Growing up during Depression era • Part one • Cedar Park

Growing up during Depression era • Part one • Cedar Park

By Betty Henry and Sharon Wolfe Friday, 20 February 2009

There was very little money in Cedar Park during the Depression era, 1929-1933, but people did not feel poor because everyone was in the same situation. Folks had all the food they could eat, a place to live, church friends and neighbors. People were self-sufficient — growing, making or trading for their food, clothes and household items — and had always been so. Unlike the people in cities who needed jobs in order to buy food, clothes and a place to live, life in Cedar Park was simple, very different from today.

Daily life

In those days, there was no running water — it had to be drawn from a well. The water wells were dug by hand, and several families used the same well. There was no grass in the yard — just dirt — because there was no water for irrigation. Yards were swept to clear twigs and leaves using a broom made out of a bushy cedar limb.

Dental hygiene was not a big priority in the ’30s. Occasionally, folks would get a small stick from an elm tree and chew the end until it was soft and fluffy, then dip it in baking soda or salt to clean their teeth. No dentists existed in Cedar Park during that period, so if someone got a toothache, it would be packed with an aspirin and Vicks VapoRub.

Mattresses of the day were made at the Round Rock Bedding Company from scrap cotton. After the regular cotton was picked from the fields, small bunches, called scrap cotton, were left behind. These mattresses were so thin, they could be easily rolled up. Each spring, all the mattresses and pillows in the house were taken outside on a hot, sunny day and laid on saw horses to air out. Other bedding was hung on the clothesline. After a day in the sun, mattresses and pillows fluffed up so much one could hardly get into bed that night.

Bedrooms were not heated, so everyone tried to keep warm with homemade quilts and comforters. Old, ragged quilts and blankets were used for stuffing and covered with sewn blocks of old clothes to make the comforters, which were so heavy children could barely turn over in bed. When not in use, quilt frames were raised and hung from the ceiling. While a quilt was being made, women gathered around the frame and caught up on local gossip.

Church events, such as ice cream socials and monthly dinners on the ground, were the only time strictly for relaxation. Church services were held during the spring and summer under a brush arbor; men cut fresh branches each year and covered cedar poles to make a shade. Most women had pasteboard fans, often distributed by funeral homes as advertisements, to stir up a little breeze — there was no air conditioning. When the little ones got sleepy, they were placed on a quilt on the ground.

Children

At Christmas, several men from the church cut a huge cedar for the Christmas tree. Paper chains, berries and popcorn were strung around the tree for decoration. Each child at church received an apple, an orange, a piece of hard candy and a small trinket. It was common for children to receive another apple, orange and sometimes a handmade toy at home.

The local children went to the Whitestone School at FM 1431 and US 183. A large folding door separated the school into two rooms when needed, and it was heated by a big pot-bellied stove. The building was also used as a community gathering place. Grades first through eighth attended at the same time. Students were taught reading, math, writing, spelling, English and history, but no science. For lunch, the students filed by a little window to get a tray and could go back for seconds as often as they wished. Recess was spent standing in line at one of the two outhouses, playing baseball, swinging or sitting on the seesaws or merry-go-round. Several large oak trees covered with grapevines on the east side of the school served as a jungle gym. The tree that had the largest grapevine was transplanted about half a mile north on US 183 on the east side of the road when the schoolhouse was torn down.

After school, children played marbles “for keeps” by drawing a circle and trying to knock the center marble out. Cotton bags — often a Bull Durham tobacco sack with a drawstring top — usually held the marbles, which were called shooters and stealies.

Dealing with the Depression

During the Depression, no new homes were being built in Cedar Park, so people made what modifications they could to existing houses.

Entertainment was derived from simple activities like a game of marbles or a dinner on the ground after church.

Rooms were heated with wood-burning, pot-bellied stoves.