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Remembering a darker time
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008 10:08 AM EDT
Argus-Press Photo by Anthony Cepak Russel Ringle remembers growing up in rural Gratiot County during the Great Depression
Russel Ringle flipped through his family history and gently rocked back and forth in his brown recliner.
As he looked toward the ceiling, he remembered vividly his great uncle, who had navy beans stored at a Gratiot County elevator just before the Great Depression when the stock market crashed in 1929.
“He wasn't going to sell until they reached $10 a bushel,” said Ringle, 83, of Corunna. “Instead of going to $10, they kept going down, down, down. He ended up losing everything.”
Ringle was the oldest of seven boys and had a younger sister. The family lived in Ashley in a two-bedroom home without electricity or plumbing.
He said his family survived during America's hardest economic times because they were able to grow cucumbers, peas, potatoes and watermelon on 40 acres.
The Dow Jones industrials rallied Monday for its biggest single-day turnaround since the Great Depression, the Associated Press reported. The Dow rose 11 percent - its biggest one-day rally since 1933.
Political tampering made for the current economic fiasco, Ringle said.
“The thing that precipitates it is the politicians,” he said. “They want everybody to think how bad it is. I've got a little faith in the American people. After the election - things will cool down a bit.”
Foreclosure rates are at an all-time high, the unemployment rate increases each month and the stock market resembles a roller coaster's path.
Numerous area residents that lived through the Great Depression all agree - this time around is not comparable.
Learning from history
Harold and Dorothy Mennen just moved to Shiawassee County from Indiana to be closer to their family.
In the spring of 1927, Harold Mennen lived on his family's farm in New Richmond, Ind. Corn was selling for $1 per bushel. In 1929, it dipped to 80 cents per bushel, he said. But farmers held the corn in hopes the price would jump back up to the previous rate. The following spring - as the Great Depression settled in - the same desperate farmers got 12 cents per bushel.
That experience changed Harold Mennen when it was time to sell the home he built with his own hands and had lived in with his wife and family for 53 years.
The Mennens sold their home in West Lafayette, Ind., for 40 percent less than its appraised value.
“When we got something, we took,” said Harold, 90.
He said his family had such a large mortgage that the bank allowed them to keep the farm in the 1930s and pay what they could when they could.
“I don't think we studied history enough to know what happened and what we should be doing now,” Harold Mennen said.
Government programs instituted during the Great Depression put people back to work instead of bailing out wealthy businesses leaders like the current government, the Mennens said.
Dorothy Mennen, 93, said her family rented their home, but didn't get an eviction notice when they couldn't pay rent for one reason - no one else could come up with rent either.
She would eat mashed potato sandwiches in the bathroom at school because she was embarrassed.
“The thing about the Depression was that it wasn't just the poor people - it was everybody - except the well-to-do,” Dorothy said. “I didn't think anything of it. You just did what you had to do.”
It depends on
the perspective
Chesaning resident Bessie Danek said her family of five would pick strawberries for 1 cent per quart.
Her father lost his job at a Lansing automobile manufacturer after 22 years of loyalty. Danek's father would work for different farmers and get paid in produce.
She said she remembers saving pennies as part of an elementary school project.
“My father needed the money for taxes which he didn't have and asked me if he could have my savings that I had at school,” Danek wrote in a letter to The Argus-Press. “He had tears in his eyes. I did too and told him to take it all. It took a lot for him to ask...I'll never forget this one time and it will be with me forever. The bad times we are in now brought this to mind again.”
Lessons Doris Overholt learned during a childhood spent working her family's 80-acre farm in Merrill remained with her throughout life.
She helped her father plow the fields and her mother can fruit and produce. Overholt learned to sew by copying her mother's patterns and making clothes for her doll.
When her father drove to nearby Alma for supplies, he would try to buy feed in four sacks that were the same color. Overholt's mother then sewed her clothes using material from the feed sacks.
“We were happy there on the farm. We didn't realize (the Depression),” Overholt said. “(People today) don't know what it was like to be living through that. You can still be happy. It depends on you're outlook on life.”
- Contact Dominic Adams at 725-5136 extension 239 or by e-mail at dadamsarguspress@gmail.com.