Long Live The Great Depression!

Dear Boo and Bubble,

For the last few years before great granddaddy Schaefer died, he wrote editorials for The Greenville News. The other day, I was combing through my copy of them and ran across one that struck me as interesting mainly because of the ending sentence – “Long live The Great Depression!”

Unless you’re talking about a hole in the ground, a depression is never a good thing, not psychologically or economically.  Hopefully, you will never have to experience any type of one.  The Great Depression about which great granddaddy wrote was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. It began in 1929 with the crash of the stock market in the United States.  A panic engulfed the country as millions of investors lost everything.  Depositors raided the banks frantically trying to seize their money before the supply ran out.  This created a domino affect on consumer spending and business investment.  The decline in both caused industrial output to virtually cease.  Unemployment rose as failing companies laid off workers. 

By 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country's banks had failed. The economy would not fully turn around until after 1939, when World War II kicked American industry into high gear.

You can see why my curiosity was piqued by the article’s proclamation.  As I read it, though, the explanation came clear.  Great granddaddy penned a caution to his grandchildren to learn the very valuable life lessons that severe hardship can bring.  There is no need for me to paraphrase as I could not say these things better.  In his own words, I pass this along to you – his great grandchildren.

“I want my grandchildren to be exposed to the philosophy of my Granny Bryant, whose constant companion was frugality.  My Granny, who was known as a furlough baby because she was conceived in 1864 when her daddy was on furlough from the (Civil)War; my Granny, who lived through Reconstruction, World War I, the Roaring Twenties, The Great Depression, and who died on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Whether they understand it or not, whether it speaks to them or not, I want my grandchildren to hear more than once that great admonition, ‘Waste Not, want not.’

In this day of engineered obsolescence, runaway credit and instant gratification, I want my grandchildren to trace their heritage back to the principles of my grandmother, who, when tempted to buy something new, made her decision this way: ‘Children, I don’t ask do I need it.  I don’t ask can I afford it.  I ask can I do without it.’

I want my grandchildren to know there is such a thing as darning socks, half-soling shoes, wearing hand-me-down clothes, and young faces that learn to smile even though their pride, at times, is critically wounded.

I want them to know that one car had to meet the needs of the entire family, and all kinds of adjustments and give and take took place when those needs were in conflict.  They need to know that when their granddad was 17, he was allotted the car, for courting purposes, one Friday night in the month.  That when he was in law school he looked skinny one day and fat the next because the hand-me-down suit of one uncle was too big and that of the other uncle was too small.

I want them to know my widowed mother made enormous sacrifices in order for me to attend college and law school.  That these sacrifices were made willingly, eagerly and tenderly, out of a heart as big as a child’s imagination and out of unconditional love that redeemed me more than once.

I want them to know when I received my law degree on June 1, 1939, at the football field of USC in Columbia, with the thermometer hovering at 100, my mother and grandmother were in the stands receiving that diploma with me which the three of us had earned.

And, they need to know why I still read a menu from right to left.  There were no credit cards back then and I had to be sure I could pay for what I ordered.

Long live The Great Depression!”

So, Boo and Bubble, he wanted you to know …..and now you do.