Oral History Program George Edwin Stratford Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah George Edwin Stratford Interviewed by Mack S. Taft circa 1960s Copyright © 2016 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Great Depression in Weber County, Utah, is an Oral History Project by Mack S. Taft for completion of his Master’s Thesis at Utah State University during the summer of 1969. The forty-five interviews address the Great Depression through the eyes of individuals in several different occupations including: Bankers, Laborers, Railroad Workers, Attorneys, Farmers, Educators, Businessmen, Community and Church Leaders, Housewives, Children and Physicians. All of these individuals lived in Weber County from 1929 to 1941. The interviews were based on what they remembered about the depression, how they felt about those events and how it affected their life then and now. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Stratford, George Edwin, an oral history by Mack S. Taft, circa 1960s, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: This is an oral history interview with George Edwin Stratford. Mr. Stratford is a very successful farmer and produce man. He has been very successful here in Weber County in many different ventures. The interviewer is Mack Taft. MT: How long have you lived in Weber County? GS: Seventy-seven and one-half years. MT: What were you doing during the Depression years from 1929-39? GS: Farming and the produce business. MT: What type of produce did you handle? GS: Potatoes and onions. MT: What was your main clientele for your produce? Where did you sell? GS: We shipped in east, west, and locally. MT: Thinking back on those years, what was the status of the produce business during the Depression? GS: Nobody had any money to buy anything. Prices were cheap. Business was lousy. MT: Do you recall any shipments that you made? Could you just elaborate a little bit on some of the shipments you made and the return on those shipments? GS: Well, a lot of the cars we shipped in those days cost us 20 cents 100 for potatoes. Some of those cars wouldn’t pay the freight. We had to give them the potatoes besides paying the freight on them. And the country was in such a condition that people had no money to operate. It was almost impossible for anybody to even make a living in those days. MT: Were you operating the farm and the produce business at that time? 2 GS: Yes, operating both. MT: You had similar conditions on the farm – or what was your condition on the farm? GS: Well, it was the same situation on the farm. You couldn’t make it pay because your produce was so cheap. Of course in those days there, too, wages were cheap, too, see. Now, I met a man at a wedding along about a month ago, and he said to me, “George, you’re the cause of me quitting smoking.” And I said, “I don’t know how in the world I caused you to quit smoking.” And he said, “I used to pack potatoes for you for 20 cents an hour, and I decided that I wasn’t going to work an hour for a package of cigarettes, so I quit. So,” he said, “you were the cause of me quitting smoking cigarettes in those days.” I told him I didn’t quite remember that we got down to 20 cents an hour, but the best men that the country had worked for me for 35 cents an hour, where today a lot of these are highly educated men, bankers and men in business who have made a good success. But they worked for me in those days for 35 cents an hour. MT: When were you married? GS: I was married in 1912, 12th day of January. MT: How many children did you have during the Depression years? GS: Well, my family came right along. I don’t know. We had six children, and they came right along from the Depression on. Of course some were born before the Depression. MT: Do you remember any financial problems in your home that were troubling to you? GS: Well, we were in debt. We had no money. We got along and made a living, but it 3 was tough picking. Of course we bought a pair of overalls in those days for 50 cents, so it didn’t cost much to buy stuff, not like it is today. MT: Do you think of things that happened to you then that are amazing to you as you look back on them? GS: Well, I oftentimes told my children of the conditions that we went through during those times. It’s hard to make them believe it because they didn’t remember many things about it. But we lived and got by, and I accumulated a lot of property in those days, bought it for nothing practically. But that was the conditions of the times. Nobody had any money. I saved through my influence with a man that did have money. I saved two of my neighbors’ farms for them during the Depression. MT: Now, you mentioned that you were in debt at that time. Were you able to secure credit from the government? Or what were the sources of credit? GS: I’ve always had good credit all my life, and I have never known of a time, including the Depression, when I couldn’t go to the bank and borrow enough to get by on. And never in my whole life have I ever been turned down for a dollar that I’ve asked the bank. That’s when I accumulated all my property. It was through my association with the bankers and the confidence that they had in me that I was able to buy all this property during the Depression days. I bought a farm had a $24,000 mortgage on it for $3,500 cash. I didn’t have the money, but I went to the bank and they loaned me $3,500 to buy the farm. MT: You mentioned potatoes around 20 cents a hundred. What would onions have sold for? GS: They didn’t raise as many onions in Weber County, and there wasn’t as many 4 onions. But onions are a commodity that varies a good deal in price. It depends a good deal upon supply and demand of them. But then they were down, too. I don’t just remember just what they paid for onions, but we were heavy in those days in potatoes as we have packed as high as 10 cars a day here. We were heavy in the shipment of potatoes. MT: Did you buy your produce outright from the farmer? GS: We bought it outright and paid cash for it. We never shipped anything on consignment, and we still do business that way. MT: Do you think of anything else that might be of interest during those years? GS: Well, in those days our mode of transportation was the horse and buggy, or the horse and surrey. I have seen the time on the 24th of July when I didn’t have 10 cents to buy an ice cream cone. So those were pretty trying times, and I was in no way alone. I had lots of company. MT: You had to discontinue the use of the automobile through those years? GS: We didn’t have one. We had the old horse and buggy. I’ll never forget the first automobile that I bought. I always wanted a Buick and of course I always wore overalls because I’m dressed up in overalls, and that’s my mode of dress – in working clothes. I went into Walter Cheeseman to buy me a Buick, and of course, not being dressed up like a city dude would be, why I couldn’t get nobody to sell me one because they didn’t think I had any money. Well, I had the money to pay cash for it, but then nobody wanted it. So I went over to R. K. Mitchell and bought me a big six Studebaker. I’ll never forget the price – $2,553.75, and I paid him spot cash for the car. But I had saved that money, and 5 I had saved that money to buy me an automobile. MT: What year would that have been? GS: Oh, I can’t remember the year. It’s been a long time ago. I’ve never owned a Buick automobile from that year to this. I’ve owned Chryslers, Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, Ford, Chevys, Pontiacs, DeSotoes. MT: Were you married at that time? GS: Oh yes. And I have been quite successful in life. I have always been able to pay my bills. I think I have about as good a record as any man that’s been in business that many years. When I settled in here, this was all sagebrush... I worked off of the farm when I was first farming, and my wages for my team and wagon and horses and all was $2 a day, and I was glad to have a job for $2 a day. We had to work in those days. We hauled seven loads of pelf a day, shoveled it both ways to feed the cattle.