I've always known there was a Great Depression, that it all started in 1929, and that things were hard. But I didn't know what that really meant. A Secret Gift, by journalist Ted Gup, brought things into focus for me. When I was about halfway into the book, a friend emailed me that the bank where her husband had been employed for years was being taken over by the Feds that evening. That email highlighted one of the similarities between those times and these we live in.
Just before Christmas in 1933, the newspaper in Canton, Ohio ran an ad. A Mr. B. Virdot had set aside some money to be distributed among families in need. They just needed to write and ask. He had $750 to give, and he intended to give $10 to 75 families. The outpouring of need that he found in the mailbox led him to give $5 to 150 families instead. $5 was equivalent to about $100 now.
Mr. B. Virdot was actually a man named Sam Stone, who happened to be Ted Gup's grandfather. Ted found a pack of letters among other family papers in an old suitcase. He spent some time hunting down the life records of the families who received money from his grandfather, and talking with whichever descendants he could find. Each letter is heartbreaking in its own unique way, but the stories are a mix of heartbreak and hope. Some families endured and went on to enjoy better days; other families crumbled completely.
As the mother of three school age children, it's hard to imagine that a 7-year-old would be sent out each day, taking several buses to get out of town, where he would use the shotgun he'd toted along to kill whatever wildlife he could find to feed his family. Other young children worked all day on farms, then went out to deliver newpapers. It's amazing what they were asked to do. Childhood ended very early.
Other families could not go on any longer. Orphanages swelled with the influx of children who were dropped off by their parents, in the hopes that the children would be warm and fed at the orphanage.
But the small gift that these families received from Sam Stone brought a light into the darkness and brought hope to some of the benefactors. The book also recounts other ways that neighbor helped neighbor. Doctors practiced medicine with little hope of being repaid. Dairies sent the milk orders out, regardless of outstanding bills. Even the man hired to guard the coal cars at the train station knocked a few pieces off so that the children waiting to grab whatever bits were left behind would have something to take home.
It's hard not to think about another theme I've been hearing lately, the uptick in narcissism and entitlement among American youth today. It is a problem of riches, I think. And far be it from me to be too condescending about the narcissism of others, as I blog away my every thought about the books I read!
Bill McKibben's book Eaarth, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago, emphasized the need to grow close communities and deep relationships to maneuver through the changes that will come as our fossil fuels are depleted and climate change affects society. Regardless of what you think of those possibilities, close community is something that benefits everyone. And when Hard Times come, as they do at different times and different places around the world, it is our compassion and love for each other that God can use to comfort and to heal.
An interesting subtext to the book is Gup's investigation into his own grandfather, Sam Stone. Sam never disclosed the circumstances of his youth, and Gup decided it was time he and his family knew more. He learned about his grandfather's childhood as a Jew in Romania, and how this may have impacted the way he lived his life in America, for better and for worse.
A Secret Gift was not a quick read for me. Each person or family story was brief, and just as I got to know one, it was time to move on to another. That slows me down as I read. But I feel that I've learned a lot about history, about the different ways people survive and thrive, and about the need for love to make that thriving possible.
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