politics adn the flavor the author wants to give it).. its just one person (or groups) intepretation of the situation. the economy *****.. it needs to be changed.. nobody will completely agree on how we got here.. whose fault it was ... and who is going to fix it and how its going to be fixed... when people argue semantics and refuse to listen (not neccesarily agree) to each other.. they wont work together and compromise.. compromises have to be made for it to get fixed.... its that simple.. stop arguing and start working together.. thats the only way its ever going to get solved.
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LilyOValley
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03-08-09 3:09 PM
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CAN determine the solvency of a large number of major banks and insurers. In other words, Roadhog, this is the point you miss: Those folks making these deals had the intention of 'making money' in a capitalist context. The problem was the system was not appropriately controlled to anticipate and protect ordinary people from the consequences that actually have happened. That is NOT just some problem of someone's attitude or even their political philosophy. And those who wish to imply such are being overly simplistic and short-sighted. Sorry, but it is true; like it or not.
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LilyOValley
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03-08-09 3:06 PM
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To continue, the 'Sarah Parker' logic also doesn't explain how part of a bad mortgage or credit card debt in say, California, determines the value of a security held by a small town near the Arctic Circle in Norway, or the country of Iceland. But that, sir (or madam) is exactly what HAS happened. And folks who think this is just about people buying stuff they could not afford (although that is part of it), or about bankers taking risks they should not have taken, or about our modern tendency to try to manipulate government, are missing a big point. It IS all about the "rules of the game" so to speak; also known as regulatory policy and the tone of policies followed by the Federal government. And, my friend, a quite primary cause of these problems have been the DEREGULATORY policies followed by the government, mostly through Republican initiatives. It is these policies whereby some guys mortgage in Parkersburg (and hundreds of thosands of others)
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LilyOValley
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03-08-09 3:00 PM
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Now on to the greater point: It may also be true that Sarah Parker is right and a lot of folks look to government. In fact, that IS part of the problem and it includes coal companies, auto companies, oil companies, banks, insurers, and even small businesses etc., etc. In fact it is almost everyone who wants a 'tax deal', a favorable environmental regulation, and a favor has a hand out to the government. It supports an profession. They are called lobbyists. Fine. That is also a problem. A big one. But Sarah Parker logic does NOT explain a mortgage broker who is 'just trying to make a living' selling as many mortgages as he can (even if they shouldn't be sold); or a middle-income family trying to buy a house they probably should not buy. There is a lot more to the fundamental nature of today's economic mess than any of your homey stories touches on. In fact, the stories miss most of it and that IS a problem (yours not mine). Sorry you don't like it; but it i
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LilyOValley
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03-08-09 2:55 PM
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Roadhog you seem rather riled up. Cool off. My point is this: People making $40/hr to run a big machine on a Detroit line may be a problem for GM, but Americans - mostly - are buying other cars anyway (and many of those plants are here in the USA). Moreover, half of GM or Ford plants AREn't in the USA (I hope you know the police Crown Vic is classified as non-domestic, because most of it is made elsewhere, whereas a Subaru Outback was most recently classified as a made-in-USA car).
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roadhog
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03-08-09 1:47 PM
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That was suppose to read...I don't "think" in the box...too many have narrowed their thinking to believe that just because they read it, they think it and then it becomes gospel and they will argue the point, change the subject, manipulate it around until it pleases their thinking, then try to impress it on everyone else as the only way of thinking.
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roadhog
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03-08-09 1:42 PM
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Lily...I am not like Mr Alax or a lot of other people in the Ohio Valley...I don't thing in the box...I don't have a small town, small mind attitude and I don't like people like Lexington, KY getting $130 plus million dollars to build a park and not put anyone to work or build a bridge over the everglads that goes nowhere. This road has been fine since the day it was built...ask the Indians. When minimum wage was increased, Poliski fixed it somehow so the Somali Islands could not get a pay raise, since her husband owns 17 million dollars worth of stock in Starkist Tuna, but when the bailout came about, she earmarked 138 million dollars for the same company. They should take the power of be in Washington, tar and feather them and ride them out on a rail and as I have said before, they were elected by the people, for the people but they aren't thinking of the people. You, Mr. Alex and a few other posters cannot think outside the box...you need to take your blinders off.
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roadhog
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03-08-09 1:36 PM
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Lily...never did I refer to all this as being a game...this is not a game...this is real life! People who buy homes, cars, etc and cannot afford them for a number of different reasons, who inflate their income for what they want to purchase that has been inflated is causing us all to pay the price for this...no game Lily...LIFE! In reference to Sarah Parker, the book is her life, she lived it and how she corrected her life to get off the programs. I didnn't read anywhere where it stated "change the culture" and I don't believe you read the book. What Sarah is saying that government programs didn't work for the people in poverty because they weren't done right...but she had enough backbone and willpower to make it work for her....my example.
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roadhog
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03-08-09 1:28 PM
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Lily....no...YOU seem to miss the point...YOU like to take things out of context, twist them around to your way of thinking and then make the person who posted look like a fool. I don't have time to sit here and list everyone that has hoodwinked the government in the bailout...the point I was trying to make, Lily, that the person drinking the coffee, reading the paper after only being at work 1 hour..he/she doesn't deserve to make 40 dollars an hour. So to look at this from a business standpoint, at 40 dollars an hour, the company has to double that in order for them to make a profit on this person doing nothing....my point. But I don't know of any person running a tow motor in WV that makes 20 dollars an hour...again you miss my point!.I was merely trying use this as an example of the larger picture. Mulitply this one worker at this one business by 400 and you get the idea of how wasteful we have been.
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LilyOValley
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03-08-09 12:59 PM
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Some country folks did better than city folks during the depression because a depression IS a 'breakdown' of economic exchange. Those processes are more complex in an urban economy. In a rural economy, people can quickly find self-sufficient ways to exchange things and adapt. That takes more time & is more complex in a city. So usually more people due suffer more in cities. That said, many city folks did quite OK in the Depression too, and it is not really so clear that urbanites on average were punished much more than people in the country. Don't let your memories of bread-line photographs color history.
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LilyOValley
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03-08-09 12:48 PM
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Actually, Sarah Parker's book is interesting, but she also seems to have a simple answer: We all have to change our culture and way of thinking. Well fine. But unfortunately, that is not dealing with the problem right now either of how you put idle capacity back to work, and Americans back to work. Nice theories by Sarah Parker. In some ways, I quite agree with them. But it doesn't really offer much in the way of a serious policy solution, does it?
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LilyOValley
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03-08-09 12:40 PM
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Roadhog, but I still don't think you can pin a world-wide near-depression on a few guys pay rate of $40/hour to build cars people don't buy. AIG has gotten over 10X the money of GM, from the Treasury under both Republican Paulson and 'unaligned' Tim Geithner. You seem to miss the point. It was once said by a wise psychologist, that if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This accurately describes your situation. Because you DO understand how unions w/ $40/hr wage rates vs. $20/hr competitor rates (who also have more modern factories) is a losing game, you talk about it as if it WERE the WHOLE GAME. But it is a very small part. It is also true you can't blame a worldwide crisis on a few thousand, or few hundred thousand poor people falling behind on mortgages. Neither of these phenomenon can explain the magnitude of the problem. This is obviously true. You have MrAlex's problem. Just a different version.
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