Max's parents moved from the hills of West Virginia to Akron, Ohio, so that his father could find work during the hard years of the Great Depression.
Read in these pages about how the family managed to survive hunger, Max's dad's illness and unemployment, and life on the hard streets of urban America.
This account shows from the inside how one American family lived through the difficulties of a worldwide economic downturn that began in America with Black Tuesday on October 29, 1929, and continued throughout Max's childhood.
This was the largest and most important economic depression of the 20th century, and living through it required resourcefulness and determination.
Following is an excerpt from the book about how Max and his family coped with life during the Great Depression.:
The family’s poverty made school a challenge for the Carr children. “I was so embarrassed when I would go to the school gymnasium,” Max recalls. “Ford and I played sports, and we certainly couldn’t afford tennis shoes, so we had to play in our socks. I had only one pair of long black stockings, and after I’d worn them for a while, the toes wore out. This was humiliating. When we were working out, I’d try to tuck in my socks, to hide the holes somehow, but of course as I ran, my toes would work their way out.
“Soon after Dad was laid off his job,” he goes on, “he started getting sick, and then sicker.” The family spiraled ever more deeply into poverty and, as the Depression dragged on, everyone handled that fact of life in his or her own way. Mary never worked outside the home. She stayed busy raising five kids and keeping that small house immaculate.
As their lives became more difficult, Mary worked harder and harder, tending her garden, canning food to put on the table. Okey, meanwhile, became increasingly angry and despairing.
The Carr boys wanted to help their parents however they could. Max says, “I’d go out and work on farms. I would just do any work I could do to help the family. But money remained tight.”