Excerpts from the Diary of Faye Eggert

Faye Eggert is my great grandmother. She lived in Casper, Wyoming during the time of the Great Depression and maintained a beautifully written diary about her experiences and daily life. Because there is no way to provide a link to her writing in my MLA citation, I am posting some of it on this blog for reference.

The heat flows around me thick and sticky and it is like trying to live in a world with warm clear Karo syrup pouring over your head. Inside an old woman is talking to Aunt Del. They were girls together in Virginia. They mention so many things and so many people. She tells about a visit to California, the best time in her life, when the winter was full of flowers and for two months there was not a day she was not in the car going someplace to see something. I have to smile, California has a sound of its own that I recognize perfectly. It must be a blessed place to have given so many people the time of their lives. She commiserates with Aunt Del on having only one child and that a boy, “I always tell my daughter, who has the two boys, how she missed it- not having a girl. I always say there’s nothing more satisfyin’ than havin’ a daughter.” The maple tree hangs down its branches of leaves in black quietude in the summer night. They are talking of Sally Inglesby, dead many years. Aunt Del says with a shy laugh like a young girl who has been honored beyond her deserts, “I never thought to be here this long.” I can barely see the trumpet-vine now that climbs in the tree of Mr. Feggler’s orchard; perhaps I wouldn’t see it if I didn’t know it was there. The heat is almost suffocating. Aunt Del says “We’ve seen many things, had many times.” There is a wistful remembrance of a lifetime in her voice. The other woman speaks up more firmly, “Yes, we have lived a long time. I know one thing, I’ve had a life of hard work. But I don’t regret it; I was able to do it.” A toad is hopping stealthily across the brick walk back to the garden where March is watering.

They are talking now how the old times have passed. The grand rich crops, the favor of heaven’s rains. So many terrible things are happening. They do not realize perhaps that it is only their strength to contend with the reverses of life that is passing. They are talking how godless people have grown-- how they look for a great change, a terrible “reckoning.” I think they only figure it to themselves so that leaving the world will not be such a hard thing, and life fraught with omen of the wrath of God is not so good a thing that they need hold to it much longer. And I sit here young and somehow filled with the certitude that change is the only thing to be expected and so I feel the foundations of life as sure as they ever were or ever can be. If drought is the succession to fruitfullness then it must be so and God has no special rancor against us.

The drought Faye speaks of in this passage is the same one that the Joads experience in The Grapes of Wrath, which turns the Midwest into a dust bowl and ruins the crops for poor farmers. Although Faye lived further west, she was similarly affected by the change in climate.

As we searched all the hot day for house-keeping rooms, we began to feel bitter and hopeless. We resented the nice big homes we saw. “They could rent a couple of rooms very easily if they liked. Why do people need so much room?” And we came at last to the smoky dirty edge of town to the row of tourist cabins, ashes strewn in the doorways, and corn cobs to burn in the little monkey stoves, the dark cement rooms-- it seemed good enough, it was a place at least to get in, to put your things about, to be alone. 

Sometimes there swells in me a class hatred like a poisoned fever. Today I saw a man come out of his trim English style house with a little wrought iron lantern over the door and grey venetian blinds at the windows, he had the look of a man that smelled nice and he was dressed in soft tweeds. He carried his bag of golf clubs around to where his sleek car waited in a spic and span garage. It was then the hatred welled up in me, because of Martin who never had an afternoon off, and lay in sweat and oil with the sand blowing into his eyes as he struggled with worn-out machinery. Martin who will probably never smell nice or play any game again. 

Martin was Faye's husband; during the Great Depression, she traveled from town to town with him and their two daughters so that he could find work. She spoke of him lovingly but often with a hint of exasperation, as if he was yet another burden who had no time to help her out with family life. One need look no further for an example of a strong 1930s woman.

