Growing up in the depression
There are always some stories going around about what it was like in the great depression in the 1930's because there seems to be the fear that we are headed in the direction because of the economic conditions at this time. That't not going to happen with all this money floating around except for those perhaps who have lost everyhing. But conditions are not even close to those of that day. One of my greatest joys was once as a kid I found a Popsicle stick in the gutter which offered a free Popsicle if it was returned to the store for a free one. So that kept me with my eyes in the gutter for a long time looking for another free Popsicle. Which never happened of course.
One way to get money for a kid in those days however was to try to sell the Seattle Times or Seattle PI or even the Seattle Star. The Times and PI sold for 5 cents and the Star for 3 cents. I'm talking about 1933 or 34. Almost an impossibility because someone already had the good routes or had the best street corner paper shacks.
My solution was try to to sell for Neversleep a black guy who had a shack on 12th and Jackson. I guess he lived in it although I don't know how he managed the other necessity of living needs.
There is a big difference between selling papers on the corner just past the light where people could stop and make their purchase as compared to the other side which only allowed you to sell while the light was red and the cars were stopped. In their archives the times has an article on Neversleep. I would go to Neversleep and get some papers from him and sell on commission. The other solution was to walk downtown to the Star and buy a few papers to sell somewhere. We lived at 1415 Jackson (in the back of course) I never knew where the Times and PI were. Probably too far for a 11 or 12 year old to walk from 12th and Jackson. But as the star sold for 3 cents even though you might sell one occasionally what point was it when your profit was probably 1 cent per paper. Because the Star sold for 3 cents there wasn't much incentive for paperboys to sell it. I think that was a main reason the Star folded. No one wanted to sell it when you could sell the PI or Times for a nickel. Why they couldn't figure that out is beyond me. So concurrent with an occasional effort to sell papers for Neversleep I bugged Western Union for a job delivering telegrams. In those days there was Western Union and Postal Telegraph delivering telegrams. Another system falling to progress.The telephone was coming into use and if there was a telegram for a house that had a telegram Western Union would just phone the message. Long distance was still more than a telegram. But as rates came down the telegraph business fell off and there was less need for delivery boys. This created less business for delivery boys and less pay. So we were back to making less money and how to fix that. One way was to form a Union and force Western Union to pay more. Which is what we did in the middle 30's. But that only forced the company to do it's utmost to telephone more messages. My future father in law who was depot agent for Railway Express Agency asked the boss at WU why WU paid so little who told him the didn't want the boys to make a career out of it. A lie of course because WU was on it's way out of course.
By the time I got a job delivering telegrams my mother had moved the family to Fremont at 3410 Albion Place almost under the Aurora bridge. A city bus driver got assaulted on the bridge while driving his bus some years ago and ran it off the bridge and it fell where the house would have been if it had not been demolished. I was able to make 6 or 7 dollars a week if lucky.
Messengers knew most of the secrets of the city. Where all the whore houses were for instance. There were some cribs not more than 2 or 3 blocks from city hall. There were a string of them on Yesler Way on the south side over where the freeway passes under now. City hall and the PD were in a triangle building about 5th and Yesler. There were more a block down on Washington street. The women were not above accosting boys like me when I might be walking by on my way to the downtown library. Some have contested this location and said they were only on Washington street. There were other places of prostitution here and there. Always on the second floor. These were the best places to deliver because the girls most likely would give a tip. I delivered the first singing telegram in Seattle to a party in an apartment house about 7th and Union now long gone of course. I got a 50 cent tip which was not bad in those days.
In those days WU also delivered packages around town. This is still being done buy other message services of other kinds. Getting hurt was always a danger. I think messengers always got hurt usually when they first started and got the hang of riding around town. Not always by cars however.
Hard times? Yes. Of course there were no lunch for the poor kids. If you could afford to pay yes. My mother managed to for me to earn a lunch by cleaning the restrooms. Both Boys and girls rest rooms. I cant remember how long I did it. But when we moved out to Ballard and I went to school there I had no lunches except what I brought with me. Which was no doubt peanut butter and jam most of the time.
You won't find me opposing school lunches, food stamps and other aid to keep the poor from starving. But I am sure there is graft, corruption and other waste which should be rooted out to make sure the needy get the help they need. That will happen when it stops raining in Seattle.
Have a nice day.
-- --------Fishing in Alaska ---------nowaytofish.blogspot.com --------- Doyal and I put ours on even though we couldn't live more than 10 or 15 minutes in water like that. Too far to swim and the dinghy wouldn't hold us all.--------------- 4 years in 3rd Inf in WW2 billswar.blogspot.com My less heroic contribution. seniorobserver.blogspot.com* KE7PLR Established (born)Aug. 23, 1921
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