By Tobin Barnes
Three things came together lately. Made me a little more aware than I used to be. Didn’t take much.
First, we had been covering the Great Depression in my U.S. history classes. Then I made a trip to my hometown of Mitchell, S.D., for my mother’s 84th birthday. And finally, somewhere on that trip, it dawned on me that my dad, had he lived, would now be in his 90’s.
So what’s up with all that?
Well, plenty, if you’re me.
It’s shocking enough to be 54, soon to be 55—try it some time, or maybe you already have. But add to that your mother’s 84th birthday and the fact that your father was seven years older than your mother. And now we’re talking time going by.
I can’t imagine my dad in his nineties. My mother, yes. And hopefully it will be so. But my dad? Complete impossibility.
You see, he took very poor care of himself. But it’s an oft-told story: didn’t exercise, smoked two-three packs a day (as did all too many of his generation), and didn’t have healthy eating habits.
Making it into his nineties would have been a pipe dream. His relatively early death was not unexpected. He died at 63, a little more than eight years from where I am now.
Does that portend anything for me? Maybe, maybe not.
But my life and my parents’ lives have been radically different. They grew up when times were
tough. What that cost them, especially my dad, is anybody’s guess.
I try to impress upon my students just how tough the 30’s were, but I never come close.
Neither my generation nor theirs has the slightest idea of the hardships. Even imagination fails. But still I try.
At least I’m only one generation removed. I’ve heard the stories first hand. Most of my students, on the other hand, would have to go back to great-grandparents, if still alive, for the same story-telling experiences.
My mother’s family was relatively lucky. They lived on a farm in eastern South Dakota. They produced their own food. Always had plenty to eat.
Nevertheless, it was a near thing.
With 13 children—some trying to establish themselves on their own farms—my grandfather went heavily into debt trying to keep himself, his sons, and even some of his neighbors from failure. The ground was so dry and the air so full of dust, they often fed thistle to the cattle to keep them going. Luxuries, beyond a full plate, were small to insignificant, thereby relatively great whenever they did come along. And this went on week after week, month after month, year after year.
Bleak. Disheartening.
But my dad’s family had it much worse.
On our rides around Mitchell, my dad would point out all the places his family had lived...and then had been thrown out of. Their diet wasn’t good—mostly carbohydrates. He’d talk about taking syrup sandwiches to school for lunch. His mother would send him down to the tracks—they always lived near the tracks, the poor side of town—to pick up random pieces of coal that had fallen off the trains. Coal needed to heat the house. Best time of the year was Christmas when charities brought them some extra food.
My dad moved out of the house at 14. It lightened the load somewhat. But he was nevertheless lucky in a way. He was athletic. Locals interested in sports took an interest in him, kept him playing so he was able to graduate from high school, unlike his brothers and sisters. None of them got that opportunity.
Still it must have been difficult. He lived in the local druggist’s basement doing odd jobs for him as repayment and for a time in the basement of a mortuary where he worked. Yeah, a high school student in a mortuary.
Again, how all this affected my parents is anybody’s guess. Even probably for them. Yet, needless to say, effects there must have been.
For example, my dad’s early poverty and dislocation may have affected how he later took care of himself and even thought of himself. What he experienced in the tough times wasn’t really an upbringing. It was a scramble.
He probably never learned to eat properly when food was scarce. Anything was good enough. And he smoked like a chimney maybe because like for all WWII soldiers cigarettes were part of the regular rations.
Makes you wonder...when maybe you hadn’t wondered before.
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