Parental Dreams Vs Reality

Blessings Darlings!

When I was a kid, my father wanted me to become a teacher.  He felt that teachers would always have good jobs.

This was odd from the get-go, since not only was he a lawyer, but his oldest sister was, too (and was the first woman to graduate from whatever law school in Chicago she went to, just before the Great Depression hit).  And I have never had any interest in teaching (Yes, that I ended up home schooling is irony that I totally appreciate).  But, yeah, his two other sisters became teachers.

But look at what's happening to teachers today, both in general and in Chicago, and what happened to them during the Great Depression.  Now in Chicago they are being fired and schools are closing, due to 'monetary issues'.  In the Great Depression they didn't close schools ... but the teachers didn't get paid! 

There are all the other issues with teaching, too - having to supply much of one's own supplies, burnout, being asked to do more stuff and less teaching, the high burn out rate - but certainly my father, who was 26 at the time of the stock market crash, should have known how teachers got screwed during the Depression.

I remain confused.

Frondly, Fern

Great Depression Story

Blessings Darlings!

Times were tough back in the Depression.  They were especially tough if your father was an alcoholic who had been fired from his job as an insurance salesman and your mother was abusive, and you were still in high school.

This was the situation my Mother In Law was in. 

As a result, they somehow ended up on some rural farmland during the Depression.  I don't know if they owned the land, how much land there was, or where in Illinois the land was.  It was not located 'in town', or walking distance from the high school.

They made it thru', obviously, or she'd not have married and had a son that I ended up marrying. 

They grew stuff and had a farm stand.  I suppose they grew all sorts of things - but what she says got them by were two main crops:  Sorghum, which was pressed for sweetener; and Kentucky Wonder pole beans.  Perhaps these were their 'cash crops', while most other things they grew they consumed and sold only extras.

But while what they raised 'got them by', they didn't provide enough for her to go to high school.  She left home (moved out permanently? during the school year? During the school week only?) to live with the widow who ran the general store in town, working for her after school, to get thru' high school.  That way she could get to school by walking and earned enough cash to pay for books/supplies and clothes and such.

This year, the first growing season after my Mother In Law has passed on, I'm going to grow my first Kentucky Wonder beans, in her honor.

Frondly, Fern