1. Were you born before or during the Great Depression.
1. I was born before the Great Depression in the early 1920's, back before the stock market crashed.
2. How did the Great Depression affect you?
When the stock market crashed, my family wasn't expecting to be hit like everyone else. We hadn't put much of our money into stock, so we weren't afraid, but that changed soon after the banks started failing. My father ran to make mast withdrawals from our account, but it was too late. Apparently, not enough people were paying back their loans they received from the bank, so money became scarce, and the bank closed.
3. What happened after you lost the money.
After my father got home, he broke the news, and acted like it was no big deal, losing the thousands of dollars saved up over the past twenty years and told us not to lose hope. The next day, we found him on the ground with a bullet in his head and his gun lying beside him. We couldn't afford the funeral.
4 That's terrible. How long did it take for you to lose your house.
While my mom mourned every day, every hour I soon realized she wasn't going help with our situation. I became the man of the house and went in search of employement in various places. I was neglected by many employers, because of my age, but soon found a job taking out the trash and cleaning the tables at a local restaurant. My payment was low, but it was enough to keep our boat floating, at least for a few months.
5. Then what happened? As I got used to the job, I actually thought we would make it through . I was making enough dough to pay off the bills and literally get our bread and butter, and in a few days, i was supposively getting a raise. One morning i came to work and i found my boss lying beside his restaurant on the ground crying. I asked him what happened and he told me that some bums came in and stole all of the food and the money in the safe. I immediatly knew my cut had been cut.
6. Did you find another job? No, i searched and searched all over Brooklyn for a month for a way to get employed, but my luck had came to an end. One day I came home and i found police officers outside of my house and i already knew what was up. I didn't even have to ask and i already knew the house was getting taken. He told us there'd be some shelter outside the city. He didn't even offer us a ride.
7. Did you have to go to a Hooverville? Yes. It took us an entire day to get there. I was expecting shelter waiting for me, but I was greatly dissapointed our shelter was a patch of dirt. My mother barely said a word throughout the entire trip. I looked around the vast field the government had supplied for us, which was a wasteland. We were expected to make a shelter out of trash.
8. What was it like living there? It was the worst experience of my life. We ate from the trash like animals, huddled around an open fire for warmth, and drank from a nearby river. We did this for about a month for what seemed like a year. One day when I awakened in my shanty, my mother was no longer with me. I never saw her again.
9. What a tragedy. How long did you have to live there.
Over time, I got used to living like the bums. Hunting for my food. Living off whatever I could gather whenever I could gather it. I lost hope. I felt like a walking dead man. Then one day I witnessed the most horrific event of my life. One day I smelled something nasty cooking nearby my shanty. I saw that what were once men and women had become cannibals. They had surrounded a fire with a human body hanging over it like a roasted pig. I ran from the Hooverville as fast as I could until I couldn't run anymore.
10.Where did you go?
I ran until I found a train. I secretly boarded the train without a clue where it was going. The nearby passenger held their noses as I sat down. Then an old man approached me. He asked me where my family was and I replied what do you think. I'm a street rat. He ended up adopting me and taking me back to his house in queens. There I met his wife and two sons who appeared to be in their twenties. I asked why the Depression hadn't taken a toll on him and he didn't reply. During my time living there I began noticing things. For example one day his oldest son came home with a big bag of money. He emptied it on the kitchen table and there was numerous amounts of money. i was supposed to be sleeping. My supposively new grandfather couldn't lie to me now. He revealed to me that both him and his two sons were bank robbers. I was shocked, but I wasn't suprised. Before I knew I became like them. I was persuaded into robbing banks but that's another story for another time.