Common Wealth, Common Wisdom

Labels: auction, geofeed, Hanawa Falls, NCPR, photo, photo essay, Roger Huntley

Labels: Canton, Elders, experience, geofeed, Great Depression, history, internship, interview, Jennifer, journey, Ruth Garner

It was our first meeting with the elders we'll be seeing regularly for the next five weeks - Bill, Mickey, Anne and Roger, and Ruth. We met them outside and helped them each get into the sunroom and seated. The sandwiches soon arrived and the sound of clicking plastic containers filled the air. We went around the circle, repeating our names and saying a fruit that started with the same letter as our name- Gregory grapefruit, Kolby kiwi, Anne apple, Mike melon, and so on. We laughed as we went around the circle, trying to remember the names that had already been said.

We paired off and sat down to have a short chat about their lives. I spoke with 93-year-old Deputy Mayor Ruth Garner. She told me that women in her time had only three career options: nursing, teaching, or secretarial work. Ruth was the first woman in 140 years to be on the Potsdam town board. People told her she couldn't do it, but she knocked on doors in Potsdam and got the support. Later, she became mayor. Now, she said, over half the mayors in New York are women. Ruth is ready to change with the times. She showed me a shamrock tattoo she'd gotten just a few months earlier. The tattoo was for the Zootoo fundraiser in Potsdam.

When we got back together as a group we played another game, this one harder than the one before. Our partner would close his or her eyes, and we had to transport them to another place using only sounds. It wasn't easy, but it was definitely fun. I heard bells from Ruth and went to a church, Anne went golfing with Jen, and Laura took Greg to Montreal. Bill, who flew planes in World War II, took Chelsea on a plane ride. He put her hands on pretend controls and she says it was easy to visualize being in a physical plan and in the air. "I had a bumpy landing," she said.

We ended by talking about entrepreneurship. Everybody gave three words that represented entrepreneurship to them. Creativity, risk, resourceful, leadership, independence, and courage were a few of the words used. Some mentioned unexpected words, like "dependence." Ruth talked about the importance of "brevity," saying that to be an entrepreneur meant not just coming up with ideas but listening to others, too.

Labels: Brenna, Elders, Meeting, Ruth Garner, Teens

Labels: geofeed, interview, NCPR, Norfolk, North Country

Bingo numbers echo as senior citizens ranging from seventy into their late eighties gather at the Norfolk Community Center to play bingo and chat. The ice has melted from the arena to reveal a gray cement ground underneath lawn chairs and makeshift bingo stations. Even though my age and inexperience with bingo sets me apart, the atmosphere radiates a comforting sense of community between the elders and volunteers involved. Here I meet Louise Hardy, a petite woman with an enchanting smile. Her charm lies in her modest reluctance to share details of her life during the Great Depression. She prefers to give me a history lesson on FDR rather than share personal experiences. Her peers share the same modesty, refreshing compared to my teenage peers who commonly reveal the most personal of details, unprovoked. After my more persistent inquiries, she reveals details about her youth during the Great Depression.

Born in 1929 in Gouverneur, New York, Louise remembers happy times during the Great Depression. Somewhat isolated from more rural and devastated economies, she lived in town close to the Hardy's department store her father owned. She remembers the marble sidewalks (a product of a local marble quarry), hopscotch, "kick the can", rolly polly, and chalk drawings. She tells me children kept themselves occupied by spending time with each other instead of electronics.

However, Louise was not completely sheltered from the depression-impoverished farming community. "Gouverneur was the home of retired farmers...Farm people would come in on Saturday and the streets would be so crowded you couldn't hardly get through!" she says with a small laugh and a smile. The socially connected Gouverneur community during the 1930s enabled Louise to have more knowledge and compassion toward farmers. Louise says, "I felt for the farmers myself...Our system [didn't] seem to work just right economically."

Despite finding faults in the American economy, Louise speaks fondly of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, stating, "He was a wonderful president for all the programs he devised." She remembers, for example, that "many of the local boys [were] employed by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps)". "During the Depression, if you made a dollar a day that was pretty good - for ordinary labor" says Louise. I find this recollection reiterated at each bingo table I visit.

