The Great Depression brought incredible hardship across America, especially to rural communities like Dexter, Iowa. But even in the toughest years, families found remarkable ways to make ends meet and care for one another. Join us for a powerful look back with author Joy Neil Kidney, who shares the true story of her grandmother Leora and her family’s daily struggle and ingenuity. You’ll hear how working long, demanding hours in a sweet corn canning factory became a lifeline, a place where blisters and hard labor paid for essential school supplies and even a senior class ring.
From the relentless rhythm of the canning line to the surprising entrepreneurial spirit of a young man earning cash by collecting bird bounties, these historical accounts reveal the extraordinary grit and resourcefulness of the American people. Joy Neil Kidney’s family stories from this challenging era aren’t just about surviving; they’re about sacrifice, community, and the hopeful determination to build a better future. Discover the inspiring actions and enduring American spirit of a family that refused to give up, here on Our American Stories.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
Joy Noris Wilson and Betty Neil, in their high school senior pictures, look like they came from well-to-do families, but they both missed the first two weeks at the beginning of their senior year to work at the local canning factory in order to earn enough money to pay for school clothes, books, class rings, which cost six dollars and fifty cents, and senior pictures. Betty’s grandfather, Os Neil, aged 67, contracted with Iowa farmers to grow so much corn. He also checked the fields and hired the workers for the canning factory. Os and Nellie Neil were good neighbors of Clevend Leora Wilson. The summer of 1935, the canning factory was getting ready for sweet corn, if only it would rain. Mister Neil had just told Leora that if it didn’t rain that week, there wouldn’t be any canning. In spite of the 100-degree heat, it rained twice in one week. When Doris asked Miss Neil about jobs, he told her that she’d get a job all right, and her dad too. So Clay and Leora and also Betty got jobs canning sweet corn. When the town whistled blue early in the morning, while Doris was still asleep, Clave walked to the factory east of Dexter along the railroad tracks to set things up. They worked long hours, from eight in the morning until midnight or after then. Clave and others stayed to wash up the canning machinery in the floors, scalding them with a hose and taking up to four hours longer. Doris soon had blisters on her hands from shucking corn. By the end of August’s school at night, and her feet and legs became so wet. Leora rigged up a sort of lap robe for her with an oilcloth bag around a gunnysack that she put her feet and legs into, then sat on the top part of it. Other workers made similar contraptions, which they hung in the warm engine room to dry away night. Clave’s job also included weighing the sugar, salt, and cornstarch, mixing it and pouring it in the cookers. He kept the sieves clean and the machinery running. Leoras said the place was a noisy, sloppy place. Doris hated it when the farmers arrived at the plant with a load of corn late in the day when it was getting dark. But corn has to be processed right away or it will spoil. If not, would heat up and the cans could bulge and explode. So they worked as long as it was corn to get ready, and they stayed until the work was done. Doris’s younger siblings took turns taking meals to her and her dad, and a late lunch for their dad when he worked extra late to get ready for the next day. Doris turned 17 on August 30th; she’d just gotten her first pay envelope for a week’s work, six dollars, fifty-five cents—twenty cents an hour—that paid for her class ring. Doris’s senior year was off to a good start. Money was hard to come by during the Depression. Clay Wilson worked on part-time government WPA jobs, sometimes doing rogue work, later helping to remodel that extra library. The two oldest Wilson brothers, Delbert and Donald, had joined the Navy after high school graduation. Donald had re-enlisted, but Delbert thought he could earn enough in California to send money home. Things were tough there too, so he ended up hitching back to Iowa. The Wilson twins, Dale and Darlene, would start their senior year the fall of 1938. Darlene had a regular babysitting job; Dale mode grass for neighbors and whatever work he could find to help pay for extra expenses his senior year. A unique opportunity for some cash was announced that Dallas County would pay bounty on starlings and crows until July 1st, a nickel per foot or ten cents per bird. Starlings were considered pests, causing damage and spreading disease. The Wilsons had seen a flock of about two thousand of the dark speckled birds, like a big swarm of bees, their rock a screeching like rusty hinges. Dale had already bagged 36 starlings by June 3rd. He and his brothers pulled their cash and bought a used bicycle for ten dollars, so he biked to Adell, 16 miles away, with bird feet as proof. He brought home three dollars and sixty cents. Four days later, Dale headed to Adell with evidence from 48 starlings and three crows. His mother was so relieved when he returned home, this time with five dollars and ten cents. Halfway through June, verification from another 55 starlings netted Dale five dollars and fifty cents. Three days later, he brought home four dollars and seventy cents cash. Finally, Dale made his last trek to Adell, twenty-five dollars and forty cents in all for ridding the area of 254 bird pests. Dale also got in shape for sports during those five, thirty-two-mile trips on a secondhand, one-speed bike. “Mom, what size shoes do you wear?” Dale parked the big Sears Roebuck catalog on the kitchen table. “Now, Dale, you’re not going to spend your hard-earned money on shoes for me?” “Yes, I am.” Dale had noticed the holes in the soles of her shoes that she cut cardboard to fish in them. Leora said that his generosity nearly made her cry. Sturdy women’s shoes cost about three dollars or thirty starlings, and there was still enough money for the senior expenses of a determined 17-year-old even during the Great Depression.
Joy Neil Kidney’s stories of rural Iowa during the Great Depression. Here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, and I’m inviting you to help Our American Stories celebrate this country’s two hundred and fiftieth birthday coming soon. If you want to help inspire countless others to love America like we do and want to help us bring the inspiring and important stories told here about a good and beautiful country, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Our American Stories. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Any amount helps. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and give.
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