Presidents, prohibition and down-home fun

As in years past, for Father’s Day I’m sharing excerpts from the memoirs of my father, the late Clement Marshall, who was born in 1910.

Since this is an election year, here are some comments from our interview sessions in 2000 about governmental goings-on during his younger years.

Question: Who was the first president you remember?

Answer: Oh, I remember Wilson and Harding, but Hoover was the first one I remember anything about, ’cause that’s the time of the Depression.

Q: He wasn’t very popular, was he?

A: He was pretty popular with some people. He was a smart man but he … I don’t know why he couldn’t beat what he done but … I still hear people cuss him.

Q: (Laughter) Well, back to Wilson. Do you remember anything people would say about him, or anything people would read about him?

A: No, I don’t remember much about him.

Q: What about Coolidge?

A: Coolidge just set there and let it … it was going pretty well; he didn’t muddy the water.

Q: What about Prohibition (1920-’33)?

A: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Q: When they wouldn’t allow liquor to be sold.

A: Aw! That made a lot of bootleggers.

Q: Um-hmm. How did it affect Mt. Joy?

A: Oh, we had bootleggers, too. Had whiskey makers.

Q: Where did they make the whiskey?

A: Out in the woods. (Laughter) I remember one fella had a still in his house, and they caught him when they saw steam coming out the window.

Q: Do you remember the first election you voted in?

A: I think it was Roosevelt (F. D.).

Q: Were you very interested in national politics at the time?

A: Well, yeah, because I had been up in Ohio … saw all that laying off, people didn’t have a job, kids eating garbage and … That was one time it was good to be on a farm.

Q: What about when the stock market crashed?

A: In ’29 when the Stock Market fell?

Q: What were you doing then?

A: I was working on the farm.

Q: Do you remember when you heard about it?

A: Oh, yeah. Everybody blamed Hoover for it. That’s when I went up north, ’29.

Q: Did you know anybody who lost any money?

A: No. I didn’t know nobody that had any money. (Laughter) I never heard about the stock market till it fell. I didn’t know what fell … thought maybe it’d fell on somebody.

Q: (Laughter) Yeah, did ya’ll have a bread line?

A: Did we what?

Q: A bread line?

A: Where?

Q: For the people who couldn’t feed themselves.

A: Oh, they had someplace … Yeah, I think every town had a place where you could go get a bowl of soup. It didn’t have much in it.

Q: So, Mt. Pleasant had one?

A: I think it was some organization like the Red Cross, or something like that, that took care of that kind of people. We wasn’t hurt much by it. Most people lived on the farm and raised something to eat. They didn’t know what the soup line was.

Q: Anything else about that time period?

A: People couldn’t afford to go to movies or nightclubs. Even if they had an extra dollar, they couldn’t get gas to drive there. So, we had to make our own entertainment.

Pauline didn’t read music, but she could hit a few chords on a guitar and had a pretty good ear. Some other people had a knack for playing the fiddle, strumming a banjo or could slap a big bass fiddle. They’d get together and before long, had a pretty good sound going.

That homegrown band got to be a popular attraction, especially on Saturday nights. The whole community got together for a sort of combination barn dance, gospel sing.

Then the economy began to improve. The minute some of the crowd got a dollar, it went to buy a bottle. The gatherings began to get so rough, Pauline packed up her guitar and we went home.

(Next week we’ll fast forward to the home front during World War II)

