Interview

Interview from 1994, with Grandma (Beatrice Bauman) for 9th grade history class about life during the depression.
IN THE 1930'S HOW OLD WERE YOU?
I was 11 years old in 1930.
HOW BIG WAS YOUR FAMILY?
Our family was 11 children,
HOW MANY BROTHERS AND...
8 brothers and there was 3 girls.
WHERE WERE YOU IN THAT?
I was second oldest.
AND WHERE WERE YOU IN SCHOOL?
Well, I was the last half of 7th , in high school and the first part of nursing, Mercy College. (for the 1930's).
WHAT DID YOU DO AT SCHOOL?
When I was in grade school we walked two miles and in the real bad weather my dad would bring his horse and sleigh with straw in the sleigh and my mom would have blankets and he'd pick up all the neighbors and bring us home and when it was real cold sometimes he'd walk with us and the little smaller children he would hold their hands and walk all the way to school with them. And we had eight grades all in one room and we had to light...the teacher would come and light the furnace, it was a wood coal furnace and then she'd--when we started she would bring -- well, she came in a horse and buggy and horse and sleigh and there was a place to tie the horses, especially for that. And she always made us sing patriotic songs like God Bless America or something before we started school. And then later on when she wasn't there we had a man teacher and he drove. And then I got second in the county spelling bee. But we would have recess and we played ball, the girls and the boys and the teacher. We'd run races...and pump(?) pump pullaway was with, well leave that out.
NO, GO ON...
Well with us on both sides and you get, I think you held hands and see which one could pull the others furthest you know they have those uh...
LIKE TUG-A-WAR?
Yes, like a tug a war. And then we'd, we'd --well it was just fun. And everybody was real poor so the children never made fun of each other because they were all poor. And they would come to school when it got warm with no shoes on and patched clothes and things like that. And they would have friends and spend the night with each other now and then and things like that and it was just nice. It was nice, they were all friendly and their parents all knew each other and then on Halloween we had a program and we had cider and donuts afterwards. And Christmas we had a program and it seemed like time went so long we couldn't wait from one program to the other. We had to set up a stage and everything you know.
WOULD YOU DO SINGING AND PLAYS?
We'd do plays and singing and then we had a dress up too on Halloween. Our dear neighbor she had an outfit from way back and I won first prize in that. And yes we had box socials, I guess that would be all for school.
BOX SOCIALS?
Somebody hold the box up and a boy would bid on it or ...and the boy would have to sit down and eat with you. And we had debates, I was pretty good at that (laughing). I was seventh grade and we'd beat the eighth graders, and we had spelling bees and addition and...oh I don't like it all about myself though -- you can skip that.
OH NO, IT'S GOOD THIS WAY...
I was able to take two rows at a time and I beat the eighth graders and they were pretty angry about that. Oh yes, and we used to play in and out the windows.
CLIMBING THROUGH?
No, you hold hands and you went round and round and when you got through your hands would come down and (a little embarrassed laugh) anyways going in and out as you sang this song and you'd have to..., when you said "I kneel before my lover" they had to kneel and whoever you knelt before then they went around and around...and anyway we had lots of fun. That's all.
WERE YOU GOOD FRIENDS WITH YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS?
