Nina Gilfert | From the Porch Steps: Thinking back about the Depression in the 1930s
Sometimes I doubt whether I have anything worth saying or writing so I look back on my life and the life of this country and see where the parallels begin.
I was born at the start of the worst Depression we have ever had: the Depression of the 1930s. Children of that era suffered from the lack of good nourishing food. Mom and Daddy had four children then and it was impossible for them to buy everything we needed to sustain good health on less than $20 a week. My sisters and I were very thin and our legs were bowed. I almost died with an infected tooth because they couldn't afford the right foods or trips to the dentist. Where you grew up and when you grew up sometimes affects your whole life.
It was unfortunate that it took a world war to end that Depression, but World War II provided good jobs and good salaries for everybody in the 1940s. I graduated from high school in 1944 and went to work for the government in Washington, D.C. along with my cousin Janet, pushing papers from one side of the desk to the other. Daddy's steel mill was suddenly in full time production, so the home front was finally financially well-off.
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Those were very different times. I was 17 and finally able to take care of my own teeth and have a good dentist repair the damage done. My cousin Janet and I had only entry-level jobs but they payed for a sleeping room and transportation on the local streetcars and buses and an adequate diet and dentistry.
When I think about those days I realize that although we had a rather deprived childhood, we were taught some good habits that served us well in learning to live alone.
Our parents passed on to us the high moral codes with which they grew up. I suppose we were fortunate in not having anyone take advantage of our naivete. As I recall we were happy-go-lucky but we adhered very strictly to our upbringing.
In those days music was king. Popular songs were sung everywhere by everyone. Janet and I had both grown up in a home where there was a piano and lots of singing. Much of our time together was spent harmonizing.
When we finally got an apartment we sang while we worked at keeping it clean and neat. We got a record player and played all the latest music, songs like “Oh Buttermilk Sky,” Sentimental Journey,” “MaresEatOats'nDoesEatOats.”
I learned to stretch our clothing dollars by sewing. I made us dresses and skirts and blouses for much less than ready-made clothing. They also fit better. Very few people sew their own clothes today.
When my dad and two of his buddies came to Washington, D.C. to see about getting some contracts for their steel mill, they bunked in with Janet and me. Since all we had was a pull out sofa one of them had to sleep on the floor. They were only there about three days so it worked out fine. They appreciated the free room and they bought groceries so we all feasted.
Since we didn't have any other transportation, when we couldn't use the streetcar, we rented bikes and biked everywhere. We took folks who came to town sightseeing on rented bikes. We even crossed the bridge into the Arlington National Cemetery on bikes. When my two sisters came to visit us we had a great time since they were bicycle enthusiasts.
When the war was over and we both were offered more permanent government office jobs, we had made Washington, D.C. our home. It was a young people's town and there were many nice places to go. Nightclubs were in fashion then and were good places to eat and listen to live music. There was also a Saturday night paddle boat that went up and down the Potomac River with a dance floor and live band.
Many of the young men who had served in the European theater of the war were then stationed in bases around Washington, so we were always busy on Saturday nights. I helped train some of them for new jobs in government after the war. Many of them had gone right from high school into the service so had no job experience.
We are all part and parcel of the time in which we grew up. I hope we never have another time when the whole world is at war. It was a time of sorrow and a time of learning. Everyone had lost at least one of their family members and there were many stars in the window to show the world. Life goes on.
Nina Gilfert can be reached at ngporch@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Nina Gilfert column: Thinking back on the Depression days of the 1930s
