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Eyewitnesses To History Speak Out

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: February 4, 2009

HUDSON - There's no question schools today have access to a much wider array of tools and resources to enhance the educational experience than were available in previous generations.

On Thursday, a previous generation proved to be the greatest resource of all for teachers and students at Hudson High School working on a unit about the Great Depression and the prelude to World War II.

History came alive Jan. 29 as six residents of the nearby Atria Baypoint Village, an assisted living facility for seniors in Hudson, paid a visit to the school.

Ranging in age from 84-year-old Jane Wesch, the baby of the group, to Erma Gibson, who will turn 100 on Feb. 25, the group took history out of the books and off the computer monitors as they shared their own firsthand accounts of what it was like to grow up during the Depression.

"What we're trying to focus on is what we're calling 'history in our own back yard,' history in our own community," teacher Eric Johnson said. "We recognize in Florida, we have people from all around the world who come to retire - or at least from around the nation."

Amazing asset

That's an amazing asset for anyone trying to get a historical perspective on the 20th century, Johnson said. And as it happens, it is an asset that is more readily available than people at the school realized until they heard from Lynne Schraeder, activity director at Atria Baypoint Village.

Many Atria Baypoint Village residents remain active and are interested in reaching out to the community, Schraeder said. This is especially true when they can interact with young people, she said.

"What it does for the seniors is make them have a feeling of self-worth, that they make a little difference in the lives of young people," Schraeder said.

For months, news reports have compared today's recession to the Great Depression, Johnson said.

"Kids can't really appreciate whether that's true or not," he said. "They think, oh, this is what the Great Depression was like. But we're still buying candy. They're still getting cars for their 16th birthday."

Larry Holden, 85, came to the school with plenty of stories to tell. He was 6 when the Great Depression began, and it didn't end until he was 19, about the time he joined the Army to fight in World War II.

"I don't understand how any of these kids could even understand what I'm going to say," Holden said. "They don't even teach it anymore - the degradation and the depths to which it went and how people lived, and how they existed. It's quite a story."

The teens might not have had any direct reference to compare, but they were fascinated by the accounts Holden and the other seniors.

Bank closed

Gibson began the discussion. She was 21 when the Depression started, working as a bookkeeper at a bank. She said she went to work one day and the bank was closed. She continued to work at the bank for a month while it was closed to the public.

Then she moved to Detroit, where things were really bad.

"I saw so much poverty there," Gibson said. "Soup lines at the Salvation Army. Apples were being sold on the street for a nickel. People were so bad off; I've never seen anything like it. People were very hungry."

None of the seniors had experienced the worst of the Depression the teens had read about. None had been forced into the streets and their families were not split up.

Still, they explained, even being one of the "lucky ones" was no picnic.

Maybe no heat

Sure you might have a home, Holden said, but that didn't mean you had heat or electricity. He told how people would go by the railroad tracks to find stray lumps of coal to keep their stoves burning.

You might have a place with a bedroom, Holden said, but there would be no closet. But that didn't matter because people only had one two changes of clothes anyway.

To get by in those days, he said, you sometimes had to get "creative."

That led to one of the biggest eye-opening moments for the teens. When asked if they ever had to resort to breaking the law to get by, the elders immediately proclaimed, "sure," "of course" and "you bet."

The session concluded with the class breaking off into smaller groups so they could hear more from each of the Atria residents. Just as intended, the both sides couldn't get enough of the exchange.

"It was good to get a firsthand experience of what it was like," one of the students, Chris Garguilo, said. "It's easier to learn from people than from books about what it was like."

Klint Lowry can be reached at 727-815-1067 or klowry@suncoastnews.com.

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