Jane Yoder and Peggy Terry

These stories told the hardships of the Depression. Both the mental effects exemplified by Jane Yoder's father who "took a great deal of pyschological abuse" (127), and also they were "struggling, just desperate to be warm." (127). Jane Yoder also talks about how the government WPA program, which provided a much needed stable job for the family. This allowed for the family to be able to get the necessities needed to survive. Peggy Terry talked about the depression as a whole, and the thousands of people out of work, and in the soup lines, people who lived in holes in the ground and the dust storms. A combination of all these factors must of been unbearable for them. Terry also talks about her struggle, and how everybody was accepting, because they were all in the same position. She says "But among the people that I knew, we all had an understanding that it wasn't our fault" (141). She also talks about how despite all these problems, she still had the ability to have white supremacy feelings. She said " As long as you can say I'm better than they are, then there's somebody below you can kick." (143) and because of the hard times, she must have sought this power and superiority that she lacked in her life, although this is not the correct way to accomplish that.

Overall, the Depression was an awful time period where many people suffered, and struggled to survive, both mentally and physically. Jane Yoder and Peggy Terry, explained their horrible experiences during the Depression and remembered how hard it was to do the things we take for granted today. We should try and appreciate how fortunate we are today, that we don't have to go through these traumatic experiences, and we can learn from our past mistakes, to try and prevent this from hapening again.