Bynum residents band together to alleviate the effects of Depression-era poverty
Eula Durham remembers some of the strategies Bynum residents used to weather the Great Depression, such as sharing food. She segues into a description of her childhood, one of hand-me-down clothes and few toys, but one she remembers with fondness, especially as she describes the candy she bought with her allowance, taken from her paycheck.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Eula and Vernon Durham, November 29, 1978. Interview H-0064. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JIM LELOUDIS:
-
We were talking about the depression. What did you do to keep from
starving, if wages were that low?
- EULA DURHAM:
-
Well, you had to scrimp and save, just eat anything you could get a-hold
of, that you could make a meal off of. Most of them though worked out in
the field, you know, for people and farmed, worked in the fields, and
most of them had gardens and things like that. They all got along pretty
good. But NRA come in. I know one man—he's dead
now—that lived over there. He said that weren't such a thing
as milk gravy. He said he eat Hoover gravy. He said that finally
somebody had a cow and he'd buy a quart of sweet milk a week from them.
And he said that he'd eat so much milk gravy till every time he seen a
cow he said, hello, lady, how are you? But he said he eat water gravy,
and he hoped he'd live long enough to see Hoover eat water gravy.
- JIM LELOUDIS:
-
How did people around here feel about Hoover?
- EULA DURHAM:
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Well, I don't think they thought too much of him, cause you see,
everybody had, you know, just a pretty good living. So he come in and
starved everybody to death. I don't think too many people nowhere liked
him.
- JIM LELOUDIS:
-
What was the reaction to Roosevelt?
- EULA DURHAM:
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Oh, they loved him. Boy, he pulled them out of the ditch. They loved him
to death. Well, everybody everywhere I've ever heard say anything about
him—well, it wasn't only in Bynum neither. It was everywhere.
Everybody was in the same ditch everywhere. I know I heard a friend
lived down here below Pittsboro down here in Asbury—old
woman—and she said that if she hadn't had a good garden and
if she hadn't had her own pig and cow that she didn't know what in the
world she would have done. She sold milk at ten cents a gallon and
butter fifteen cents a cake and she said she had some hens, she sold
eggs. I've forgotten now how much she said she sold the eggs for. And
said that's the way she dressed her younguns to send them to school,
from what she sold.
- JIM LELOUDIS:
-
Did people pull together and help each other out?
- EULA DURHAM:
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Yeah.
- JIM LELOUDIS:
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What type things would they do?
- EULA DURHAM:
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Well, if they had a lot to eat or anything, they'd divide with other
people. And Bynum's always been good about that. If anybody here ever
gets down or sick or disabled to work or anything, they've always been
good to chip in and help them out in every way they could, give them
money or give them food. Bynum has really been good about that. I've
been here about all my life and I don't know of nobody here that ever
would have sickness or anything like that but what somebody would chip
in and help them out. There was a lot of old people here then, during
that depression, that weren't able to work at all. And I've knowed the
younguns around to go clean out their yards and help them clean the
house, and do things like that, where they didn't have no money to hire
somebody to help them out.
- JIM LELOUDIS:
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Were you ever involved in anything like that?
- EULA DURHAM:
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Well, no, I went to work at the mill all along then. All I had to do, I
had to work. Cause there was twelve of us. I had to work, but I had a
sister that did. She done a lot of helping out, you know, around,
different people and all. She was younger than I was. But they all been
mighty good around here about helping out each other. That depression
got everybody. I know my mama, along then I said I didn't know what a
new dress was, nor a pair of shoes till I got old enough to go to work.
I wore hand-me-downs, cause there was twelve of us, and whenever one
would outgrow anything mama would—she could sew, and she'd
take that thing and cut it down and fix it so the younger ones could
wear it. And when they got where they couldn't wear it and they hadn't
wore it out, she'd patch that thing up and fix it up and the one down
below you got it. I told everybody I didn't know what a new dress was,
or a pair of shoes until I went to work.
- JIM LELOUDIS:
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Did you get to keep some of your money when you went to work?
- EULA DURHAM:
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When I went to work, my daddy give me twenty-five cents payday out of my
check. Well, they didn't pay off in checks then, they paid in money. And
he'd give me twenty-five cents and I thought I was rich.
- JIM LELOUDIS:
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What did you do with it?
- EULA DURHAM:
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Law, this old man live up above us and ran a little old store. When I'd
get my quarter on Saturday morning I'd run up there and I'd get
me… Then they had, Oh Boy chewing gum, come in a long stick
about that long and about as wide as your two fingers. And they was a
penny. And Mary Janes, they come in a long thing then, weren't them
little short things. Come long, about like that, you know. They
was a penny. Well, I'd get me some Oh Boy chewing
gum and some Mary Janes, and then he had a three cent
copper—a drink that tasted almost like a Dr. Pepper. They
called it a three cent copper. And I'd get me one of them. And boy, I
thought that was the best pay, and I'd eat it. One time, I never will
forget, my sisters watched me, and would get my candy and stuff. Well,
we lived in this old house and you could walk up under it, and it
weren't underpinned or nothing. It had rafters up under there. Well, I
took my candy and chewing gum, put it in a little sack, went under the
house and hid it up under there in one of them rafters.
