one year after he arrived at his new home, seven-year-old Billy watched those boys compete in everything from foot races to kite flying. Six soldiers dressed in blue uniforms with big brass buttons on their overcoats stood by the bandstand and watched the kids compete. White hair poked from beneath the blue hats of the Union soldiers. Bill stared up at the long white beards of the Civil War veterans and the officers stared down at him. Little did he know that someday he, too, would be in uniform, fighting in a war.
On the occasional Sunday afternoon, Billy’s mom visited the orphanage. She came with candies and small gifts about once a month. Billy looked forward to the treats, but mostly he loved spending time with his mom. He missed his little brother, too. Every time his mother came, Billy asked the same question, “When can I come home?” His mom would look away and say, “Soon, Billy. I’ll get you home soon.”5
In the fall of 1929, the world outside Parmadale turned upside down. The Great Depression hit, and it hit hard. Everyone suffered. Banks and businesses closed. People lost their jobs and their homes. Orphanages filled to capacity. Parmadale was no exception. As more children poured through the doors, the Sisters of Charity supplied every one of them with two sets of shoes and four outfits, two for winter and two for summer. Little things brought great joy to the lonely boys. A pancake breakfast highlighted some mornings, not only because the kids loved the fluffy flapjacks, but also because of the potential prize inside. The chef had added boiled pennies to the pancake batter, and a penny could buy ten clay marbles, called brownies, at the orphanage store. The boys played lots of games with their cherished marbles.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION 1929–39
AFTER WORLD WAR I, Americans enjoyed good times. Along with world peace, people had jobs and money. They began to invest in the stock market, a place where individuals invest in businesses by purchasing shares of a company. On October 24, 1929, otherwise known as “Black Thursday,” the value of the stocks began to fall and kept falling at record rates. The single worst day for the United States economy occurred a few days later on Tuesday, October 29. The stock market collapsed, leaving most of the businesses the people had invested in worthless.
The stock market crash had a domino effect. People who invested in stocks lost their money. Bank customers’ hard-earned money disappeared when investments failed and the banks went out of business—about eleven thousand of them by 1933. Shop owners closed their doors. Over twelve million people lost their jobs. Some lost their homes. The homeless either moved in with relatives or built shacks out of scraps in vacant lots. These makeshift villages became known as shantytowns or “Hoovervilles,” mocking President Hoover, who kept promising good times ahead. Life was hard for the people living in these temporary villages. People sewed their own clothes or wore hand-me-downs. They saved used paper and string and added it to food as cheap fillers to feed more family members. Eating beans seven days a week became common. Homes had no electricity or water. Disease spread quickly. And when Christmas finally came, some kids were happy to get a piece of fruit for Christmas and possibly one toy. It’s estimated that about 250,000 teenagers left home so there would be one less mouth to feed. Some became hobos and traveled around the country looking for jobs. Nearly everyone suffered. The Great Depression lasted for ten years.
When Christmas season rolled around, the boys were told to pick one item from a department store catalog. As Billy thumbed through the thick book, it seemed impossible to pick just one Christmas gift. Sister Rose Frances looked at Billy, slumped over and biting his lower lip. She walked across the room and sat alongside him. As they flipped through the pages, she said, “I think a dice game would be a great choice.”6 Not wanting to argue with the kind Sister or hurt her feelings, Billy chose the dice game. When Christmas day finally came, children squealed with delight as they unwrapped bicycles, skates, and sleds. Billy looked down at his dice game and tried to hold back his tears.
Soon after Christmas, Billy contracted scarlet fever. He went to City Hospital in Cleveland on December 27, 1929. As he waited to get checked in, he watched the electric train circle the tracks around the Christmas tree in the lobby.
The sick little boy spent the rest of the holiday season in the contagious ward, along with all of the other infectious patients. With so many diseases in one room, the patients caught each other’s illnesses—everything from the mumps to measles to whooping cough. Billy swapped one disease for another and remained in the hospital room from December until the Fourth of July. He became so dizzy from being bedridden that he needed to crawl to get to the bathroom. While fireworks and bottle rockets exploded over the Cleveland Flats, an industrial area near the Cuyahoga River, Billy was finally discharged from the hospital and sent back to the orphanage in Parma, Ohio.
One month later, in August 1930, while the country still battled the Great Depression, Billy’s mom and his uncle Bill showed up at Parmadale in a Model T Ford. On the drive home, Billy couldn’t take his eyes off his mother as she moved a lever back and forth inside the car, manually operating the windshield wipers. The pouring rain did nothing to dampen the eight-year-old’s spirits. He was going home! Much to his surprise, Billy learned that Jimmy had been home for a year already. Due to complications from spina bifada, the orphanage couldn’t care for him. Billy didn’t mind at all. He couldn’t wait to see his little brother again.
Billy with Mary outside their home on 119th Street.
© William A. Wynne
Billy burst through the front door. Although Jimmy and Mary were not home, the house was far from empty. Billy’s family had grown, but not in the usual way. His grandmother, aunts, and uncles had moved in. Due to the depression, most families could no longer afford to live in a home of their own, so they flocked together to make it through the hard times. Billy didn’t care. After all, he had been sleeping in a room with twenty beds lined up on each side. Being back home with nine family members would be just fine. And when a white German shepherd greeted him with a lick on the face, Billy felt right at home. After their brief introduction, Billy petted Skippy, untied the dog, and took him out to play. Although the rain kept falling, they romped around the yard, and when Skippy crawled into the large cedar doghouse, Billy followed right behind him.
That evening, Billy knelt beside his bed and proudly showed his mom how he had learned to say his nightly prayers at the orphanage. He thanked God for all of the members of his family, and for Skippy, and ended the prayer by saying “Hammer shonus.” His mom raised her eyebrows for a moment until she realized what Billy had meant to say was “Have mercy on us.”
When summer ended, Billy would start second grade. Since he had spent most of first grade in the hospital, he worried. Will I be able to keep up with the other kids? 7
DID YOU KNOW?
Billy left the orphanage on a rainy day in a Model T Ford. In the early days, not only were the windshield wipers manual, so were the engines. Some engines needed to be cranked manually in the front of the car to get it to run. You had to be certain the key was turned off so the car didn’t run you over.
2
LIFE IN THE STREETS
Common sense is better than intelligence, but if you are blessed with both, you are unstoppable.
—Bill Wynne1
BILLY SAT LOW in his chair in the second-grade classroom at Saint Vincent de Paul School, hoping and praying that Miss Margaret would not call on him in search of an answer. Or even worse—what if she asked him to read aloud? He struggled through second grade and third
