Nana Biography

The depression, when did the depression? The depression was 1939, I guess, wasn’t it? And my father, my stepfather, had a small business. He was not a wealthy man, but he was well to do, and you didn’t have to be wealthy in the south to have all sorts of services. We had a couple that did everything, I never pressed dress or washed my stockings or did anything like that as a young girl. And when the depression came, what happened in our family was the couple left, and they got just one made, I believe she was paid something like $10 a week and given her room and board, and that was a real cut back because the garden was a problem, we lived in the country and we had about 5 acres, but everybody around us had 100 acres or 500 acres and biggest states. We were in a small place. He lost his money. He lost his business, and, it behooved me to not go away to college, and go to the university of Kentucky, which I did.

What did he do?

He went to work for another garage. He owned a small business which sold cars and tires and trucks, it was like an automobile agency. And it had a service department, and all that, and they sold cars that you probably never heard of: Roland, and Wild trucks, and he had a good business, and his father left him some money, so we had a nice house and everybody was fine, but when he lost his business, my mother had money from her first husband, my father, and that helped out. She dipped into her At that time, but she didn’t tell us. She tried not to let us think there was really anything wrong, but we knew.

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