To make ends meet during the Great Depression of the 1930s, rural families often lived lives similar to their pioneer ancestors, cooking and heating with wood stoves, using kerosene lamps and hauling water.
Bertha Charley and her family, including 10 children, lived in Climax, Ore., between Lake Creek and Shale, east of Roxy Ann Butte. They kept chickens and milk cows and had a big garden. Everyone who could worked odd jobs.
Charley鈥檚 diary of November 1933 tells the story of getting by. Here are some excerpts:
November 5. 鈥淛ust a day, everything bum, nothing to eat.鈥�
November 6. 鈥淕ot flour, sugar, beans and baking powder from [sister-in-law] Pearl.鈥�
November 7. 鈥淸Sons] Boyd and Clint hauling wood. Pa working at Arlin鈥檚.鈥�
November 9. 鈥淟incoln got 85 cents for two skunks. Got a sack of flour for $1.70.鈥�
Charley contributed income to the family, earning $20 a year as the school district clerk and by serving as the postmaster. She received a percentage of stamp sales, which were scarce in Climax.
Life wasn鈥檛 just privation. Charley filled her home with music, books borrowed from the library and photographs they took and developed themselves.
Source: Edwards, Patsy. Grandma Bertha. unpublished, pp. 4-7. Author鈥檚 collection.
