Surviving the Great Depression

    In an old wooden house surrounded by miles of swampland and thick forests, the wind howled and rain battered the tin roof as thunder crackled and roared in the night. Charles leaned over his dear old father who was shuddering with pain and fear of death. His trembling father Alonzo, plagued with the treacherous effects of mustard gas from WWI, told his son with a weak voice, “Charles, take care of your mother and the family for me.” He coughed hoarsely and said, “Your mother needs you more than ever now son.” With those final words, Charles kissed his father’s cold forehead and walked outside where ominous clouds loomed above in the stormy night. The eighteen-year-old boy was faced with a great dilemma with his family in dire need of help and his country at the brink of war.   

    It was a humid, warm morning as the clean uniformed young man stood on the front stoop of the home where he had been brought up. His mother grasped his shoulders and turned him around to give him a kiss goodbye as he entered the world that promised battle and honor. The day was to be another scorching hot Northern Florida day where the air was heavy and low and the Spanish moss draped from the trees and the walnuts lay upon the summer morning ground, cool with the dew from the night before.

    “We are so proud of you Charles. Your father would be a proud man to see you today.” Charles’ mother Lula said.

    “I’ll miss you and the family, mother. I will write and send you money when I get there.” Charles thought to himself about all the times he was about to leave behind as he walked onto the country road leading to the bus station. He could never forget his family nor the hardships of growing up in the Great Depression.

    As he made his way through the town he grew up in, he walked slowly, recalling all the times when life seemed hopeless and other times when there was hope and reason to be thankful. He remembered the early years of his life when he had first moved here from Kansas. “Was it  really that long ago?” he murmured under his breath as he walked through the humid morning air.

    He was born on a farm in rural Kansas and he spent the first few years of his life there. His father Alonzo, an old World War I veteran, a humorous and good-natured man was a hardworking farmer. His wife Lula, a beautiful woman, trained in the field of nursing, was a strict and stern woman but loving just the same.

    A cool breeze pierced the heavy Florida morning air and instantly reminded Charles of  the cold summer mornings in Kansas when he used to play in the fields by the farm. His mother was calling him in for breakfast. “Come in honey. Charlie, breakfast is ready.” His mother would yell out the back door. He would rush to the house and fling open the screen door, smelling the fresh eggs and ham on the kitchen stove. Father was reading the Saturday Evening Post with Norman Rockwell’s weekly painting on the front cover. The radio was playing a pleasant little tune “Just One More Chance” by Bing Crosby. Charles baby sister Mary was crying and the dog was barking at the chickens outside.

    “Those were the days,” thought Charles in his tightly knit green U.S. Army Air Corps uniform. As he walked down the country road nearing the town, he looked back down the road. His old house was far away now, almost completely hidden by the forests and swamps of the backwoods. While he was looking back, he recalled the frightful day his father Alonzo had his first stroke.

    The family was still living in Kansas and it was early winter. There was a cold, brisk breeze from the North that morning sweeping across the plains. Father always woke up early and would be feeding the chickens and horses before sunrise. This morning, however, he was not outside. The family found him sprawled across the kitchen floor, knocked out cold, with the dog by his side whimpering. Lula phoned the doctor immediately. He arrived soon after and asked her questions for a while after reviving Alonzo. It turned out Alonzo had suffered a major stroke mainly because of the deadly after-effects of the mustard gas he had been exposed to during World War I, while he had fought in Europe under General Pershing.

    Charles kept walking and recollected the reason the family had moved to Florida. Alonzo was so weak from the stroke that he would not be able to live through another Kansas winter. The family had to move south. “We’re going down to where your Uncle Sidney and Aunt Mabel live Charlie,” said his mother.

     “Okay mommy,” the little Charles said innocently and helplessly. Rougher times were soon to come thought Charles, now all grown up and toughened by the years of sweat, work, and tears he had spent in Florida.

    As he stepped along the muddy road to town, Charles remembered a similar route his family had taken to their new home many years before. When the family came to Florida, they were surprised at the thickness of the southern air. The swamps and stringy Spanish moss hanging from the trees was foreign to the farmers from the Mid West. The new farm was originally a shack with some fences around the property, which was located on Sidney and Mabel’s land plot. Charles could clearly remember the struggle of setting up the house and farm. Eventually, the place felt a little closer to home.

