Feeding Americans during the Great Depression

No, not the great depression we seem to be having now in the early 2020's. 

Today's economic depression is related to our COVID pandemic and poorly managed financial interventions at the Fed level. The title above refers instead to the depression that gripped the US in the 1930's. The one that ended with pretty much everyone in the US having a job because we were at war in Europe, Africa, Asia and in the Pacific. 

Hang in there- it will take a bit of meandering to get to the story which fits the title.

My maternal grandparents were Lewis Edward Ross and Violet Mae Walsh. They both were born in 1888 in Angels Camp, California. As locals there tell the story, Angels was kinda the gold mining capital of the Gold Rush. And of course that's not stricty true since gold was first discovered at Sutters Creek in 1849- a goodly distance from Angels Camp. I've also heard labels like Center of the Mother Lode and the Comstock Lode. 

Angels is named for Louis Angel who sold equipment and supplies to the miners in the area. It was initially Angel's Camp but our beloved USPS doesn't like apostrophes. Angels got it's moment of fame when Samuel Clemens (you know him as Mark Twain) lived there for awhile in 1865 and penned the short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. It was his first major success as a writer.

Even with all that as a backdrop, my maternal grandparents were not fans of working in, near or for the mines. So when the opportunity presented itself they married and managed to escape to a small town near Stockton, California. Lockeford is today a 'census designated location' but in early US Census data as recent as 1950 it is lumped together with other population centers as part of Elliott, California... which is not on any map I can find.

Here's a photo of the two of them marching along on Treasure Island during the World Exposition of 1939. Treasure Island is (kinda) connected to the mid-point of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in San Francisco Bay. The mid-point is Yerba Buena Island, dedicated to use by the US Coast Guard. Treasure Island was land fill built for the World Exposition of 1939. Getting to drive to San Francisco from Lockeford was a big deal especially since it involved staying the night in San Francisco at one of the hotels. Unfortunately that trip pretty much marked the end of travel for them.

Lewis and Mae Ross at the Worlds Exposition on Treasure Island. San Francisco Bay, California

Within a year of this photo my grandmother Mae Ross was paraplegic, confined to a wheel chair after she was stricken by polio. A couple years later Lewis Ross lost one leg after his foot became infected. He had diabetes which left him with poor circulation in his feet as well as very little feeling. When he stepped on a needle, he didn't feel it. His foot became infected and he didn't know till the infection had progressed and it was too late. The story repeated itself a dozen years later when he lost his other leg in a similar way. So both maternal grandparents ended up in wheel chairs.

My mother might have said her mother, Violet Mary (Mae) Walsh, was as Irish as Paddy's pig. Not strictly true as Mae was born in the US but hopefully you get the idea. She was raised a Catholic and went to mass at St. Patrick's in Angels (that church is still standing but today it serves as a Serbian Orthodox church- St. Basil of Ostrog). Her strongest swear words were 'dot damn'. Those of her family who preceded her in death are buried in the Angels Catholic Cemetery and include surnames like Walsh, Cates and Osborn/Osborne with a smattering of other traditional Irish names. Mae and Lewis Edward are buried in the Lockeford Cemetery on Locke Rd just outside Lockeford.

Mae and Lewis had 4 kids- my mother Dolores Agnes; Jean, who died as an infant; my uncle Robert Emmet; and my aunt Catherine Jean. It sounds like Jean was an important person to one or the other of them but so far I've been unable to trace its origin in family history. Mae's sister Ann Walsh Deveggio. Ann's granddaughter is named Jean Shipman- another instance of Jean.

Lewis Edward apparently worked at one or more grocery stores in the area. He gained the experience he needed to open his own grocery probably in the 1920s. 

And now the story behind the title...

Ross Grocery in Lockeford, California ca. 1940

Lewis Edward owned and managed the grocery store in the town of Lockeford. Ross Grocery was located in the IOOF Hall building (the International Order of Odd Fellows; he was a member). It was conveniently located in that farm area and provided the food for most of the people in Lockeford, the adjacent town of Clements, plus many families on outlying farms. The store was popular in part because it saved the drive into nearby Stockton for groceries. And there was a meat market that was just around the corner (they eventually knocked down the wall that separated the 2 businesses saving a walk around the outside corner to get to the other store.

During the depression of the 1930s there were many families who had insufficient money to buy enough groceries to feed everyone. Kind soul that he was, Lewis Edward extended credit to these families so they could eat. Not an easy thing to do since he still had to pay for the goods as they arrived at his store without necessarily having received the cash to cover the supplies.

Most families found work at some point during the depression and eventually paid the tab they had accrued. But there were a few that just never had enough cash to pay off the balance. When Lewis Edward died in 1968, my mother Doris Agnes acted as executor. When Doris Agnes went thru the books (Lewis Edward did his own bookkeeping) she discovered that there were a couple families who were still paying off the balance at $5.00 per month- the amount that had been agreed to during the depression. Life wasn't easy for everyone in the Central Valley during the Great Depression as the population soared, driven in large part because of the 'dust bowl' (drought) in Kansas and Oklahoma. 

As an aside, Doris Agnes sent letters to the families that were still paying that debt 'forgiving' the remaining balance- a legal term provided by the lawyer assisting her as executor. So for some families the Great Depression wasn't over until sometime in 1968.