My Life Before the Great Depression

This was me soon after becoming a nurse. I studied extra hard and was very dedicated to my dream job.

This is my husband. We fell in love and we got married. He proposed to me at the place where we first met. He is a Stock Broker on Wall Street.

We started our beautiful family soon after moving into our lovely house in the city. It was in the perfect location for both of our jobs and the kids' school. Our three kids are, Mary (1923), Barbara (1925), and Dorothy (1926).

My husband and I were very fortunate as well as the kids, to be able to attend one of the best schools around us. They even had daycare for our two youngest, which was very affordable due to Mary already going there.

Mary

Barbara and Dorothy

These are my parents, Joseph and Michele Frossard. My father is a farmer, while my mom helps him out whenever he needs it. They provide us with crops that they grow whenever they come and visit us, which is quite a bit.

before they got married!

During the Great Depression

On Tuesday, October 29th, 1929, the Great Depression began. They called this "Black Tuesday". So much money was lost on this day. It seemed like a nightmare. My family knew we were in trouble, especially my husband.

The Great Depression had many other causes than the stock market crash. The Smoot Hawley Tariff raised the already high US tariffs on foreign agricultural imports, making them some of the highest in history. Other causes were things like crisis in farming, rising gap between rich and poor, and overproduction.

Things started going South. My husband lost his job. He was constantly searching for a new one, but so were all of the others in his same position. I still remained as a nurse, but I obviously couldn't pay all of the bills, nor put all of our food on the table.

I was becoming exhausted. I was doing everything I could to keep my family and I in our home, like working extra hours - on top of my already busy schedule, but it wasn't enough. We ended up having to leave our house! We would walk for miles just to be able to eat at the provided soup kitchens and bread lines and wait for hours.

We couldn't even get any food or anything from my parents. They were too close to going bankrupt and almost lost their farm. They had to sell their Pierce Arrow enable to not lose his land. We didn't want to risk that, either because that was all we had left.

My parents struggled, although they were very lucky compared to many others in the rural economy. Many went bankrupt and had to deal with the negative effects of the Dust Bowl. Their crops weren't growing and many lost their jobs.

In the urban economy many people also lost their jobs. A large amount lost their homes and the crime rates also went up throughout the depression.

Our family just kept losing hope. We became homeless. We had to hand build our own place that we now had to call "home". People called these "Hoovervilles", coming from the name of our president, Herbert Hoover. It was so unsafe. It was basically just made of anything we could find, like old tires, cardboard boxes, news papers, and even flattened metal. Some people would live in their cars or in the streets! Every once in a while we would see some people hitch hike by moving trains!