My View #173 - Today - Final of "The Great Depression"

In our old family we were all great bookworms, my father saw to that. I remember this from about ten or eleven years old. About once a month, on a Friday evening, he came home with all our reading material, this kept us all busy for weeks. We read everything he brought, from cover to cover, all except his "True Detective" magazine, we didn't get to read that. Not fit for children, he said, but we didn't care at the time. We had the Daily Mirror, McLeans, Liberty, and Mom's favourite, the Ladies' Home Journal, and all the latest papers. We had lots of books too, and we knew what was going on in the world. I remember so well what some of those things were, so I intend to put pen to paper and tell you.

Letty, 1923 (age 10) is top row, second from left. Most of the girls have bobbed hair. This was a school production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in Medicine Hat.

After the First World War, we had the bad time of flu, many people died. People were very tired of war and sickness, and people, especially young men and women, and got very defiant. All women had long hair, long skirts, and were always told what to do. Not any more. They go their scissors out and went on a big defiant journey, and never went back to the old ways. I remember mothers talking about these daring ones who bobbed their hair, and real short it was, cut their skirts and dresses to above the knee, just a little bit above, swore, and smoke the boyfriends' cigarettes, and danced the nights away as flappers. This time was called the "Roaring Twenties" in all the papers.

Everyone seemed to go mad, my Mom and Dad were disgusted, but Mary and I both laughed and saw the funny side of it. But it was not funny. About this same time gangsters took over the country, not too much in Canada but it was very bad in the USA. We were all very poor.

The papers we liked to read before were not so good now, awful news in them. Big gamblers ruled the land; big milk tankers emptied their milk into drains in the gutters; two men, Leob and Leopold, had all control over all the sugar, and miners were not allowed to work their shifts. (Leob and Leopold, as the link will explain, murdered a fourteen year old boy. They were nothing to do with a sugar monopoly.)

Things were terrible, all over the world, until Herbert Hoover became the US President in 1929. Oh boy, did he change things and smarten people up. He was President till 1933. The Depression went on and on and people were still broke and hungry, but a good many criminals were gone. That was about the time Hitler raised his ugly head, and we all know what happened then. I am so sorry, but history does repeat itself.

Bye, this is my last story. (How many times has she said this?) Be kind to one another. I love you all so much. My hand is hurting today.

Love from Mom xoxo
October 3, 2009

PS: Al Capone was King in this era and had hide-outs in southern Canada, in Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC. This is old history now.

Songs from this era:

Video of flappers from the Roaring Twenties, including music.