Louise remembers Saturdays in Gouverneur filled with conversation and busy streets. I see her eyes lost in the memory of her childhood again, and the almost lost concept of a sociable town. The ladies around her agree that despite the Great Depression there was "less fear" between people, more interaction, and more community involvement than today. I left Louise wondering if our current recession could be resolved with a change in values. Perhaps individuality with cooperation would result in not only a healthier economy, but also a healthier society.

Labels: Civilian Conservation Corps, farming, geofeed, Great Depression, interview, Jennifer, NCPR, Norfolk, North Country, Northern New York, society

Doreen Lorock was born in 1934 near Governeur. During the Great Depression she remembers going to her grandparents house and finding nothing to play with. She and her friends had to make up their own games. She loved being outside and she went swimming a lot, and loved to pick flowers and berries. As a teenager, she worked at a restaurant baking many pies every Sunday.

At age sixteen, Doreen graduated high school. She got accepted to Cornell University and SUNY Plattsburgh, but her family didn't have enough money to send her there. She got married at age eighteen and started having children. Doreen ended up not going to college until decades later. She graduated when she was 40 years old at the same time as her oldest son.

Labels: College, geofeed, Governeur, Great Depression, Kolby, Teenager

Gordon sat behind a desk surrounded by coolers, selling soda to the other seniors. He was extremely tan, as if he'd he'd spent a lot of time outdoors during his life. He looked down at the table, kind of drawn into himself; when I asked him to share his life story, he responded with a less-than-enthusiastic, "Sure, I guess." Gordon told me about his life modestly, as if he didn't feel what he was saying had much importance. But once he started talking, he kept talking. I never had to prod him with questions.

Born in Lowville in 1938, Gordon didn't have much money growing up, but felt a rich sense of community. He never felt terribly impoverished, as neighbors always took care of one another; they had what they needed. One Christmas his father gave him a ring-toss game crafted from the rubbers of canning jars. Gordon told me it's still one of his most memorable Christmas presents. Gordon worked odd jobs for several years and then raised the union fee necessary to get a job at Alcoa, an aluminum company in Massena. He worked there most of his life before retiring in 2000.

When he retired, Gordon and his wife started traveling. He told me about the places he visited: Of the beautiful string band he'd heard at a church in Hawaii; of the pickpocket in Spain whose attempt to steal Gordon's wallet left him with merely a pack of tissues; of the "candy-cane shaped roads" along the coast of California.

His wife had been sick for a long time with a heart condition, but she never wanted her life to slow down. Finally, last year, she became too sick to travel. Her kidneys failed and Gordon found himself going back and forth between the hospital. She passed away last year. "She lived for life," his soda-selling partner, Shirley, said. Hearing Gordon talk about her, knowing what she meant to him, I found myself wanting to know her, wishing I could have experienced this person who could spark such intense feeling in the man beside me.

Labels: Brenna, Community, geofeed, Lowville, Memories, Neighbors, North Country, Observation, Travel

Zelda Thomas sat looking expectantly at me, her large glasses magnifying the wrinkles on her face. I thanked her for letting me talk to her as I squeezed a grey, rusted folding chair onto a section of hard concrete floor between the aging card table and another group of elders whose canes stuck out dangerously into aisles.
Zelda Thomas was born in 1914 and raised by her grandparents on their farm. She became a teacher at a one-room schoolhouse in Russell. "We made soup at school," she remembered. Students would have potatoes for lunch and then bring soup home for their families. For Zelda, the Depression happened so slowly she hardly noticed it. Living on a farm, her family was more self-sufficient than others who lived in town. "We had cows, pigs, chickens. That's what we must have eaten" she said.
Zelda is 95 years old and doesn't hear so well. Each time I asked her a question, she would lean in closer to me with her eyes closed, then lean back and open them as she answered. But not hearing well also has its advantages. Zelda's friends always want her to drive them around, because she never gets distracted by their talking.

Labels: chelsea, Depression, geofeed, Norfolk, Observation, Picnic, Russell