Chapters 18-22: Family Discussion Reflection

Part I: Research

Topic: Daily life during the Great Depression
Summary: During the Great Depression, many families in the West were forced to move from town to town in search of jobs. Older generations feared that God had left them as some great punishment, while the younger and more hopeful believed that there would be some sort of reckoning and that change was only to be expected. California was viewed by the Western poor as a paradise to aspire to.
Evaluation: The life of my great grandmother, who wrote the informational text, is similar to the life of the Joads in many ways. She moved many times as her husband looked for work, spoke of how idyllic California seemed, and felt a shame for her poverty many times deeper than the Joad family ever did.
Citation: 
Eggert, Faye. Diary. 1936. MS.

Part II: Philosophical Questioning

Did the Great Depression or its aftermath personally affect you in any way? How?
Do you think that poverty is something to be ashamed of? If not, how should it be dealt with?
In times of hardship, do people turn towards God or away? How would you react religiously in a time of crisis?

Part III: Reflection

The most memorable moment of my discussion with my family was learning about the affects that the Great Depression had on their families. I learned that when my mom's dad was young, his family was so poor that when he went hunting for food to feed them he could only use one bullet because they were so expensive. He grew up in Casper, just like my great grandmother, and when he was the same age as I am now he had to work in an ice factory to make a living. It is amazing to me to think about how far he and my mother have come in what is a relatively short amount of time. I have always heard about my grandpa's childhood in numerous family gatherings, but I never stopped to think about how life actually would have been like for him. The most surprising thing about the discussion was my dad's answer to my third question. He said that he thought in times of hardship, people turned towards God-- something which directly contradicted both the empirical examples I had been thinking of and the excerpt from my great grandmother's diary. However, he had been thinking about the question from a different angle: when a loved one in a person's family dies, they often grow closer to the church rather than turn away from it. I was surprised at first when he said that, but after he explained it I understood why he had thought the way he had, and it made me change the way that I thought about the question as well. I think that one thing that made the third question harder is that no one in my family is deeply religious, so our answers are more speculation than actual fact. I think that I could improve my questions by making them more answerable using personal experience. The best discussions I have with my parents are either when they are telling me about the past or when I'm explaining some sort of kritical theory from debate to them. I think that it would encourage more meaningful discussions if I integrated both of these things into my questions more fluidly. 

Chapters 10-17: Family Discussion Reflection

Part I: Research

Topic: FDR and the Great Depression
Summary: The text is one of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Fireside Chats on the state of the country and how to move forward from the tragedy of the Dust Bowl droughts. He describes the miles of barren cropland that he has seen ruined and evokes the image of hardworking American farmers who cannot be failed by their fellow countrymen in the face of disaster. The speech outlines specific agricultural policies that will be put into place to avoid future dust storms and help both the earth and jobless workers.
Evaluation: FDR's speech describes the very conflict that the Joad family finds themselves in at the beginning of The Grapes of Wrath-- the land is virtually useless, and jobs are hard to come by. Interestingly, in Chapter 17 there is still little mention of the president or the government in DC, although the Joads seem like the very sort of family that the messages of the Fireside Chats would be aimed towards.
Citation: 
Roosevelt, Franklin D. "Address of the President Delivered by Radio from the White House." Address. Fireside Chat 8. White House, Washington. 6 Sept. 1936. Mid-Hudson Regional Information Center. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. <http://mhric.org/fdr/chat8.html>.

Part II: Philosophical Questioning

Has modern technology advanced to such a point where we can "fight" or "disregard" nature? What would the implications of such actions be?
Is it safer for an individual to band together with other in times of conflict, or fight solely for his or her own survival? (Does the most strategic option change based on the conflict, e.g., an economic depression vs. a zombie apocalypse?)
In times of conflict or hardship, does everyone in the United States have the same level of freedom?

