Depression-era seniors recall tough times

MOSES LAKE - Moses Lake's Robert J. Ruff, 90, and Enid Clay, 87, both recall the tough times of the Great Depression.

Life was much different without today's modern conveniences, widely available credit and certain types of government assistance.

As Clay says about money, "we had to work for ours." The welfare of today wasn't available.

Ruff was one of five children living on a farm at the town of Ruff.

Clay was one of nine siblings growing up in Goble, Ore.

"No one had any money then," Ruff said.

Unemployment peaked at 25 percent during the Great Depression.

Today's national unemployment rate is 9.1 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"There was very little money and wheat was cheap," he said.

With the decline in wheat prices, profits were lower for the farming family.

Ruff was born in the community of Ruff, 14 miles from Moses Lake. His parents farmed dryland wheat.

He started helping on the farm in grade school by feeding cows and pigs and gathering eggs. He did his chores before and after school.

Ruff's father supplemented the family's income by doing roadwork and picking applies in Moses Lake in the fall.

Ruff and his brothers helped by picking potatoes off the ground after they had been dug. They earned 4 cents per 60-pound sack.

Times were difficult for everyone, he said.

"We'd get wind storms for maybe five days in a row," Ruff said.

When Ruff turned 15, he drove a team of mules pulling a plow in Davenport earning $30 a month. He lived with his boss's family for two months and sent his wages home to his parents.

"It was different," he said about being away from home. "But they were nice people to work for and they treated me like I was somebody in the family."

He returned home to Ruff and later joined the Army in 1942.

He was in the Third Army Tank Division, serving during the Normandy Invasion. He traveled through the smaller countries the Germans had overtaken.

After the war, he returned to farming with his father for the first few years and eventually farmed on his own.

"After we got tractors, it was a lot easier," Ruff said.

There was more wheat available too, as the animals used for the older, horse-drawn equipment would eat the field crops.

"It's awful hard to keep up with feed for horses and cattle, especially if there's no crop," he said.

More rain fell too, which helped settle the dust and preserve the crops.

Today he doesn't agree with the U.S. increasing its borrowing capacity.

"You have to pay it back," he said. "You overextend yourself so you can't pay it back."

Overall he thinks everything is going fine.

"If you're over 50, you can come to the seniors (center)," he said. "You have the choice of paying or getting it for free. They won't let you out without food."

During the Depression, some of the available work was short and seasonal.

Now young people can mow lawns or do most anything to earn money, he said.

Ruff doesn't think the country is headed for another Great Depression, as people can always go to the food bank or senior center.

"People are more generous now," Ruff said. "It's an altogether different story now. It takes more money, but there seems to be more money."

Clay was born three years before Ruff in the Goble/Beaver Homes area of Oregon.

Clay's mother gave birth to all of her children in the same home, with a midwife assisting.

"We worked hard," Clay said. "My mom would walk us down to the strawberry patch every year, every morning, so we could get enough money to buy school clothes."

She remembers having one dress and a pair of shoes to last an entire school year.

Like many others, her father had trouble finding work and joined the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was formed by the government to put men back to work.

"That's why he went to the CCC," she said. "That's all there was."

After that, he drove a road grader.

Her mother canned hundreds of jars of peaches every year.

"We would sit and peel and peel and pee, but we had a good life, lots of fun and games," Clay said.

Deer hunting also helped feed the family.

She has one memory of her brother cooking a freshly killed deer. The roaster was out and he was canning the meat.

She remembers a difficult time for her family when her father broke his back while herding a bull. The bull threw him.

There was no money to call a doctor. Her mom cared for her father for months at home and his back eventually healed.

All five of her brothers served in World War II and survived the war.

Clay left home after she graduated from high school in 1942.

She came to Moses Lake, where she married and had a son and a daughter.

Clay cooked at a school in Moses Lake, worked at Grant's Department Store and the Grant County Fair.

She helped during election day at the county courthouse for 50 years.

DaLila Merkley, 66, of the Moses Lake Senior Center, has known both Ruff and Clay for about 50 years.

Merkley called Clay "a hard worker," shown by her time gardening, giving neighbors garden vegetables and seeing who was in need.

Ruff is part of a coffee group at the senior center.

"I think they're tougher," Merkley said. "They learned to do with nothing. They've had it hard."

She thinks the current generation is a "little spoiled and softer," because they had access to more electronics and modern appliances.

"They're strong people," Merkley said of the older generation.