Ancestor Archives: Garland Eugene Macy (1924-2009) Part 1: Growing Up in the Great Depression

by Rocky Macy 

(Note:  Today begins a three-part profile on the life of my father, Garland Eugene Macy.  This section, “Growing Up in the Great Depression,” will be followed by accounts of the other two significant segments of his life:   “Becoming an Adult in World War II,”  and “Chasing the American Dream.”   Those will be posted in the coming days. 

There are seven other biographical sketches on my dad contained elsewhere in this blog, but this current effort is intended to be the definitive depiction of his life - at least as seen from my perspective.  The primary source material for this effort is a journal which Dad completed in 1997 and 1998 - at my urging.  My sister, Gail Macy, and I each have copies of that journal - as do all seven of Dad’s grandchildren.  Hopefully most of those copies are still in existence and will be available to future family researchers - and if anyone needs another, call me. Sources other than that journal will be noted as they are used.)

Overview:

Garland Eugene Macy was born on October 19th, 1924, in a remote section of Newton County, Missouri, at the home of his parents, Charles Eugene and Hazel Josephine (NUTT) MACY.   He married Ruby Florine SREAVES on March 31st, 1946, at a marriage parlor in Columbus, Kansas.  Garland MACY passed away at Freeman Hospital in Neosho, Missouri, at 1:30 a.m. on Christmas Day, 2009.

Part 1:   Growing Up in the Great Depression  

Garland Macy was born at his family’s home in Dayton Township of Newton County, Missouri, approximately halfway between the towns of Seneca and Neosho.  He was the second oldest of what would eventually become a family of four children.  His brother Wayne Hearcel was was about six weeks shy of his third birthday when Baby Garland arrived.  The family eventually had two more children who died at birth or soon after, and two additional ones who survived to adulthood:  Tommy Dean and Betty Joan.

The closest doctor at the time of my father’s birth was seven-and-a-half miles away in Sencea, so midwives were commonly used to deliver babies.   My father’s maternal grandmother, Louella (PRITCHARD) MACY was the midwife who assisted with his birth.  He said in his journal that he had been born a “blue baby.”

Dad described his family home as a “two-room shack” which sat on twenty acres.  He said one room was a bedroom that contained two beds which pointed in different directions, and the other room served as a living room and kitchen.  Canned goods were kept under the beds, and there was one closet for use by the entire family.  Apparently he and Wayne slept in the bedroom when they were little, but when the other two children came along the older boys slept in what my dad described as a “floorless attic” - and to stay warm at night they curled up around the chimney.  When Dad was about ten or so his maternal grandfather, Tom NUTT, a carpenter, added two rooms to the house which he made out of native lumber, an improvement that gave the family two bedrooms and a separate kitchen.

Dad was born during the boom times of the Roaring Twenties, but there was no “boom” or “roar” out in his impoverished neighborhood.  His family and all of the neighbors were so poor that many of them did not notice much in the way of changes when the Great Depression hit following the stock market crash of 1929.  I suspect though, from various clues in his journal, that Dad knew his family was the poorest around.  He talked about playing on the ice on the ponds in the winter, but noted that his family had no pond on their land.  He also mentioned - a couple of times - that he and his cousin, Lee MACY, whom he described as his “best friend,” would often play “cars” with old medicine bottles on the dirt sides of the root cellar at Lee’s house, and then mentioned that his own parents had no root cellar, but that they would bury apples, turnips, and potatoes in the ground in straw-lined holes to keep them fresh, and then dig them up in the winter - and he said those “fresh” apples were especially good at Christmastime.   

My dad was focused on making money at a very early age, and he had dreams of owning a nice home and a car.  He built rabbit traps and caught rabbits and other small game.  He would send the rabbits into Neosho with their milk hauler (the man who picked up the milk from the local farms and took it to the milk processors in town).  The milk hauler had a special cage on his truck for the rabbits, which he sold in town for fifteen to twenty-five cents each.  The hauler kept a cut for himself and brought the remainder of the proceeds back to the young businessman.  Dad’s notes said that at one time he had twenty-five to fifty traps - and maybe more - that were made out of old barn board, hollow logs, and anything else he could find. He had the traps spread out for about a half mile all around the family home.

Dad said that on the night his younger brother, Tommy Dean MACY, was born, December 27th, 1930, he and Wayne were sent to stay overnight at a neighbor’s house.  It snowed during the night, and the next morning the neighbor asked young Garland if he was anxious to get home and see his new baby brother.  Dad told the neighbor that the first thing he wanted to do was to “run” his rabbit traps!  He would have been six-years-old, barely.

Dad also revealed in his journal that he made money in his childhood as a peddler, selling anything he could come up with door-to-door, including several periodicals like “The Grit.”  He also worked with his dad cutting the wood in summer that they would need for heat and cooking in the winter.  He and Chock, his father, used a two-man crosscut saw to get the trees into chunks that could then be split for firewood.  Dad helped with plowing, milking, and tending to the chickens, all as part of standard farm life.  He also hired out to work for one of his uncles, Arnold MACY (Lee’s dad), pulling sprouts, picking apples, and running the cider press, and he worked with the threshing crew whenever it came through the area.

My dad and his siblings went to the Westview country school which served grades one through ten.  It was a two-mile walk to and from school on a country lane.  He said that when there was snow on the ground he would wrap his shoes with burlap bags.  He reported heavy snowfalls and said that if he jumped into a ditch the snow would often be up to his head.

