By Danny Edward White
Second Son of Loran Kaye and Sarah Rose Hatcher White
When we look back in time, back to a
time known as the Roaring Twenties, we see a time of great change in American
values and the American lifestyle. Jobs
were plentiful and money was easy to come by.
New methods of transportation were making the huge country known as the
United States of America smaller each day.
A trip that at one time would take three to six months now only took a
matter of days. Telephones and the
telegraph made communication happen at the speed of light, from one side of the
country to the other, where mail, just twenty years earlier, sometimes never
made it at all. The stock market was
rising rapidly at a rate that had never been seen before, and people were
investing all they could invest. People
were building big new homes and bigger farms.
It
seemed that nothing could ever go wrong.
But then in the latter part of 1929 the feverish wave of buying
exhausted itself and gave way to an equally feverish wave of selling. Prices
dropped and thousands of people lost all they had invested. This collapse
frequently meant complete financial ruin.
Thus began a period of
time in American history known as the “Great Depression”. Hundreds of banks failed, hundreds of
factories and mills shut their doors, mortgages on homes and farms were
foreclosed, and millions of Americans were without jobs. People stood in line all day, just to get
something for their family to eat, often times to be turned away since there
was no more food to share. The earlier
dream world in which so many Americans lived had become a nightmare.
But many Americans, those who where
tied to the land, those who did not live in excess knew how to survive. They continued on as they had in the past,
raising their crops, planting their gardens, canning their own fruit and
vegetables, smoking and curing their own meat.
It is not intended here to say that these people were not affected by
the depression, because they were, but is intended to say that these people
could more easily survive because they knew how to work the land. If they stayed together as a family and worked
together as a family, they could survive.
Many families moved into the same home with Grandparents watching and
caring for their grandchildren, and even some times great grandchildren, while
the parents worked the crops, tended the garden, and took on any job they could
find. Large families were a way of life,
because the larger the family, the less help had to be hired, and more work
could be done.
My Grandfather White farmed, raised
livestock, and worked the timber, where he cut stave bolts. These staves were then taken to a market
where they were shipped out to make wooden barrels. Many things were shipped in wooden barrels at
that time in our history, because a wooden barrel can be rolled instead of
being carried, thus making it easier to move.
One must remember that back during this period of time most work was
manual labor, it wasn’t until much later that new methods of material handling
were developed which made it easier to handle larger loads and to conserve
shipping space. Grandmother White tended
the garden and her six children, who helped around the house and farm with the
chores.
However, not all families were this
fortunate. Imagine a family of six, a
husband and his wife along with their four children, ranging in ages from two
to ten. They are happy and doing fairly
well, when the father is taken away.
Taken away by a serious infectious disease of
the nervous system, in which a bacterial toxin causes severe muscle spasms; a
disease known as “Lockjaw”, today referred to as tetanus. This family must now cope with trying to make
a living the best way it knows how. It
must depend on family and friends. This
is my mother’s family, the Hatcher’s. My
mother, before the age of six, would have the house cleaned, and supper
prepared for the rest of the family when they would come home from the
fields. Everyone worked.
But even in these trying and
difficult times, there are many good memories.
Memories to hold near and dear to one’s heart. It is these experiences and how we cope with
them in life that makes us who we are, and what we are. It is these experiences, and the lessons we
learn from them, which molds us into the person we become and how we live and
treat others. And if our parents and
grandparents share their memories with us, we can also grow from these
memories, also. By combining all of
these lessons, one becomes an even better person, with ideals and values that
are molded over centuries not just the few short years we are allowed to live
on this Earth.
In summary, memories are a means of
learning from others triumphs and failures, from their joy and their sorrow,
from lessons that they and their parents learned throughout life. The following are my Mother’s words, my
Mother’s memories, and my Mother’s lessons of life. I hope that they touch you and inspire you as
they have my life and the lives of my family.
Danny Edward White
August 14, 1999
Dedication
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| Ines Marie Wilson Yates Hatcher Thomas taken around 1942 |
Sarah
Rose Hatcher White
