Great Depression

Money tales from the Great Depression

"FDR declared a bank holiday after he first became president. When it was over, the bank that my parents had some savings in failed — it was gone. They lost all their savings — about $1,000. Even as a young kid, I could understand this was a serious thing.

"Then my parents started having trouble paying their mortgage. Congress had passed a law setting up the HOLC (the Home Owners' Loan Corporation). You had to apply to them, and I remember my mother going down every day to the office of the HOLC to try to get them to give us relief — to lower the payments on the mortgage — similar to what they're talking about today, but for different reasons. One day my mother came home and said, 'They approved our application.' She broke down and said, 'We're not going to lose our house.' That was 1934; I'm going on 87. I was a young kid then, but I can still remember it clearly.