Oh yes, we were very close and this is where, we were very poor, and I should say in the beginning mom and dad when they got married after they bought the five dollar ring they had five dollars left, no I guess it was a nine dollar ring...something like that. Well they had five dollars left so you can imagine by 11 years we were still poor, the house was real old and so forth. And..., but we would ...so we...our house wasn't heated -- only in the kitchen except only in the mornings and a little later we bought something like a pot bellied stove. And that was in the dining room and of course -- so we would all sit around in the kitchen and there'd be some, all of us, there was a lot of us you see, and of course there weren't 11 then. And Mom would be patching and my dad he'd be reading his farmer's magazine and we children would be doing our homework and mom would make us popcorn 'cause my dad loved that. And it was very close and then the neighbors would come down and they'd let us play when they played cards and then we'd have feather bees that's where we would (whisper) kill the chickens and then the neighbors would come help pick them and get them ready and the ducks and the geese and we'd kept the feathers see and we made mattresses cause we slept on feather , uh, tic's? and uh straw tics ,straw mattresses you know. And my mom would always make them and she made and patched our clothes and yet she worked outside, chores , and in the fields because we had too, because we were poor, and we had too. And uh, so my sister and I , my sister LIla , who was three years younger than I, would have to get up and take care of the babies and get the children off to school and so then get ourselves off. It was quite a time we'd have to get up about 5:30 in the morning. Anyway, my sister Lila wrote an article and they put it in the state school paper, I forget the name of it now, and she got first prize and the name of it was "Getting my Eight Brothers off to School in the Morning". And, I suppose you have to have something funny...and the boys would always come, we'd be so busy getting them ready and stuff, and the older boys they would come and knock at the door and we'd go to the door and then after 3 times the knock on the door and I shouted and it was the woman,(laughing) it turned out to be the woman who was coming to wash our kitchen, and she, she was very unhappy about it all. But we had fun along with everything else.
Well we had a baseball diamond, my dad fixed up for us behind our machine shed and so the neighbors would come and we'd play ball and my dad played with us and then we had, across the road we had a muskrat pond, (whisper) don't put muskrat, but it was a muskrat well they know that's where in the winter they build their homes. And the neighbors would all come and we'd skate, and then we'd go home and mom always had taffy and we had a taffy pull. We did that in the winter almost once a week. And it, well it was just fun.
WHAT SORT OF THINGS WOULD YOU DO AT CHRISTMAS?
Well Christmas of course, we always--when the snow was real deep we'd go in the sled and of course always went to church. But the night before was uh, one Christmas my dad would be Santa Claus and the next Christmas my mom would be Santa Claus. We'd start at five in the afternoon looking out the window, well my younger brothers and sisters, of course I was older but they would start watching for Santa Claus and his reindeer to come in the sky see and then one night my dad would do the chores and then my mom would go and a farm we -- oh I forgot to tell them we lived on a farm, you'll have to put that. A farm just behind, next to ours so she'd go over there and get dressed and all puffed up with pillows and stuff and come in and of course she'd have us all dance with her and then she'd leave us candy and peanuts and then the next time my dad would come. Well she, no, they always had an excuse every Christmas, and then the one my dad would come he'd say he'd had a, they always said they had a little accident down the road so the other one was fixing it while they were there. And then one time they'd come in (laugh) my brothers and we had to give them a kiss and everything and then they'd go away and during the night Santa Claus would come and we each got one present. And I remember one of my little brothers, two of my brothers -- one crawled under the bed and one hid behind the chair, that was when he came earlier, because they were a little scared but when the candy and peanuts come out then they'd come out . And we all got one gift, like I got a doll and one would get a sled and one would get skates...like that. And it was like we got a million dollars and we took care of that all year and it was just so so wonderful, it was just ...just wonderful. it's different than today because we just treasured that all year long. And we had, mom always had--she always hid things in the cracks in the empty room because we were so poor we couldn't fix up the living room . and we'd always find it but we wouldn't take too much. And then every--from Christmas 'til New Years--every night, she'd bring out her special bowl -- oh it was like crystal, and she guarded that and every night she'd bring out candy and peanuts and put it in that bowl and we'd have a feast, every night, and it was really a feast. And I guess...I guess that was it. I always remember that doll until today.
WHAT WAS YOUR CHURCH LIKE?.
Well in church we, we'll he may not like this (the teacher) 'cause I'm a Roman Catholic and every month we went to confession, And then every month we went to Holy Communion, when we went to mass of course. And 'cause there was so many of us the priest gave permission that my dad could stay home one Sunday and my mom the next Sunday because with all the chores, the little ones and everything, and when it--snow was so deep we went in the sleigh. And they still had places to tie up horses, and it was just wonderful and we were a family that prayed the rosary every night and my dad always led us in before and after meal prayers.
