Entry #3

Jane Yoder’s story about her struggling family during the Great Depression made me think about Americans today in the recession, and how different Jane is from some Americans today. Jane always lived within her means, whether that meant only having one tv or only having three sweaters. Her family was resourceful and didn’t buy things they couldn’t afford. But during the recent recession, some people don’t cut back on expenses. Many people still buy expensive clothes and take luxurious vacations even though their income has decreased, and it doesn’t make sense. While many Americans have cut back on their spending during hard economic times, some of them still need to learn from Jane’s family’s budgeting. It was interesting how Jane talked about the differences in attitude about the WPA. Her dad got a job because of the WPA and it was extremely helpful to her family, but one nurse, with well-off parents, said the WPA was helping lazy people. This shows that some people couldn’t understand how difficult some families’ financial situations were, and that economic laws can never satisfy everyone from different social classes.
One thing from Peggy Terry’s story that stuck out to me is when she said, “And I was wondering why it is that one man could have all of those cuff links when we couldn’t even have enough to eat...That’s the first time I remember ever wondering why.” It’s understandable that poor people during the depression couldn’t comprehend how some people could be rich while everyone they saw was living in a cardboard box and starving. The cause of the depression is complex and involves a lot of financial and economic factors, but also it was difficult for people to understand how some Americans were able to stay financially stable when others were hit so hard by the depression. It really struck me when Peggy mentioned a family who lived in a piano box. I knew that during the depression people didn’t have a lot of food to eat and that many were unemployed, but I didn’t know the severity of the depression reached that level. I was surprised to hear that Peggy remembers her childhood during the depression as fun. She said standing in the line at the soup kitchen was a fun event, which I didn’t expect. I thought her childhood would have been depressing and maybe even traumatizing, but she said no one was ashamed of their situation because most people were in it too.