Dad was a bright kid and was promoted directly from grade one to grade three, an accomplishment that did not sit well with some of his friends and cousins who also attended Westview.     He was small to begin with, and skipping a grade made him exceptionally small for his class.  He liked baseball and basketball, but was too small for the teams.  He said that he switched schools one year and went to Number Four so that he could be on a team.  Apparently Number Four was a mile further away from his home than Westview - which meant even more walking.  He did get to play, but the team at his new school lost to Westview and his old friends from that school seemed to especially enjoy the fact that Garland had moved just to be on a losing team!

My dad said that school pictures were taken by groups, usually grades 1-4, 5-8, and 9-10.  If he and Wayne were in the same group, his parents would only buy one, but if they were in different groups, Chock and Hazel felt like they had to buy two.  

One story that Dad recounted about his school days was of a traveling performer with a unique talent who visited the school:

“We had a man come to the school one day who ate glass.  He would pick up a big piece of glass, wash it off, and chew it up and swallow.  Unbelievable, but true.  No trick.  He warned us not to try it.”

(The old ‘school principal’ in me still shudders thinking how irresponsible and dangerous that ‘entertainment’ actually was!)

But those growing-up years in the backwoods of Newton County, Missouri,  weren’t all hard work and school.  My dad and his friends also rode bicycles, and they spent quiet times at several “swimming holes” where they played, fished, and caught crawdads - and then cooked their catch over a campfire.  At other times they all met in either a tree house that they built together, or in a nearby vacant home, where they learned to smoke corn silks and grapevines, and also played card games like "Rook" and "Pitch."   Dad and Lee liked to play marbles - with hickory nuts!  (The winner kept, and usually ate, all that he won!)

Dad discussed the neighborhood social life. He said that neighbors often gathered in the evenings to do outdoor things like rake and burn leaves, and after his parents bought a radio for the house - that operated off of a car battery - neighbors would sometimes come by in the evenings to listen to programs. One of Dad's favorite neighbors was an old man named Henry REDFEARN who lived by himself nearby. Henry was an elderly fellow who Dad described as "an old Indian fighter" who also told great stories.

My dad was an avid reader and was especially fond of books about cowboys - like those of Zane Gray. His parents received the "Joplin Globe" newspaper through a bartering arrangement with the newspaper carrier, and Dad was a regular reader of Will Roger's humor column that was carried by the "Globe." Will Rogers undoubtedly influenced some of Dad's cynicism toward the government that stayed with him throughout his life.

Dad finished tenth grade at Westview at the age of fifteen, and promptly left home to finish high school in Neosho.  He said that he never spent another night in his childhood home after moving to town. Dad stayed the first year with his aunt and uncle, Jack and Ina Pearl (MACY) LOWE who owned the 86 Taxi company and had several long-haul delivery trucks.  He was paid 50 cents an hour to wash and service vehicles and to answer the phone for the taxi company - and he also received free room and board at the Lowe’s home. His two primary courses at the high school during that year - his junior year - were wood shop and auto mechanics.

The second year, his senior year, Dad moved into an apartment with another boy and initially worked with him at a gas station where he again spent most of his time washing and servicing vehicles.  The pay was better, but he also had to pay rent and buy groceries.  During that year he got a much better job with the Pet Milk Company of Neosho and was able to arrange it so that he could work half of the school day and receive credits toward graduation.

Later when he was writing his journal, my dad seemed to lament the fact that he had not taken more academic classes in high school.  He also wrote an entry about how he felt small schools did a better job of teaching than large schools.

My dad seemed to feel that being one of the “country kids” he was looked down on by some of the students who had been born in town.  He eventually got his revenge in a couple of ways.  First, he aged into one of the older surviving members of his class, and when the class held occasional reunion breakfasts, he always went and mingled with the others - and by that time his wallet was just as fat as theirs - if not fatter!  He also bragged in his journal about getting to see his son - that would be me - serving forty years later as principal in the building where he had gone to high school (It was a Middle School when I ran the joint!).

My father graduated from Neosho High School in May of 1942, but being only seventeen (thanks to skipping a year at Westview) he was still too young for the draft.  He and another young man, Leon WILLIS, answered a newspaper ad to help drive to California for part of the fare.  They got to Los Angeles and “bummed around” looking for work but had no luck.  They were almost out of money but managed to buy bus tickets to Morro Bay where Dad’s older brother Wayne lived with his bride from Missouri, Mary Olive (DAY) MACY, and their infant daughter, Linda.   Wayne didn’t want to feed the visitors all summer, so he hauled them to Brentwood, California, where they got jobs picking fruit - peaches, apricots, nectarines, cherries, English Walnuts, and almonds.  He said they made seventy-five to eighty cents an hour and lived in tents provided by the company - “Balfour and Guthrie.”  There was also a convenient company store where they could buy their necessities and spend their hard-earned pay.

One story that Dad told about his time picking fruit was that he had never had nectarines before and quickly became overly fond of them - and ate every one that he came across that was too ripe to be harvested.   His gluttony wound up causing fruit sores on his legs that kept him from working for an entire week!

When that fruit harvest was over Dad and Leon went on further north to Lodi, California, and picked grapes.  Leon left and went back to Missouri after the grapes played out, but Dad stayed on and went to Porterville to pick olives.  He stayed with Wayne and Mary waiting on the olives to ripen but they were late that year, so Dad went back to Brentwood and began pruning fruit trees, but unrelenting rains cut that job short.  He went to Wayne and Mary’s in Moro Bay one more time, spent a couple of days camping out on the beach, and then told his brother that he was going to go home and join the Army. He said that Wayne, who had a wife and a daughter and a good job in construction, did not think his plan to join the Army was “real smart,” but Dad caught a bus and headed back to Missouri and did that very thing.  

The next time my dad and Wayne saw each other was two years later in Wales, and they were both in the Army!