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Our Forefathers and Foremothers 51
My mother asked me to go to the market a lot. Not just once a day; maybe five times in a day. It was, “Sonny, go get milk.” Then, one hour later, “Sonny, go get butter.” Getting tired of running back and forth to the grocery store, one day I asked my mother, “Why can’t you order everything at once?” My mother didn’t answer me. She just threw a loaf of bread at my head. I never questioned her again. Later I realized it was the heart of the Depression, and we couldn’t afford to waste even a teaspoon of milk.
Our family worked hard and made sacrifices, but when the mortgage came due at the end of five years, the family was unable to make the payment. Although my mother owned two fish markets, she lost the house, and we became tenants. We found some rooms in a house owned by a Finnish family. The Salters lived on the main level, while the owners lived in the basement.
During the Depression, homeless men often slept in shantytowns wrapped in blankets of newspapers. These hastily constructed shacks were derisively referred to as “Hoovervilles,” named for President Hoover, whose efforts had failed to halt the slide into poverty and starvation for millions of Americans.