Part III: Reflection

The most memorable part of my discussion with my dad was our conversation about the differences in social and economic freedoms in the United States. I tied in the question of freedom to a debate round that I was a part of this past weekend, where the other team critiqued our case in favor of an ethic of self-love. At the time I didn't really understand what they meant by self-love, but afterwards I was talking to one of the people on the team and he showed me a video of a young African-American man who is being asked questions about two men that he killed. He expresses no remorse over his murder and tells his interviewer that he hopes he gets the death penalty, because otherwise he will just continue to kill more people. The debater explained to me the social, religious, and economic problems he saw in this way this young man saw himself, the way that he thought that his own life was disposable. He told me that when he talked about self-love, that was what he meant. Having a conversation about this with my dad made me feel a lot better, because I think that his message is one that needs to be spread to as many people as possible. I know that I will never forget the conversation I had with my dad about it, and I especially won't forget the original conversation I had with the debater who showed me the video. I was probably most surprised by our conversation about my question about technology. I thought that it might spur some interesting discussion because it could be slightly controversial, but my dad seemed to think that it was clear that humans can in no way disregard the environment, citing evidence such as global warming and forest fires that we still have a long way to go to be able to combat. I had never really thought about those kind of natural disasters before in terms of human capacity to prevent them, so I was pleasantly surprised by the new perspective my dad gave me. In the future, I think that I still need to improve my questions so that they can lead to more interesting, thought-provoking discussion. I was really only satisfied by the conversation we had about my last question, and we spent most of the discussion time on it. I hope that my questions for the next discussion will be more equally balanced so that we can spend around the same amount of time having in-depth conversations about each one.

Strong Female Characters?

Do female characters have to be "strong" to be good? What exactly makes a "strong female character"? Just one of many interesting topics of tonight's discussion:

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/i-hate-strong-female-characters

Chapters 1-9: Family Discussion Reflection

Part I: Research

Topic: Role of women in the 1930s
Summary: The effects of the Great Depression were felt differently by women than by men. While men were used to being the breadwinners and felt like failures for no longer being able to provide for their families, the woman's role increased as household chores suddenly became the only chores that mattered. The United States never would have survived the financial crisis of the Great Depression had it not been for the brave and determined women who were the backbones of their families during troubled times.
Evaluation: In Chapters 1-9, the role of women in The Grapes of Wrath seems resigned to watching the men and waiting for them to decide what to do. However, the text makes it clear that during the time period in which The Grapes of Wrath was written, women's importance in society was actually increasing rather than decreasing.
Citation:
Ware, Susan. "Women and the Great Depression." The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, May 2012. Web. 01 Dec. 2013. <http://gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/great-depression/essays/women-and-great-depression>.

Part II: Philosophical Questioning

Do you believe in the idea of a "strong female character"?
How has the role of women changed in the past 75 years? Has it changed?
Do gender relations portrayed in literature usually mirror those in real life? How or how not?

Part III: Reflection

The most memorable moment of my discussion with my dad was during our conversation about my third question. I was explaining to him how I thought it was interesting that in The Grapes of Wrath, which is written by a male author, the female characters are given such little importance (particularly in the first five chapters) despite the empirical information from the article I read describing how the role of women in society actually improved during the Great Depression. We started trying to think of other books that similarly had skewed images of the role of women when my dad brought up Gone With the Wind as a counterexample of a novel that does in fact have a strong female character—and we both realized at the same time that Gone With the Wind was written by a female author. I think that this was the most memorable part of the discussion because of the windows it opened up for me into the facts of gender equality both in the past and in today’s literature. One of the most satisfying things to me about the discussion with my dad was how he respected my questions. I was afraid that he would think that they were stupid or made no sense, but he engaged with each one as best he could and we ended up having a much more fulfilling conversation than I would have thought possible. I was especially satisfied by the fact that he also felt comfortable enough to ask me some of his own questions, instead of just keeping the discussion in an interview-like format. I think that my questions could definitely be improved by not relying on so much outside knowledge. I realized during our discussion that it was unfair to expect my dad to know every single thing about 1940s literature, or even the role of women in the early 1900s. In the future, I will continue to ask what I feel to be interesting and thought-provoking questions, but I will try to rely more heavily on moral or ethical topics as opposed to ones based heavily in history.