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A Rich World: It was tough during the Depression, but life was full and folks were satisfied
Journal photo by David Rolfe
James Munden Sr., 85, recalls working on his family’s 105-acre farm during the Depression and then joining the Navy in World War II.
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Published: July 27, 2009
During the Great Depression, James Munden Sr.'s family had no money. But neither did anyone else in the farming community where he grew up, so people didn't feel poor.
What they did have was a life filled with hard work, music, hunting, fishing, fresh food, toys they made themselves and a strong church community. Baptisms were done at the local swimming hole, and on Sunday afternoons, members of a number of churches gathered there.
"People would be lined up on the creek bank," he said.
For Munden and his siblings, it was a rich world.
"We were just as happy as could be," Munden said.
He knows that things were more stressful for his parents.
"I'm sure they worried about where that next meal was coming from," he said.
Munden, 84, started life on his grandfather's 111-acre tobacco farm about five miles outside of Smithfield.
To get to the main road, which was dirt, they had to walk through the Breedlove farm property.
"We had to walk about three-quarters of a mile through the woods out to the main road to catch the (school) bus," he said.
By the time his mother, Ila, inherited $400, the Breedlove farm had been foreclosed on, and the family used the money for a down payment on the 109-acre farm, which included a house, barns and other buildings. Because of the timing of buying the farm, they had to plant in a hurry the spring of 1931.
They did the work with the help of mules.
"Tractors didn't come in until World War II and after," he said.
Because getting the tobacco into the barn was so labor-intensive, they had to hire people to help. Depending on the worker's responsibilities, the worker was paid 10 cents to 15 cents an hour.
For food, they had pigs, milk cows, fruit trees and vegetable gardens. Each year, they canned about 400 jars of food. Cash was hard to come by, but local stores were willing to barter, giving 12½-cents credit for a dozen eggs.
Music was an integral part of their lives. Munden played mandolin. Both his father and his older brother, Tom, played fiddle and guitar. Everyone in the family played piano. The move to the Breedlove property put them directly across the street from their church -- Pisgah Baptist -- and, if someone was playing the piano at the house, Munden and his sister, Julie, could go across the street to the church, which was never locked, and play the one there.
To play baseball, they carved a bat out of a tree limb and made a ball by rolling up string and covering it with tape.
By the time that Munden turned 18 in 1942, the United States had entered World War II. He joined the Navy. He was sent to radio school. As he was graduating, the Marines came in and said they needed to take half of his class of 120. They didn't ask for volunteers. They just started with the A's and went from there.
The Marines made it to the M's but stopped at Martinez. Many of those men ended up in the Battle of Tarawa, an early Marine offensive in the Pacific that was one of the most brutal of the war.
Munden ended up on the USS Token, which escorted convoys in the Pacific and dropped depth charges when Japanese submarines were believed to be around. Munden monitored radio transmissions sent in encrypted Morse code.
From there, he was transferred to submarine-monitoring duties along the West Coast. He was being trained to become an officer when the war ended. Rather than commit for another four years, he headed home.
Although servicemen coming home had already filled the incoming class at UNC Chapel Hill, Munden showed up in person and talked the director of admissions into admitting him. He graduated in 1949 with a degree in business administration.
In the years that followed, he met his wife, Jane, had two children, and became president of Joyce-Munden Co., a company based in Winston-Salem that sold Hanes products to retailers throughout the region.
Looking back on his days growing up in the Depression, he can see that we have gained some things and we have also lost some things. For one, he thinks that it's too bad that in general, people don't spend as much time outside as they once did. Another thing we seem to have lost, he said, is "the initiative that people had."
The life that people lived included a lot of hard work, he said, but it instilled people with self-confidence.
"We had to think for ourselves, and we did think for ourselves," he said.
■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com
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