Mary Asberry
The most obvious sense one gains from reading this interview is the stark difference between today's time and yesterday's. Mary Asberry demonstrated a clear contrast between the working life of a family on a farm before, during, and after the war. The lack of available jobs in her area played a major role in the income levels of those living in Muncie . The dependence on " Victory Gardens " also depicts the difficulty of the time period. This interview provides an all-around and brief example of life during World War Two for a farming family in rural Indiana .
Q: In an economic sense, what is it that you remember about life on the farm before the war?
A: As I remember, you know I was pretty young, I think it was not so deadening like the Depression years. People were fairly prosperous. But the only thing they could make a living at, for most of the people, was agriculture. That was life in those days.
Q: What was the first occurrence, in relation to the war, that you remember most clearly?
A: It was the sadness of the people whose sons had practically all gone to war. There was. at least one out of every family, as I remember it. And I remember the absence of things that I must have had earlier, you know, extra things; like clothing, it wasn't so hard to get clothes.
Q: Earlier, were you saying that you had to make a lot of your own clothing?
A: Oh yes. Most women had a sowing machine, and if they didn't have one, they would loan it. You could borrow one from someone else. As I remember, I remember one little girl had the fanciest clothes. but the reason she had the money, her dad had gone to the war, so this must have been a few months after the war had started. Well he got killed. And his wife got a pension, and a very small one, but you could just buy everything with a little tiny bit of money, because there was just no money circulating.
Q: Was that common with the people you knew?
A: Oh yes, if they lost a loved one they would get a pension. And the others, they did it for patriotism. They didn't want the Germans to win the war.
Q: When was it that you first started noticing some changes resulting from the war?
A: It was in 1929 when the banks all just failed, and countless people just lost whatever money they had in the banks. They lost it; they never got it back. And that was in 1929 when my dad died of pneumonia. And that was before antibiotics. And that [antibiotics] was a great big thing in the world, the whole world over. And countless soldiers were saved because of the penicillin that came out just before the end of the war. There were lots of soldiers and servicemen that would have died, had it not been for the antibiotics.
Q: What was it that people did for jobs in the time period?
A: Well, people didn't do anything, there weren't really any jobs. They practically raised and managed all of their food. They had gardens.
Q: Could you tell me a little bit on the victory gardens?
A: . It was healthier for you, we had more organic foods. They were healthier, but there wasn't much of a variety.
Q: Did you have one? Did you have to grow almost everything you ate?
A: Oh yes. We canned; for instance, your Aunt Anna once canned one year 100 quarts of just tomatoes. And then she canned a lot of tomato juice. Ahead of that, you had to raise it before you had it to can. It was real work, hard work. So in that way, it was a hard time. You see, people didn't think anything of it; they were used to it. It was a way of life until recent years. Everybody that I knew had always raised a garden.
Q: Did you ever have to switch what you grew on the farm in the sense of before and after the war?
A: No, you just grew more of it if you had the ground, and most people did.
Q: What was it that you raised?
A: Oh, it was pickles. We made pickles by the churnfull. That's a great big container that would hold about three gallons. And corn and beans, of course, and we even canned squash for casserole.
Q: Did you sell a lot of the items you grew?
A: No, we could only feed ourselves; it's a lot of work thinking and planning to raise your garden. Lots of people would plan their garden in January, but you couldn't plant them until way down in April or May.
Q: What was it that you did for income during the war?
A: We didn't do anything because there was no income. There were no jobs, there were not any jobs. And lots and lots of men found that very hard when they had worked a lifetime almost.
Q: So did many of the people you knew just have to stop what they were doing to provide for themselves?
A: Well, see, they lost their jobs little by little by little. This is how they lived normally. There were no stores that had all those supplies that we use today. It was an entirely different world. In my generation, we've always had that fear in the back of our minds that we'll be laid off. It was hard for the man of the family; ladies didn't go out and work like they do today. That made a big, big difference.
Q: Could you tell me a little of what you know from experience of women going and working in the factories?
A: . The three daughters of our landlady came to Muncie . They went off and left to go work in the factories, because you could get a job overnight. There were also lots of offices. Your Aunt Beula and my brother went to California to make money. She got a job in an office because she had a little secretary training. But there were more that did the hard work of resupplying the services.
Q: No Question.
A: Have you ever heard of the White Feathers? This is something else in the every day life of the serviceman. If you wouldn't go and sign up to be of service to your government, [peers] would have you wear a white feather, which meant cowardice. And they called you a Neville Chamberlain.
Q: Is there anything you remember about the politics involved in the war?
A: Yes, I believe Roosevelt , when he was president; they called it the fireside chats. Well, he would just tell in simple terms where everybody could understand it, and I got the feeling that he was just soothing and covering over a lot. You know, that's a politician for you.
Q: Would you say Roosevelt did a good job of simplifying the war to more understandable terms?
A: Yes, too much. It was worse than he pictured it.
Q: Was there any dractic change in farming from your perspective after WWII had ended?
A: Yes. Yes, I think there was. We got lots and lots of new machinery, where, during the war years, they didn't have any. They had to make due with what they had.