DID YOU HAVE MANY ANIMALS ON THE FARM?
Yes. Of course this is during the depression, we were poor. And we had turkeys, geese, chickens, ducks, guinea hens, and those little tiny--I forget there names--really pretty.
My dad got us a pair of rabbits (laughing) and we made a little pen for 'em. Pretty soon there were so many rabbits. (White chinchillas?)--Pretty soon there were so many rabbits we didn't have room for them so my mom and dad thought we'd better get rid of them. And then we had a dog, one was named Teddy, was a collie dog, I always remember that and of course we always had kittens and horses of course and cattle and little goats and little calves and we had hogs too. I think we had everything. But we didn't have to worry about eating because we always had something to eat even though we didn't have any money to spare.
DID YOU HAVE A LOT OF CHORES?
Chores, yes. We had alot of chores. And we children started as little ones too-- helped with the chores and mom always had to help so one sister liked housework and I liked outside work so I'd go down and help with chores and she would stay in the kitchen and do the dishes and stuff and um, we had a separator that we used to separate the milk from the cream from the milk and then we'd go to the little Cumber Store 2 miles away, there was one store there, for awhile there was, no there was two little stores, that's all there was- two. And we'd sell our--we'd get paid for the cream and of course we used to save some cream to put on the gingerbread - no, molasses cake with pure whipped cream - boy that was good. And the rest of the milk of course they gave to the calves and hogs and so forth. And we never had to worry about clothes because everybody wore patched clothes and things like that then and you kept them, you'd have one dress and one hat and one pair of shoes for the whole year and of course we'd wear that long underwear you know because we had to walk in the distance to the... But the one job I liked best was husking corn. We'd have all the corn, a load of corn brought in and you'd sit down, we used to kneel down then I think--I couldn't do it now--and we'd take our husk and corn and stalk of corn and husk it and put it behind us and then take another and it was always warm 'cause we had to do it in the winter and it was always warm there. And you were all alone and you could daydream and everything else and husk that corn. And one time, our supper was always ready, we always had our dinner at night...well farmers always had two big meals a day at noon and night. Anyway we were all sat around the table and my dad always sat at the head of the table and led grace and so forth, and uh we were all sitting around eating and all at once my dad jumped , he almost hit the ceiling, and he says "Where's Pete?" Pete wasn't, wasn't -- if he was walking he was just toddling, he was probably a year and a half old or something and so all of us and my dad -- then he run to the barn, we saw him running like a race horse, and so we went along to see what was the matter, and there was Pete. He had put him on the side of the horse stable -- there was boards up but he was sitting behind there, but there was space between. There was Pete sound asleep, but if he'd got up he could have walked among the horses you know. That's just one of the things that happens on a farm.
Well we used to, after chores and everything were done, we would sit on the front porch or lawn and visit you know. And we had a nice, we had a good hired man and we were sitting there and talking, mom and dad and the older children, no we weren't too old then because my brother Michael is a year and a half younger than I and Lila was 3 years younger and we're at the barn and we didn't pay any attention-- all at once here is a cart, you know a cart just a seat and two wheels and they went -- and here's Lila and Michael sitting on the cart with a cow hitched up in a horse's harness and they were ---and the cow was afraid and she was running away down the drive and she did turn on the road, she was going so fast and Lila was hollering and Mike was, I don't think they had the, you know the reigns so our hired man, he could really run, he took after the cart and then 3 or 4 of the children, the older boys and my dad, after them, the cow and a cart with two little children on it running down the road and about 6, 7 men running after 'em and finally they got over the bridge you know down there about maybe a third to a half a mile down the road and the cow got tired and she turned off in a ditch. (Laughing) Nobody got hurt.
WHAT WERE THE NEIGHBORS LIKE?
