By: Bob Gunter
Barbara Blood came to the Sandpoint, Idaho area
in 1939. The worst of the Great Depression was
over but its consequences could still be felt
across the United States.
Barbara Blood, in her own words, gives us a
glimpse of some of the ways the depression
influenced her family and others in Bonner
County.
Barbara recalls the depression days upon their
arrival in Bonner County. "I think we didn't
feel it as much because everything seemed to be
in abundance out here. You know, there was
apples lying on the ground that people wouldn't
even come and pick up. That's what amazed us. If
we got any apples in Nebraska, we had to buy 'em,
you know, and this was in Western Nebraska, and
to come out here and find food in such
abundance, it didn't seem like it was that bad
any more. We thought we'd just really hit the
jackpot, you know, that we'd hit paradise when
we got here."
"My
mother was a person who loved company and so
after we got out here, every Sunday she'd invite
somebody home for the Sunday dinner and she just
loved being able to do that because she had food
to feed 'em. In Western Nebraska it was a
problem sometimes to have enough food for
everybody. Here it was still hard times because
people were working on WPA (Public Works
Authority) and I remember when we came we
brought our beds but we didn't bring mattresses.
We had a seventeen-foot trailer and you tried to
bring what you could, you just had to eliminate
some things. My dad cut white fir boughs or
balsam and stacked 'em on the beds on the
springs thick enough that that was our mattress
when we first came here. Then, the government
had a program where they furnished things for
people to come and make mattresses and we went
to the Sagle school and there was a hard time
and a lot of us, we made our own mattresses and
they taught us how to make 'em. And they
furnished all the materials. So we made a
mattress for every one of our beds and that was
great. We thought that was wonderful."
"The
WPA was making outdoor toilets for all the
people that needed 'em and they were really
good. Some of them exist to this day. In fact,
my husband's folks had one on their place. The
people that just bought it came out here from
back east and they were just marveling at it and
so they fixed it up. Today it's really a pretty
classy outdoor toilet. Times were hard right at
first when we came and I know a lot of people
were having a struggle."
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