    The smell of citrus fruit trees in the air as Charles walked along the road reminded him of his father’s citrus crops. “I sure would like to have one of those juicy Florida grapefruits right about now,” thought Charles as he remembered the mornings he used to wake up and eat the grapefruits his father made in the fields around the house. The family also grew vegetables in the gardens eventually and raised chickens and horses on the plot of land they had been given. 

    “Times were not always so easy though," Charles nodded his head knowingly. The year he began grade school in 1929, the stock market crashed. The unemployment rate all over the country skyrocketed. Luckily, thought Charles, his father still received a small pension from the American Legion of about forty to fifty dollars a month. Mother had to practice nursing  downtown in order to accumulate enough money to feed the family when Alonzo was not feeling well. His little brother Sid was born making for one more mouth to feed. Charles remembered asking his mother once, “Mommy, are we poor?” 

    She seemed upset by the question and said, “Who put that rubbish into your mind young man?”

    “Some boys at school were making fun of me and called me poor.” “Well you tell them I’ll give them a knuckle sandwich if they don’t wise up ye’ hear?”

    “Yes ma’am.” Charles chuckled to himself and remembered how tough his mother had always been.

    While passing a row of pecan trees alongside the road, Charles remembered that times were not always so bad. He remembered his good childhood friend Jimmy Peacock and how they used to go on wild adventures around town. One time, young Charles said, “Jimmy, let’s go to that pecan tree orchard over in Old Jennings’ fields, and steal us some pecans.” Jimmy shrugged and followed alongside Charles. Charles climbed up the pecan tree and shook the top branches where the pecans were most dense. He knocked down quite a few, but while reaching for a branch to shake, he stumbled forward and fell downwards. “Ahhhh!” Charles shrieked as he fell to the ground, hitting a branch on the way down. Charles made a thud on the ground and Jimmy stared in awe, trying to remember what to do in case of an emergency like he had learned in school from the “Dick and Jane” books. He ran back home for help and said to Mrs. Peacock, “Charles has fallen from the pecan tree mommy!” She almost fainted and hurried over to Charles who was knocked out cold. Charles woke up in bed with a cold, wet cloth over his head.

    His mother was screaming and yelling at him asking, “What in the world did you think you were doing climbing up a tree like that? You could have damn near killed yourself.”

    The morning air was becoming a little warmer as the sun peeked through the tall trees looming above. Charles looked down at the thick mud on the sides of the roads. He could recall  back when his family had been “dirt poor” during the Great Depression. “Those years were the toughest,” he thought. Life was not easy, but it was getting better. Charles could remember the family gathering around the one luxury in the house, a radio. Every Saturday night, Alonzo would sit in his rocking chair across from Lula and smoke his pipe while the children would lie on the linoleum floor. Their president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, would broadcast his “Fireside Chats” and the family would listen intently. He would assure the country in dire need of help that The New Deal would fulfill the promise of the American dream and help solve the problems of the millions of Americans deeply affected by the Great Depression. Charles would never forget Roosevelt’s famous line, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

    Charles walked past the old short cut he used to take on his bike route as a child. After receiving a second hand bike for his birthday one year, Charles delivered the Saturday Evening Post, waking up at four o’clock and getting back home at six o’clock to get a half hour of rest before getting ready for school. Charles sold the newspapers at five cents a piece and made a two-cent profit. All the money he made went to his parents who put it under the linoleum rug in the living room in an envelope. Charles looked up at the big blue, hazy morning sky and remembered how he came to truly appreciate money and learn to save it by doing that bike route for so many years.

    Before Charles reached the bus stop at the intersection of the country road and the only paved road in town, he looked to his left to see the spring training baseball field. “What a great place that was to visit when I was a little guy.” Charles reminisced. During the spring, Charles would go to the spring training ballpark and watch the big leaguers play. He would watch the New York Yankees and Boston Braves play. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were his favorite Yankees players to watch. Since he could not afford to get tickets for the games, he would stand on his bicycle seat, look over the big green fences in the outfield, and watch the game. When he got home one day his mother said, “So you were at the ballpark today Charlie?”  

