Entry 3 --- Yoders + Peggy Terry and Mary Owsley

The story of Jane and Tom Yoder was yet another way for us to see how terrible life was for a majority of the country during the times of the great depression. There was one part of the their story that interested me most. The part of the story that interested me was when Jane talked about how during the depression, all of the kids in the house actually felt bad going to the grocery store and buying food when they were hungry because were afraid to raise the grocery bill for their father. Jane commented, "I don't remember so much my going to the store and buying food. I must have been terribly proud and felt: I can't do it. How early we all stayed away from going to the store, because we sensed my father didn't have the money. So we stayed hungry." It's really hard to imagine the situation Jane and her brothers and sisters were in. They were only kids, and they were hungry each and every day as their parents failed to get food on the table for them consistently. For a child like Jane to be hungry and in need of food, and then feel too bad to go to the grocery store and spend her parents' money is extremely disheartening. It's one thing for an adult to be put in an extremely difficult position, but it is twice as sad for a child to have to experience what Jane did.

The most interesting part of the story of  Peggy Terry and her mother Mary Owsley was that families of soldiers who had just returned from fighting in World War I ended up in even worse shape than the average American family because of the great depression. When Mrs. Owsley described how her husband, who was a World War I veteran, used to talk regarding the great depression, she explained, "He'd say them damn Germans gassed him in Germany. And he come home and his own Government stooges gassed him and run him off the country up there with the water hose, half drowned him." After coming back from World War I, most people would have thought that soldiers would have been treated especially well. Today, we show great respect for those who are fighting in Iraq as well as those who are survivors of past American wars. But, back around 1930, war veterans ended up living lives that were even tougher than the lives of average Americans. Many veterans suffered from post war syndromes, and even years after they returned from the war, they were not fully compensated for their effort in the war. Instead, they were given certificates that could not be redeemed for cash until 1945. So, in the toughest years of American history, not only were veterans suffering from post war syndromes and struggling to find jobs, but they couldn't even collect their payments for the time they served in the war. This lead to the Bonus Army's march on Washington, where as Mr. Owsley put it, "his own Government stooges gassed him". The bonus army was actually attacked by US soldiers outside the Whitehouse, where members of the bonus army were hurt and wounded. It was amazing how little respect was shown for WWI veterans during arguably the toughest period in American history.