Oh yes, everybody was real close. When somebody was sick they always, neighbors all around would stop, peek in, and say hello and how are you and uh, and the women, just wonderful neighbors, they'd bring a cake or something when somebody was sick. And then when we had uh, we used to hoe our corn like and we'd get--there was one family up the road even poorer than we were. They'd send 4 or 5 of their children down and we would hoe a field of corn in one day, the children, and it was hot. We'd have to sit under the shade tree now and then, and it was funny we'd get such a--by the time August, the last of August come we were so tan we were practically brown, and then, so all we girls used to try our best to get that tan off because you didn't believe in being tan then you looked prettier if you didn't have one. And we would just get it off and Spring would come again or summer and we'd have to be out in the field and start it all over. But those neighbors would help us and they used to work for 50 cents a day. But we would feed 'em. And then they'd have like a thrashing the grain instead of having someone come and the big machines and of course we just had the, um, we, our machinery was...way back then. So, when they thrashed the grain they would have all the neighbor men would come and thrash the grain and then they'd move on and then all the neighbor men would meet and help thrash the grain because the big old tractor and what not, thrasher we called it, would come and then the women, there'd always be a neighbor woman or two come and fix the meal and of course that took, oh ,you'd be amazed how much those men could eat. And it was always a fun day And that's how they thrashed, the neighbors all helped each other. And if they built a new barn they would all ...
HAVE A BARN RAISING?
Yes, and even then which was a little later, you know was a little more modern, but even then they'd build a barn and they'd have a barn dance after it was built and that was always fun.
WHAT WERE THE DOCTORS LIKE?
Well you know you never went to the hospital then, you stayed home. And the older people would live with their children until they passed away. And the doctors always, we had a good ole doctor, Dr. William Horshel(?), you should have known him! He took care of all of us, all we children were born at home and he delivered all our babies at home. And um, should I tell a funny one? And I remember we children, we'd be put up in the room, and this is when one of the boys was born and uh, Dr. Horshel came, and he put his uh, my dad put the instruments on to boil on the stove and they boiled, and he said now you go and pour the water off of them and so my dad went (laughing) and the instruments all fell on the ground. He didn't know what to do when he come in Raymond was here, golly I wouldn't be 11 then, but that's the way it was anyhow. And Raymond was already here, Dr. Horshel had lost his false teeth and his toupe' come off (still laughing) because he came so fast and Lucy Heidle? was there and she had a laugh and laugh . But he was just a, those old doctors were so wonderful and maybe we didn't' ... oh we lived pretty good age and it was different and it was just like he was a member of the family almost and, I know when I went into nursing, oh that's right I went into nursing. I graduated in 1939. But when I went into nursing I went to see him and uh, that's when we were learning to give hypo's you called 'em you know, shots or hypos you know, medication. And I says Doctor, how am I gonna do that? We had to give em to each other you know. I says I can't do that and I says is uh, is uh, what else am I gonna have to do and he says Well that's the easiest thing you'll have to do. But we, he took care of our family. And it was nice, he came to my wedding. And, and the doctors then, they didn't charge big prices and sometimes if you didn't have the money they would come anyway even though you couldn't pay. Sometimes you could just give them a chicken or something like that you know. But they always came and sometimes he had to walk a ways when the roads weren't open. Yes, it was wonderful.
DID YOU HAVE A RADIO?
No radio while I was home. I went into nursing in 1936, that's when I graduated from high school.
THAT'S WHEN YOU CAME TO DETROIT?
I went to Detroit, that was quite interesting. The way I went into nursing, should I tell? I'm talking about myself again.
YOURSELF IS GOOD.
Well, Jessie Hoffs? had that little store in Cumber. I'd never been to the city except a couple days with my aunt. But anyhow he got his little old car out, I forget what kind it was, and we, and he took us to Bad Axe, and then we got on a bus and went to Detroit, my cousin and I, and that's how I went into training. I guess a cousin of mine did live there, he taught school, he became principal in Detroit, I guess he met us, he must have. But that's how you did things in those days. That's neighbors helping neighbors again.
WAS IT A BIG CHANGE GOING FROM UBLY TO DETROIT?
Well my dad, oh my dad told me "She'll be back in two weeks", otherwise, if he hadn't said that I would have been home again.

Interview, 1994