    He looked puzzled and said, “How’d you know that?”     She chuckled and said, “The green paint on your shirt is from that darned outfield fence at the ballpark.” Charles realized this and shrugged.  Even though his family was nearly penniless at times, he found ways to enjoy life.

    “How I wish life could be that simple again,” Charles thought. Life only became more complicated for Charles. His father had been ailing steadily. Charles could see the town graveyard in the distance where his father had been buried after his last stroke. “That was the saddest day of my life,” recalled Charles. The dreadful night Charles lost his father, he felt hopeless and lost in a treacherous and unforgiving world.     Charles painfully reflected on his father’s death. He could recall how the passing of Alonzo had left the family in a terrible state of emotional and financial depression. It was the year 1937 and Charles was only fourteen years of age at the time. As the oldest boy in the family, he took the fatherly role of the house.  His mother became a full-time nurse to support the family. There was little money in the family and times were worse than they had ever been. The first luxury to go was the kitchen radio, which the family had once gathered around to listen to Roosevelt’s “Fireside Chats.” Family heirlooms and trinkets were sold at yard sales to provide the family with enough extra money to make it during those difficult years after Alonzo’s death. Charles thought about those years when the feeling of hopelessness was overwhelming and poverty seemed unavoidable.

    In the back of his mind, Charles knew that without his help in leading the family after Alonzo’s death, the family would have fallen into an inevitable pit of destitution. He took pride in the thought that he had helped lift his family out of the depths of the Great Depression.

    Charles was now nineteen and the country had declared war on Japan and Germany. Charles watched as his childhood friends registered and went off to war. He was anxious to fight for his country yet was bound to helping his family. The posters of Uncle Sam in town always tugged at Charles. How could he turn his back on his family and ignore the poignant last words of his father? It was a compelling dilemma of morals that Charles faced. “How do I decide?” thought Charles, tortured by the decision he would have to make. “I know dad would want me to serve my country, as he was always proud of his WWI service. Perhaps I could send money home to the family and support it from afar.” A new idea that had dawned upon him gave him a renewed hope. He spoke to the family and gained their confidence in time. His love for his country and family was wholehearted and genuine. This courageous young man was facing a time in his life full of hope and uncertainty with the strength and resolve that his parents had instilled in him while the family struggled through the Great Depression.

    The sun was now high in the sky and it was almost noon on the hot, balmy Florida day. As the bus pulled up at the stop, Charles made his last glance at the home he was about to leave behind. He would never forget this place. With a tear in his eye, he boarded the bus and was off to fight for his country in the Second World War with nothing to fear but fear itself.

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Presentation by Grandson Raphael Gregory Perrino at Charles Nuzum’s Funeral, August 6, 2008

Grandpa

To veterans, my Grandpa was a B-24 pilot, expunging the Nazi threat from Italy,

To his mother Lula, sister Mary, and brother Sid, he was the bedrock of their home—he took care of them after Alonzo’s fatal stroke,

To the Bureau, my Grandpa was the agent-in-charge in the most sweeping referendum on government corruption in U.S. history,

To his family, my Grandpa was a loving husband and a father—a father who cared for his little girl Denise, little boy Chuck, and loving wife Joy,

To his Kiwanian brothers, he was a founding member, a man of great integrity, a man who stood by his word, and a man who loved to show “A little humor there,”

To a young man from Naples, Italy, my Grandpa was a caretaker; he opened his home to Sergio, and was a father to him,

And to a select few, my Grandpa was a small boy, living in North Florida during the Great Depression, climbing pecan trees in Old Jennings’s orchard and watching Babe

Ruth and Lou Gehrig play exhibition games during the springtime,

My Grandpa left an indelible imprint of love and character on this world, 

And I was no exception to this imprint,

To me, Grandpa was Grandpa. He would offer “fine preserves” and fresh figs. He was the connoisseur of healthy cereals—a master golfer—boiled peanut extraordinaire—a man of manners (no elbows on the table)—a chain e-mailer—a cigar aficionado—a squirrel shooter—a handyman and a fine gardener—a golf ball hunting expert—a diehard Redskins fan—a warm smile and timeless chuckle—and someone who I loved dearly.

He was my Grandpa.

With eternal love,

Raphael Gregory Perrino

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