I have written before of how my mother taught me, even before I was in school, not to lie. "If you tell one lie, you will have to tell more lies to cover it up." She also taught the "Golden Rule." Dad taught tolerance. When I used the N-word, when I was just four or five, Dad told me, "I don't ever want to hear you use that word again; it's meant to hurt." When as a child, I began to lecture an adult friend of his on the superiority of Catholicism over Episcopalianism, Dad cut short my discourse with a simple question: "Are you a bigot?"
Then there was the ethical and moral training that I received in the Catholic grade schools and high school, at the University of Notre Dame and at its law school — "the ends don't justify the means."
Then, about 30 years ago, I began collecting the stories of what life was like in America during the Great Depression of the 1930s from people who lived through it. I am not quite sure why I began collecting. Perhaps it was the realization, after my mother's death, that what she and Dad had taught me about the Great Depression was passing with them.
One day, about five years ago, I suddenly realized that all the people who had personal memories of the Depression would soon be gone and would take their memories with them. It was then that I seriously began collecting enough additional stories to write my first book. About a year ago, I signed a contract with Crosslink Publishing, a smaller Christian publishing company, to publish my "Memories of the Great Depression — a Time Forgotten." That process — collecting additional stories — has become a labor of love. At this point, I have enough for a sequel, but I still wish to save more.
In my book, I include the story of a friend and neighbor, the Rev. Charles Willey. The underlying values found in his story, and how they contrast with "modern values," have prompted this op-ed.
"I can clearly recall an incident, when a family had their little eight-year-old girl die from a ruptured appendix and peritonitis. The family had absolutely nothing. They didn’t even have enough money to bury her. The expenses of the funeral were more than they could stand. It was at this point that the whole neighborhood stepped in. When I say the neighborhood, I mean our small rural community—a community where the rural church served as the community center and the cohesive factor that bound people together.
"I can distinctly remember how the church got together and "held ice cream suppers. And how they assembled and held what they called 'pound suppers' or 'jitney suppers.' At a jitney supper, everything was a nickel! A scoop of potatoes was a nickel, and a piece of beef was a nickel. You’d buy a whole meal for twenty-five cents. ... It was a fundraiser; that’s what it was."
"The proceeds of these suppers went to help the family with no strings attached. There was no attempt on anybody’s part to take advantage of the charity. It was rather a symbol of people pulling together to help someone who had a genuine hardship— a hardship that they couldn’t help and couldn’t survive without the cooperation of a community. There was a sense of community which we’ve lost now in the age of the nuclear family. Then, we felt a sense of responsibility for each other and for the people we knew. We weren’t just acquaintances; we were friends. And I guess, maybe human need is the only thing that brings that kinship out."
Perhaps I'm an old fool, but I prefer that America where families, neighbors and communities come together and practiced traditional Christian values to help each.
Certainly major disasters require help from the national government. But where traditional Christian charity or local governments can meet the problems, neighbors and local governments should still be the "first responders."
I am leery of a progressive government which chooses to step in as the first responder in matters traditionally reserved to families, neighbors and units of local government.
Today, our federal government is providing cradle to grave benefits: "Free" food, housing, education and medical care. And for those who don't wish to work, "free" money.
And all this is being done without increasing taxes. Banks, great automobile companies, and state governments awash with pension debt are all bailed out with a few keystrokes of the computer. Hundreds of billions of dollars are magically credited to the account of the Federal Reserve, and made available to support otherwise unfunded government programs.
The progressives believe they can engineer the "Great Hallelujah Day." A few of us old curmudgeons await and fear the reckoning.
Copyright 2021, John Donald O'Shea
First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on September 30, 2021
First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on September 30, 2021
