Throughout this chronicle, the reader may find it useful to refer to the following:

• Three Generations of Fletchers -A Timeline
• the Fletcher family tree;
• my Celtic dictionary of terms;
• and a Celtic history timeline.
• American History Timeline
• American History
• History lecture series

Chapter Thirteen: Depression Years (1930 to 1939)

• 13.1 The Great Depression: "The Sky is Falling" (4)
• 13.2 To Detroit to Find Work: Paper Routes 1930 to 1932
• 13.3 Summer of 1932: Two Johns
• 13.4 London Normal School: 1932-1933
• 13.5 Entering the Teaching Profession (1933)
• 13.6 Trip to Quebec
• 13.7 Session Man with Dance Bands at Speakeasies
• 13.8 Esther Bernice Mackness
• 13.9 John's Politics in the 1930s
• 13.10 Golf in the 1930s
• 13.11 The Calm Before the Storm

In 1936, unemployment was almost one quarter of the workforce.

In those days, everyone worked, and everyone worked hard. As noted earlier, there was no such thing as a childhood of leisure. John and Arch had to help slaughtering farm animals such as pigs and chickens. This was the chore that they hated the most. But they also disliked even the simpler tasks of collecting eggs.

There was also no such thing as retirement. Grampa Jim's autobiography records that John Fletcher (1845 - 1943) ploughed a field on his 89th birthday (10 April 1934).

John Stays in Windsor John struck out on his own. At the age of 19, John could not bear the idea of life on the farm. Both John and brother Arch were brought up in Windsor and had become city people. So John and Arch decided to stay in Windsor on his own. Parents Jim and Ada, and young sister Marjorie, stayed on at Clearview Farm.

The Windsor area (see left), and Jim's Walkerville, were particularly hard hit in the Depression. The photo of the side of this barn, below expresses this sentiment:

By 1933 all of the Fletchers suffered reductions in their land holdings to make ends meet.

Father Jim Looses the Farm

Relations with the Family

Two Johns: School Teacher and Jazz Musician

But then there was another interest associated with the night. That came from John's interest in jazz music. Perhaps as a reaction against the prohibition of both alchol and sexuality by the Puritans of the older generation --especially the Presbyterianism of John's parents Jim and Ada, many White young people became fascinated with the jazz culture of the 1930s. It had started in the Black community in the U.S. earlier, but by the 1930s was spreading to White youth. Since sexuality could still not be expressed openly, it manifested itself in senual music and smoking. John played the saxophone and smoked cigarettes.

Playing the Saxaphone as Manifestation of Sexuality Anthropologists refer to an unconscious communal thought pattern that impells people to interpret things in sexual terms as a "memorate". The saxophone, more than any other instrument, was a memorate.

Smoking as Manifestation of Sexuality Smoking was also a memorate -that is, an unconscious communal thought pattern that impells people to interpret this act (of smoking) in sexual terms. Cigarettes were used as one would use an opening "pick up" line in meeting members of the opposite sex. Cigarettes smoking was also promoted in advertising and films as a sex symbol, for example Humphrey Bogart in the film "Casablanca" (see right).

Departmental Exams

Relations with Family John, Arch, and parents Jim and Ada attended John's grandparents' sixtyth wedding anniversary 28 June, 1932. There was a large party held at the "Old Homestead". Relations with the Church John seems to be close to the Church at this time. He makes references to specific sermons, such as Reverend Farquharson's 12 June sermon entitled: "Sow to Flesh and Reap Destruction". John started teaching Sunday School. His first lesson was "Moses and the Burning Bush". He would also play music for church gatherings, and makes one specific reference to playing "Scotch Airs" for them. Looking for Work There are many diary entries regarding John's searching for work. During this period John worked with his friend Blair Laing in the sugar beet fields of Tilbury East, and picking fruit at the Stewart farm.

Trip to Ottawa and Toronto, July, 1932

After touring Ottawa (Parliament, museums, etc.), John hitch hikes back to Toronto. He records that he runs across many "hoboes" along the way.

By 9 July, John is in Toronto, and finds his old friend Blair Laing. Blair is attending the University of Toronto. They discuss "old times".

Picking Fruit

Woodie Guthrie

Opening of Welland Canal

Trip to Niagara

Dances

In the early 1930s, even while attending the London Normal School, the Friday night dance was a mainstay. He notes at one dance meeting and having an "interesting discussion with Miss Marion Lindenfield on the fickleness of women, women's styles, and women smoking" (which John was against). John notes that he always has a "swell time" and is meeting "several girls" --some of whom are "Normalites". There are several references to a "Miss Mary McMillan".

Issue of Where Family Was to Live

Application to Normal School

Move to London

John would move several times while attending Normal School in London. By 6 September he moved into Malotts' on Prospect Street. This day was also Jim and Ada's 27th wedding anniversary. He soon moved out of there and into the home of Mrs. O'Connor. But by October he was moving again, this time he recorded that it was "because the food was better at Mrs. Moore's place".

London Normal School Classes, Fall, 1932

The second half of October, he had lessons of course, but many other things seem to be going on simultaneously. John made the LNS basketball team, playing teams such as "Bell Telephone". And there were still the Friday evening dances. His preoccupation, however, was with preparations for a Hallowe'en dance. He was made responsible for organizing a dance band from that year's class of LNS student-teachers. He accomplished this, and his dance on 31 October went well.

The next day, he started teaching regularly at Mrs Blakely's class. By November he switched to start observing at Lambeth High School. He records in his dieary one particular lesson in which the reason for the seasonal change in weather occurs. He correctly identifies the reason as being the angle of Earth's rotational axis, as opposed to the varying distance to the Sun. In fact, Earth is actually further from the Sun in the Summer than it is in the Winter (3,000,000 miles further).

During one lesson on 2 December, 1932, one of the LNS teachers is instructing a class on how to extinguish an alcohol fire. He must not have done it very well, because one of the children did not follow instructions and blew on the fire. He suffered burns to the face, and the students panacked and ran from the room crying.

That December John joined the LNS Glee Club and organized many more dances. By 15 December he finished his practice teaching at Lambeth High School. He then started practice teaching at Valetta Secondary School #2 East --where John had attended in the 1920s.

LNS Re-unions

Valetta Public High School

Freelance Band Work at Dances

First Meeting John met the woman who would become his wife and my mother in the fall of 1934. At this time, it was the start of John's second year of teaching at Valetta High School. Esther's Backstory Esther Mackness (right) was born on 12 November, 1913, on the Mackness farm near the village of Eberts, in South-western Ontario. Esther had relatives and close connections with the town of Wallaceburg --to the North of Chatham. In this chronicle, I tend to stress anything that is Celtic, Scot, and especially Highland Scot. So, what more do I need to say, here. WALLACEburg. WALLACEburg! Esther recalls that she did "women's" chores on the farm --namely washing dishes, cleaning, laundry, and mending clothes. It was the work of her many brothers (Shirley, Clait, Murray) to feed all the farm animals. She was a good cook and handy with needle and threat.

Chatham C.I.

University and LNS She then went to the University of Western Ontario in London, and then London Normal School for her teacher-training September, 1933 to June, 1934. The picture at right is in the Spring of 1934. Esther then took a position as a teacher at Chatham Collegiate Institute in 1933. And so, by the time she met John, they were both teachers.

One Room School House Throughout the late 1930s, Esther was a teacher in a one room school house, much like Normal Rockwell's painting "Norman Rockwell Visits a Country School" (1940) shown below. Esther had to arrive early to light the coal stove and it paid poorly, but she always had good things to say about this period. Mainly how much she liked the students. She would often describe how they would walk her home after school.