Gerald Robert Wright
How old were you during the Great Depression?
Well I was actually born right after the depression. I got on on the tail end of it. But things were still pretty tough for people in the country especially.
How did you and your family learn about the Great depression?
The family learned about the depression on the radio. A lot of people back then didn't have radios back then in the day.
Was your town of Mifflin, Alabama affected greatly by the Great Depression?
Well yeah.it was ,oh everything was a little bit different then than it is now.Everybody was affected by the depression. Some people had a little bit more money than others, but the few of them that did accummilate a little wealth, we could'nt tell them apart from the ones who didn't have it when I was a kid. A friend of mine's whose dad was quite wealthy, as we know it now, and I could never tell the difference, when I went to their house they didn't have an indoor bathroom, cause nobody else didn't even have electricity.They just didn't have it.
Did your parents loose any money during the Great Depression?
They went broke.
Did you or your parents know anybody that lost any money during the Great Depression?
All of the family lost quite a bit of money.
When your family or you got sick, could your parents afford to go to the doctor or the hospital?
Most of the time, I can't remember anybody. I remember my sister had an appendicities and they went and took her to the doctor there and she stayed in the hospital for back in those days for about a week I think. It was paid out for a period of time and at that time the doctor was very reasonable too.
If not, did your mom have any type of home remedies that she used?
A few of them yeah, but my grandmother had a bunch of them. Senetic was the first one.
What was Senetic?
Senetic was a spring tonic. It was a liquid that had half the strength of castor oil.Now if it didn't work the first time, three days later you got castor oil. Castor oil was the main ingredient. SHe always gave you something to chase it down, so it wouldn't taste so bad.
Did you help your family out to make ends meet? If you did, what types of jobs did you do?
No. I didn't end up helping them until World War II came along in 1941and after that everything started improving for everybody, because of the war situation, people needed, they needed work. My step father got a job at Brickley Air Force Base in Mobile,Alabama. Once he got that job, we were sitting on easy street, compared to what we had before.Uh in the beginning and during the depression the job that he had paid twelve dollars a week.That was six days a week, ten hours a day,that was pretty much the standard for those days. He was working for a lumber yard. then he went to work at the base, he got paid
forty seven dollars a week and only worked eight hours a day, five days a week.that was a lot better.
What type of government programs did President Roosevelt bring in to help the people out?
One of the programs was the W.P.A; other wise known as we poke along. that was alot of people that worked just knew that they were going to get paid a dollar a day,and they only got to work one day a week.that was to help everybody have a little bit of money for coffee and sugar and so forth. so then they would lean on the shovel, because everything was done by hand.And then later on they came on with various projects like the C.C.C.
What was the C.C.C. (Civilian Conservation Corps) 1933-1941?
It was a semi- military type organization for men and they had to come from a disadvantaged family. Back in those days seems like everybody was and they had to go all over the country working at parks and state parks
What type of pay did program offer and what were the requirements for joining the program?
the men would only get so much money for themselves and the rest was sent home to their families. The men that were in the C.C.C. were not allowed to have cars, so some of the young men would park their cars at a farmer's house that would rent them out a space for a month.
Did any of your relatives join the C.C.C., and how long were they in the progam?
I had two uncles that were in the C.C.C. One of them stayed in the program for two years. He was primarily a cook. He got to take home a ham ever so often when he went home.
Did you have any electricity? If not, what was used at night to see?
We didn't get electricity until I was in the eighth grade. We had to use kerosene lamps and wood stoves for the winter time.We had a Coleman Lantern that gave out much light.
Did you have any inside plumbling, or did you have an outhouse?
We had an outhouse. In fact, we still had the outhouse when I left home.
What did your family do for fun after all the work was done?
Oh, sometimes we had the church meetings and we would go to the beach. It was only five miles away. Sometimes we would go to the beach and spend the night and have a fish fry.
What kind of music did your family listen to?
We listened to country music. Mostly hillbilly music. Such as Ernest Tubb, Gene Autrey, the Carter Family. We would gather around the radio on a Saturday night and listen to the Grand Old Opry.
After the depression, did things change for your family?
Things got so much better that dad got a brand new Model T.
What I learned about this interview was that peoples memories are what makes a person important. When Mr. Wright started talking about his first tricycle, the look on his face was priceless. Most people would have thought the tricycle was not important. We need to seek out more information from our elders because as he was telling his story you could tell that he was glad that someone had taken the time to speak to him. I didn't know what a Spring tonic was, I took my daughter to my interview with Mr. Wright. She was very impressed. She actually told me that maybe old people do have a reson to live longer. My daughter is what I call the "Me Generation. It all revolves among them, And nothing else matters. She could not believe that people actually lived without electricity or indoor plumbing. It was a great shock to her that people actually lived and survived this kind of life. She askes Mr. Wright if they had malls, or grocery stores, in his time. What I learned about Mr. Wright's interview was that even though times were tough people still help one another out.It is a very effect way of learning about the past because you can actually see through the person's facial expression and how they tell their story.
