Back in 1975, The Orion Review decided to pay $5 to readers who wanted to share their memories of the depression years.
They’re so interesting that I thought it would be a good idea to reprint some of those stories this summer.
Elaine Stieb, editor

By George Buschmann
I was a clerk in the Kroger store during that time. It was on the corner of Flint and Broadway. I worked for $15 per week from 7 a.m.-9 p.m. or later.
We never refused service even if we had to stay open until midnight. There was no overtime. You worked until the boss said to go home.
We worked hard in those days. No one helped themselves. The clerk had to get every item from the shelf.
It would take at least 30 minutes to put up a $5 order at the prices in those days.
Beans were three pounds for a dime. Lard was three pounds for a quarter. Pink salmon was 10 cents. Everything had to be weighed up ahead of time.
There was no time for rest. There were no computer scales and you had to figure the price in your head.
All groceries had to be added up on the bags. We didn’t have adding cash registers. If you didn’t know your arithmetic, you didn’t work there long.
I spent a good many years on those four corners and I knew a lot of people. In fact, sometime when they didn’t know them at the post office, the postmaster sent them to the Kroger store to see if we knew where they lived. Most of the time we did.
Everyone was friendly. I don’t know of one person in town that I disliked.
I remember when the train went through town one night and all our 25 pound sacks of flour fell over on the stove in the store. What a mess. It didn’t start a fire, but it sure was a lot of work to clean up.
The loss was pretty great. About a 100 25-pound sacks of flour busted. It was 49 cents a bag at that time.
We used to close for funerals when someone important died. Some barbers closed the first day of hunting season too.
It was pretty good living in Lake Orion.Good times were free. We would go tobogganing, ice skating, fishing and hunting. If nothing else, on Sunday evening there were meetings at the church where everyone could have entertainment and meet the younger set.
In the summer it was swimming or Park Island where all the amusements were never dull and never expensive.
When you were stuck in the snow or mud, everyone helped you out even if they had to get a team of horses to pull you out. Never a charge.
I operated a fresh fish and vegetable market just one door south of where the old post office used to be. I rented the entire building, about 60 feet, for $25 a month. The bank wanted me to buy it for $2,500 at the time, but I wasn’t interested. I used to go to Port Huron and get fresh fish off the boats and sell them.
Herring was five pounds for a quarter; whitefish was 25 cents; snow apples were 25 a crate, including the crate. I also sold live chickens for 15 cents a pound.

Back in 1975, The Orion Review decided to pay $5 to readers who wanted to share their memories of the depression years.
They’re so interesting that I thought it would be a good idea to reprint some of those stories this summer.
By Verna Schaar Gustavus
My first music teaching position when I finished college in Iowa in 1930 was in a small town nearby (Tingley) for $1,125 for nine months work.
The second year I was the only one who got a raise ($90).
Then the school board cut out music.
The superintendent received $2,000. No teacher could smoke or play cards. No woman teacher could be married. No one could leave town more than twice a month.
I had a three-room apartment next door to the school for $14 a month. With no amusement in town, we organized a potluck weekly supper club.
So I returned home to Orion where superintendent AJ Huggett informed me music in schools was now passe?. (I’ve just retired from over 35 years of teaching music in Birmingham and Berkley Schools.)
In a federally-supported night school class at Orion High School, my pupils were evaluating one another. Margaret Tarpenning summed up Bud Schaar: ‘Too much gold in the mouth, not enough in the pocket.?
Piano pupils paid 10 cents a week for the class lessons.
I enjoyed helping Harriet Schaar proofread legals. Then editor George Neal put me on ‘full-time? at $5 a week. For this he demanded a ‘vigil? of 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
He fully expected me to walk or go by canoe to cover all the social events of resorters on 21 islands, cover all fires, drownings and political affairs.
Finally my dad let me use his old Essex. Having a car increased my popularity immediately.
When Gilbert (now my husband) came from Detroit weekends in his Model A Ford roadster, he used gallons of oil as well as gas. He worked 80 hours a week for $2 at a gas station.
Librarian Frances Bachman introduced me to much fine literature. The library was up over the fire station.
Winter sports were fun, like — girls would hang on to the middle of a clothes pole with a boy at each end.
We’d skate to the north end of the lake, open our coats and the wind would blow us all back to Park Island. Tobogganing at Bunny Run was always popular.
In summer, our happiest hours were spent with the ‘in? crowd who swam at Cole’s dock at the foot of Flint Street.
I often took a book and a peanut butter sandwich and stayed all day.
When my dad arranged for us to pick berries ‘on shares,? I’d put the younger kids to work while I went to Belles’s to play tennis. They had the only court in town.
The Kelly Park team played softball every night and sparked a lot of interest in that sport.
If more socializing was needed, there was always the Monday night Penny Dance at Park Island.
A great number of us had a lot of fun with a small amount of money.

Back in 1975, The Orion Review decided to pay $5 to readers who wanted to share their memories of the depression years.
They’re so interesting that I thought it would be a good idea to reprint some of those stories this summer.
Elaine Stieb, editor
BY RALPH MEEK
The first indication of the coming fiscal difficulty came from our local banker in Homer, Michigan where I was employed as school superintendent.
He asked depositors not to draw funds from their deposits unless absolutely necessary.
It worked and after the moratorium some two years later, all deposits were made available in full with four person interest. No other banks in most of Michigan were able to do that.
Later, when I was superintendent of Van Buren High School, word came that all banks would be closed. This was such a shock to a local cashier that he committed suicide.
During this time of moratorium of all the banks, our teachers went without pay. Grocermen, gas and services had to take credit.
A dollar bill was as scarce as a hen’s tooth. A 1,000 bushel of wheat sold for $250. A 150 pound pig brought $2.50. Some districts issued script.
Salary for superintendency went from $3,000 to $2,200 and $1,800. And one was lucky to have a job.
In the first year, 1934, when I came to Lake Orion as principal, I noted the TOTAL receipts for the school district No. 3 Fr was $36, 890.91. TOTAL expenditures were $27,243.47.
Of these expenditures, salaries for 18 teachers including the superintendent and principal amounted to $28,956.47.
There were 457 pupils enrolled in that year. High school enrollment was 231.
The first issues of The Review in 1934 contained some eight pages of which the last four were usually filled with contract, mortgage, lien or bank foreclosures.
Looking for a place to rent, we were shown about 15 rental properties.
Choosing an East Flint Street home with a two story garage, we placed our car in the upper story and made a place for a cow and chickens in the lower part.
An acre of garden with the cow and chickens helped greatly to keep us busy, healthy and out of debt.