The Ground Game

Today is 7 days to the 2024 Election.

It is also the 95th anniversary of the generally accepted first day of the Great Depression, October 29, 1929.  Letters from an American does about as good a job as possible summarizing that dark time in American history here.  The Great Depression ground on till almost the advent of America’s entry into WWII.  World War II brought full employment and lots of death and destruction to the entire world.  (There are various other dates of significance in late 1929, but the 29th was a day which was a major alarm.)

Not everybody suffered, but most of the damage was to ordinary folks like ourselves – our ancestors.

I do family history, and over the last 40+ years I’ve come to an unusually direct contact with how the Great Depression really impacted on my own ancestral family from North Dakota.  I only offer a few snips from a much longer and enduring history.

Harbingers of bad times began in the 1920s. “The Roaring Twenties” was a time of false prosperity.

Case in point: my Dad graduated from high school in 1927, and was planning to go to university in the fall.  Earlier in the same month of his graduation his father’s employer went out of business with no safety net for employees – his dad was chief engineer; and at almost exactly the same time, the bank holding all their savings also closed.  (I don’t think the two events were related, but the results were very difficult for them.)

The situation for my Mom’s parents was similar.

Grandpa Busch was a farmer with aspirations.  In 1928, he was one of the first members of the North Dakota Farmers Union, and immediately became a local activist.

In the junk at the farm after Uncle Vince died I found an old bank statements for an account opened in January, 1929.  There were only 14 checks actually written.  Here is the final one in the account.  The check design was an expression of optimism for the future.

In the 1920s Grandma and Grandpa bought some more acreage to expand their farm.  By the 1930’s they couldn’t pay the mortgage, and things got so bad that the family story is that Lucina, the oldest, a young teacher, saved the rest of the farm by at least paying taxes in the worst years.

There was lots more evidence of the hardship of the end of prosperity.  Back in the early 2000s I was musing with my Uncle Vince about a magnificent Cottonwood Tree on the east edge of their property, and he recalled the events of 1934, the year the tree was planted; in his memory, the worst year of the 30s.  He was 9 years old….  The story remains on line, and is worth your time, here.

Both of my families survived the Great Depression, but both were badly damaged and never fully recovered.  Every family has their own story.

One of many farm sayings I heard growing up comes to mind: “don’t count your chickens before they hatch”.

“The Ground Game” is each one of us, person to person.   There is a huge amount at stake on November 5.  The Centennial of Black Tuesday is in 2029.  How will reality look then?