Economic Hardship was Just a Part of Daily Life for Many In The Great Depression
By CASEY HICKSArticle Photos
CAMERON - Some financial experts are calling the current economy the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression, and Marshall County resident Roy McGinnis agrees.
McGinnis, 79, lived through the Great Depression. He and others who had similar experiences say they are more aware of today's economic turmoil than they were in the 1930s.
McGinnis said the Great Depression was just a matter of fact during his childhood.
"You lived in it," McGinnis said. "You didn't try to compete against it or fight it. You didn't know you were in it."
McGinnis' father, Guy, was a coal miner who earned enough to support his wife and 10 children. But in 1938, in the midst of another recession in the United States, Guy McGinnis' appendix ruptured. Without insurance or quality health care, he contracted gangrene and died.
His wife, Nola, was left alone with the children - the oldest of whom was 23 and the youngest only a year old. She took in clothes to wash and iron to earn a living, but McGinnis isn't sure how his mother made enough money to support her family.
"It took a lot of food to feed those mouths," he said.
McGinnis' older siblings sent money back after they left home. When McGinnis turned 16, he dropped out of school and found a job at a saw mill.
"It was hard work, but it was good work," he said.
Though the economy has received several blows this year, starting with high oil prices, the collapse of firms Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros. and then the bailout of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG, McGinnis said he believes federal safety nets will keep Americans safe from widespread economic suffering like that of the Great Depression.
"I'm lucky right now to have Social Security laid away," he said.
Initiated in 1935, Social Security was one of the many programs President Franklin D. Roosevelt championed as his New Deal to stabilize and restore America's economy.
McGinnis said some lessons can still be learned today from those who lived through the Great Depression and the World War II era. He still raises a garden at his home with more than enough vegetables for himself, but it does little to offset his prescription drug and fuel costs. Though he does not want the government to impose rationing, he thinks something has to be done to battle high consumer costs.
Another Marshall County resident, 90-year-old Pauline Hicks, said she tries not to think about the economy these days.
Growing up on a farm in Cameron, she learned to save as much as possible and to hide money when she could.
Like McGinnis, she said while she was growing up she didn't realize there was a depression.
"It was kind of hard, but we didn't know it," she said.
On a typical day, her father, Amel McNinch, would load up his horse in the morning and ride to his own father's house in Crow Creek, Pa. - a short distance from Cameron. Often he would not return until after dark. The entire family helped out on the farm and traded goods in order to make ends meet.
In 1935, Hicks married and moved to another farm. She and her husband, Phillip Hicks, raised crops and tended to the animals. They didn't make much money, but the couple at least had enough food while the unemployed were starving.
Once a week, a salesman called a "huckster" came to the farm to buy some of their butter, cream and eggs. In return, the Hicks were able to buy goods they did not grow or keep on their own farm.
Hicks said that in her community, everyone took care of one another. In the late 1930s, the couple agreed to care for two boys who were grade school students, one of whom was Hicks' cousin. The children stayed for more than half a year.
"They just didn't have anywhere to live," Hicks said.
During that period, Hicks learned to appreciate simple pleasures. Her husband Phillip managed to save enough money to buy a Model T Ford, and together they went to church revivals. These events provided relief for a community burdened by a failing economy.
Hicks said she feels much more isolated now than she did during the Great Depression.
"Everyone was poor, and I didn't know we were poor," she said. "Everybody was the same."
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Murray
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09-22-08 9:51 PM
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I realize the guy lived through WWII but the story is about the depression, not the war. The picture does not fit with the story. It makes no sense. Now, if he was looking at something from the 1930s, pictures of a soup kitchen, or a grocery bill or something, that would make sense.
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whisperinghope
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09-22-08 9:10 PM
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President Herbert Hoover was who my mother said was responsible for the Great Depression and he was a republican. If she were alive today she would be 99 years old I think she knows what she was talking about.
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Katabatic
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09-22-08 12:14 PM
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Looks like the pundits are trying to get us prepared for something bad. Sounds ominous !
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Destroyallmonsters
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09-22-08 11:14 AM
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Care to back up your statement, Popeye? Or are you simply recycling todays repuke talking points? Truth be told, whomever wins the Presidency will most likely be facing a new Depression.
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popeye
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09-22-08 10:34 AM
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Obama wins and you will see a Great Depression.
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DavisJms7
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09-22-08 8:41 AM
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Governor Joe Manchin says that West Virginia is not in a recession. That is the first honest thing you've heard him say all year. West Virginia is not in a recession...West Virginia is still in the depression of 29, and as long as Joe Manchin stays in office, it will remain so. This November, vote JAMES DAVIS, a non-partisan candidate for Governor and let's bring WVa out of its recession/depression. Go to Vote Smart, they have a dot org address, and read what else I will do for the state of West Virginia.
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