I was born in the ’20s so I’d be writing about the early and mid-thirties and I would be around 9 or 10 years old. That’s a long time to look back, isn’t it? My dad was the pastor of the Lutheran church in our little town in northern Minnesota. Everyone in town went every Sunday to our church for worship. In fact, if someone wasn’t there, one person was selected to go and visit that home. Now, I realize it wasn’t like that in cities, but “Going to church” was very important to nearly everyone. They wore their best clothes too. They called them their “going to church” clothes.
Another time that was very important was voting day. Early in the day, folks would put on their going to church clothes and headed downtown for the parade, led by the school band, about ten girls and boys. Then came the cars. Each car had a local “Big shot” riding in it such as the mayor, the firemen, the pastor, the school superintendent, and the lady who put the parade together. all of them had balloons and were waving them in the air. After the parade, we sang our National Anthem with the mayor holding the American Flag. He was helped by several children. I was one, one year. Then we all went home to prepare food for the town picnic which would be held at the center of main street.
The town picnic was great! I remember how much food was on the table and we kids could have all we wanted. We tried nearly all of them! The tables were all decorated with American flags and most of the people talked about our country. There was no fighting or arguing which I thought was amazing, this being a time when we were told we couldn’t get new shoes even though our shoes had cardboard in them after the leather wore out. And our table had less food on them too. The ladies must have saved m.ost of the food for the picnic. I know, because we ate picnic food for many days after the picnic.
It would be quite a while before we would hear who won on our voting, so after a sing-along, we picked up the food, the men and boys packed away the tables and we went home to wait.
The schools were so different back in the thirties. The first thing we did in the morning was to say the Pledge Of Allegiance and sing My Country ‘Tis Of Thee. Then the teacher read something from the Bible and closed it with a prayer. Our classes were different too, probably causing much of the trouble in our young people being behind in their learning. Why do we have to be different? We all need to know Reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and a little bit of science. If it is needed, this is what we should have.
Well, this is a bit of life in the thirties. Our town was very small, but most of us experienced some of what I wrote about. Our country is really messed up. We need to roll up our sleeves and get to work, all of us, not just a few. We must reinstate our police, take a long look at our schools and churches and live the way we should. Our early leaders made a country after careful study of the Bible. If we only could get the truth that every word of the Bible is God’s word to us, we would at least know where our Bible is. We would read it, and better yet, use it to make us a better country. What a wonderful country we would have!
GramMa's Thoughts 