Nina B. Ellsworth , researcher and author.
Have you ever wondered how people survived the Roosevelt Era and W.W. II? Have you ever wondered how the struggles of those times directly affected people in certain areas?
Despite President Roosevelt having polio, he made a direct impact on everyone`s life and the future of our country.
Life in or around Belle Fourche during the time Franklin D. Roosevelt was in office was tough. There were no jobs to be found. Many government programs were set up during Roosevelt`s term. Roosevelt had many types of programs. He became know as the ``Alphabet Soup`` president, because most of his programs names became acronyms. During Roosevelt`s New Deal, banks were closed for a period of one hundred days. Nobody could withdraw money. Some people lost all the money they had. But with the New Deal, the banks were straightened out. They got back on their feet. However some people never did get their money back. Among the most popular programs were the CCC (Civilian Civil Service) and the WPA (Works Progress Administration).
The CCC was set up to give single men jobs, most of the men were about twenty years of age. They worked mostly on dam projects. The refacing of Orman Dam was one of those projects. Orman Dam was built to irrigate the areas of Belle Fourche, Vale, and Newell, South Dakota. A CCC camp was built near the dam for the men to stay in. One local person who was in the CCC believed that the CCC was designed to keep kids off the streets and that it was like being in the Army without the military drills. He said, ``You had to stay in one place, and do what they told you, for just enough money to get by.`` Many CCC members worked for the forest service between projects.
Many family men worked for the WPA. Most of this work was local road projects. Other projects included water and sewage.
Other programs were the CWA (Civil Works Administration) and the AAA (Agricultural Advisement Administration).
Despite W.W. II going on, many people during this time seemed to welcome it. It gave people money and work. Parents who had more than one son had to have at least one of them go into the military, this was called a draft. According to Floy Washburn, ``They called you up and you had to go.``
If you absolutely objected to killing people you could become a conscientious objector. They would not fight but they would still help their country.
During the time the war was going on the four year term of president was canceled out. Everyone wanted to keep Roosevelt as president because of all the changes he had made. The government thought it was a good idea because of the war going on and everyone having such hard times.
Betty Hofer had a friend who went into the Air Force his plane went down around London, England. He was stationed in Normandy at the time. She and others think that some young men had a lack of experience and were pushed into the war.
Everyone knew someone who was in the war many friends, brothers, cousins, fathers.
Franklin Roosevelt did not start these programs all by himself he had help from his staff members and his wife.
Eleanor Roosevelt was an extraordinary woman. She went around to camps and visited with soldiers. Many of the men in this one particular camp on an island near Pearl Harbor around the time Japan had bombed down there. Some of our men were being killed before they could get to shore. Many of them had given up. Eleanor went into the medical tent and tried to comfort the men. She came up to Stan Kaitfors who at the time was severely wounded in the back. She said, ``Young man, what would you want?`` He said, ``I want to go home.`` The next day there was a boat there that took him home. He was in California for about a year trying to get his back all fixed up. As Floy Washburn says, ``Behind every great man there is a great woman.``
Now not only men worked during the war, women did to. Betty Hofer worked in a Buick factory, in Chicago, Illinois. The factory was turned over to the Douglas Aircraft. The factory made parts for the aircraft. They were making Whitney motors for the Aircraft`s. As a utility girl she learned how to work the oil pumps, piston rods, and grind the valves. One time a bunch of them came back because they weren`t ground evenly, so many of the workers worked day and night over the Thanksgiving holiday to fix them. Some military men were watching everyone is the factory. They walked over to Betty and said, ``It`s not her. Look how perfect those are!`` She was tickled.
In this particular factory there was a German spy, but he did the wrong thing by wearing, shorts. The military caught him and everyone in the factory stood around and watched.
Many people had to find other work. Floy Washburn`s cousin`s family sold their sheep for two dollars to the government. They skinned them and threw the skins in a pile. They couldn`t give that meat to anyone.
Her father put up good strong thistle to feed the cattle. They had to get rid of about eighty head of cattle out of a hundred. They got about the same amount of money for the cattle as their cousins` did for their sheep.
Some worked and helped their family out by working on farms, but that usually wasn`t enough.
Some of the things they did around the farms were milking the cows, separating the cream from the milk. They would store some cream and bring about two ten gallon cans to the creamery in Belle Fourche. The creamery was located where the Belle Flower shop is now. They would get ten to fifteen dollars for the cream. They also feed the pigs, chickens, and cattle. The children helped with the meals.
Some peoples parents such as Betty Hofer`s owned there own business. her father had a green house he raised; Chrysanthemums, Geraniums, and several other kinds were shipped in to sell. He started out with his brother in Chicago but, their wasn`t enough business for the two of them so he came back here. There wasn`t to much to the florist business back then people just didn`t have the money it was mostly just for funerals and weddings.
A lot of people went into the teaching profession. They went to the Spearfish Normal. If you went one year you could teach at a rural school. If you went two years, you could teach in town. Floy Washburn and her sister Virginia Dye both went for one year and taught country school. Their parents paid three hundred dollars for each of them to go to college. They worked for their room and board, and paid for their text books.
Floy remembers handing out coupons to the children because everything was rationed because many materials were need for the war effort; sugar, tires, coffee, flour, shoes, gas, and many other things. She would ask them, ``How many pounds of sugar do you have?`` ``How many pounds of coffee do you have?``, and on like that then hand them out coupon books.
One time she had four flat tires on her way into town because of the condition the tires were in. Everyone used things until they could not possibly get and more use out of them.
Many farmers would bring their eggs in crates to Sly`s grocery store and exchange them for commodities and they almost always got a sack of candy. They always had enough. Silk stockings went out and females were not able to go to school without them so a lot of the girls experimented with a cosmetic and tried to fake it.
Flour and animal cake were sold in these big fifty pound cloth bags with pretty designs on them. Many mothers would make dresses for their girls or curtains. Women began to be able to wear slacks.
Students had to take state exams, and you had to pass them or go to school until they did. You either pass the eighth grade or were fourteen years old. The teachers gave three programs a year. The programs would center around holidays; Christmas, Easter, Halloween, or Thanksgiving. The whole community would come to these. They were also learning experiences.
During this age people didn`t look down their noses at people on welfare. The kind of welfare some people were on was called community welfare they got a lot of things from the community such as canned vegetables and commodities for free.
Many farmers raised gardens and canned vegetables. They also saved a lot by having farm animals.
Some of the things that people did for entertainment were swimming, going the theater, listening to fireside chats, and going on outings such as picnics. They made their own life jackets back then. They would put a gunny sack across their back and tie a gallon bucket on each side. The buckets needed to have tight lids so that the air was trapped in them.
There was a theater in Belle Fourche at this time. They would run advertisements, a news real, what was coming up in the next week, and finally you got to watch to movie.
Maybe once a year you would get to go out to eat either at the Tri State Restaurant or a restaurant that was located in the Hampton Hotel. Many of they young people would carpool and take a Sunday drive. They would go to Spearfish Park or someplace like that since their was no park in Belle Fourche at that time.
President Roosevelt gave fire side talks or chats. He would talk about what was going on in the war and if you owned a radio you could here these.
I learned a lot about the time from, Estella Jacobsen (Fox), Virginia Dye, Floy Washburn, and Betty Hofer.
I learned a lot about the time. I thought people would be more depressed about living through this time. This was not the case at all they referred to this point in their lives as, ``the good old days.``