[Laughter]
I won't never forget that thing as long as I live. And next day
I went out there to get a piece of my candy and chewing gum. And went
out there and got my sack down and it was just loaded with ants. The
ants had found it. I said, Lord-a-mercy, what am I going to do, they've
got my candy and my chewing gum. Well, this here old friend of mine
lived up there above us, she said, well, I tell you what we'll do. We'll
take it down to the branch and wash it. Said, we'll wash it off, wash
them ants off. We took it down to the branch and washed the candy and I
said, "Well, you eat a piece first." She said,
"No, you eat a piece." I said, "No, you eat
one. If it's fresh then I'll eat one." Well, we finally throwed
it away. We nary one could get nerve enough to eat that candy. And I
never did put any more of my candy under the house.
[Laughter]
- JIM LELOUDIS:
-
The ants knew your hiding place!
- EULA DURHAM:
-
Yeah, they just eat my candy up, and my Oh Boy chewing
gum! Boy, when you got a big piece of candy then, or chewing gum, you
was really setting pretty. Got an old doll, one Christmas—the
only thing I remember in my life getting as a kid. An old doll, about
that high. And along then they didn't make them
out of rubber, made them out of some old stuff like pasteboard and
painted them. Well, we had a big—it was a Saturday, after
dinner, and we'd all go down to the branch. We had a big branch down
there in front of the house. And so we was going to have a baptizing. We
carried out dolls down there, you know, and banked up some water,
baptized the dolls and laid them out. Well, come up a cloud and we run
up to the house and forgot our dolls and left them down there. After the
cloud was over and some sun come out bright, you know, I went down there
and that doll, looked it was ninety years old, it was just cracked all
to pieces. I said, "Lord I have ruint the doll!" And
this girl had one, had some hair. Hers had hair on it. And every bit of
her hair come off. We never did bring our dolls to no more baptizing.
Oh, Lord.
- JIM LELOUDIS:
-
Did you have to buy any of your own clothes with the money that you
got?
- EULA DURHAM:
-
No, he bought my clothes—what I got. All I got was that
twenty-five cents, and boy, I thought I was rich. And there was a girl
that lived up the road here, she worked down there too. Well, her folks
kind of thought they was kind of rich, you know. And she would get her
whole five dollars on payday. She didn't pay no board or nothing. She
got her whole five dollars. Lord, I thought that was the richest woman I
ever seen in my life. Her getting five dollars, and me a quarter. But
now they was me, and Ruth, and Lance, and Grassie—all of us.
There was four of us that worked. And they were getting all we were
making. There was about six or eight at home then.
- VERNON DURHAM:
-
Your brother wasn't working then, was he?
- EULA DURHAM:
-
No. And Papa would give Lance—that was my oldest
brother—two dollars out of his. And give me and Ruth and
Grassie a quarter apiece. Lord, I thought I was rich when I got that
quarter. Lord, I was the richest somebody in the world. Reckon what
they'd do now if somebody was to take their youngun's paycheck and give
them a quarter?
- JIM LELOUDIS:
-
The kid would have a fit.
- EULA DURHAM:
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No, you wouldn't ever live! But that's the truth. That's what I got out
of a paycheck was twenty-five cents every two weeks. But then you could
take that twenty-five cents and buy more than you can with five dollars
now. Yes sir. Co-colas and things was a nickel, but them there little
three cent coppers… You remember when pepsi colas used to be
a little old bottle that looked like it was squeezed in the middle?
That's the kind of bottle them there little three cent coppers was in.
In a thing like that. Law, I never will forget .
I just had gone to work down there. And preacher had a revival in Rock
Springs. And preacher come down here Sunday. And the old kitchen that we
had, there was a window—well, you could stand on the ground
and the window come right along here on you. And Papa made all us
younguns wait, you know, and all grown folks eat, and the preacher eat.
And he was setting at the end of this window. And I was so hungry. And I
was standing there watching, and he just kept on eating chicken and kept
on eating chicken. I stuck my head in there, I said, "Don't eat
it all; save me a piece." Papa heard me. He come out there and
I thought he'd kill me! He said, "If you ever do such a stupid
thing again…" I said, "Papa, he's done eat
two or three pieces!" I said, "He's going to eat every
bit and I ain't going to get a bit." Well, I tell you one
thing. I never did say it no more. Cause I thought he was going to kill
me.