By Wally Kennedy

wkennedy@joplinglobe.com

The numbers are sobering.

In 1933, the nation was on a steep slide into the Great Depression. Unemployment had reached 25 percent, meaning one in four Americans were looking for jobs.

Before it was over, roughly 9,000 banks across the nation would shut their doors. The Dow Jones industrial average would lose 89 percent of its value. Credit would be impossible to get. Hundreds of factories were closed. Homes and farms were lost to foreclosure.

Some of the similarities between the Great Depression and the financial meltdown of 2008 are eerie. While most economists downplay the likelihood of another depression because of the banking safeguards that are in place, others are not so certain.

Federal legislators certainly believed that another Great Depression was possible when they recently argued for passage of the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. They claimed that much taxpayer money was needed to push back the threat of another depression.

‘Dirt-poor’

Whatever happens in the months ahead, Terry James, of Webb City, and Olen Reding, of Joplin, hope they never experience a time like that again. Both were young when the Great Depression unfolded.

James, who was born in 1930, said: “The main thing I remember was that everybody was dirt-poor. We had absolutely nothing. There were five of us kids. We lived with my grandparents until I was 9 or 10 years old. My parents lived there, too. They were out of work, too.”

James said his grandfather was a dairy farmer who managed to maintain a source of income for the family.

“We had one cow in Carterville, a Jersey that we called the ‘pet’ cow that we pastured with the rest of the herd,” he said. “It was the cow that provided milk for the kids.

“I didn’t go to work for money until I was 11. I was the junior janitor at Webb City Junior High School. My Boy Scout master, Bob Joe Baker Sr., got me the job. I was paid $11 a month.”

James worked before classes and cleaned up the lunchroom. During his lunch break, he would work the lunch and candy counter at a small supermarket next to the school.

“After I worked the counter, I would get either two coneys or a hamburger for my lunch,” he said. “I would grab those and go back to the school, and eat those while I cleaned up the lunchroom. I saved as much of my money as I could.”