Nancy Waggener Oster and Maureen Connerly
In February 2007, I had a phone call from my youngest granddaughter, Maureen Connerly, who is a student at Franklin Community High School. Her social studies teacher had given his U.S. History class the following assignment: Interview an older person who can remember the Great Depression. Since I was the oldest person she knew, Maureen wanted to sit down with me and ask her own specific questions about my early life and what it was like here in Rushville at the time of the 1929 Stock Market Crash and the economic depression that followed.
I was almost 12 years of age when the stock market abruptly fell (my birthday was less than a week after the Crash), so I told her I would try to answer the questions she posed. The following is the result of our interview in abbreviated form. Maureen was awarded an A+ on this project. Maureen is the daughter of Marty Oster Connerly and the late Jim Connerly. She also is the granddaughter of Bob and Martha Connerly of Rushville.
Q: Did your family have a hard time during the Great Depression?
A: No. My father was the manager of a furniture company and had investments. So we managed to get along, but things were certainly different. One of the things we have always laughed about, Mother felt that we must definitely show that we just didn’t have that much money, so she decided to buy 50 pounds of beans to bake. So everywhere we went (parties, get-togethers) we always took baked beans.
Q: What was the worst part of the Depression for you?
A: There were definitely people that were hurt, and then we went on after the Depression into the war years so everything was rationed. So we didn’t have an affluent time during the Depression. We did not suffer too much; we did not go without too many things. We always were saving or being careful about spending money. We just didn’t spend much money; I grew up in a saving economy and I am still pretty much like that.
Q: Did your family have limits on what you could buy or use?
A: Well now my folks did give me an allowance of 75 cents a week. I had to give something to the church and I did that, and then I saved it. And then I would save money from Christmas until the time of the fair. I allowed myself a dollar a day to spend at the fair. I didn’t have the kind of growing up period that a lot of people had because my father had been a saving man and he did have a job.
Q: Since your father owned his own business, did he find it hard to keep customers or even employees?
A: Well my father’s main problem was that he wasn’t getting any orders in for tables, and nobody was buying them; so he just didn’t keep on making things no one would buy. So he said some jobs he had for men were moving lumber from one stack to another and then back again, just to give them enough money to have some grocery money. Of course, people didn’t buy groceries the way they do know.
Q: Did people kind of help each other or was it every man for himself?
A: I think a lot of people did. If anyone had anything loose they would give it away if they could. And Dad did help some people with small amounts of groceries and jobs.
Q: Were there any work corps in Rushville?
A: Yes. This was a thing for just young boys. One of my friend’s husband was in the program. They did a lot of community work.
Q: Were there more hoboes and homeless people? Did you see an increase in the number of people wandering around in destitution?
A: Yes, especially if you lived near the railroads. They would come, and Mother always said she thought they had our house marked. They would come to the back door and ask, “Do you have any food left?” And Mother said, “Well yes, but you have to stay in the back yard.” And Mother was sure they had our house marked because they always came to our house.
