PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. — The Great Depression closed Champlain National Bank.

“The guy’s last name who was head of the bank was Crook, and everyone said, ‘You’re a crook!’” remembered Ed Bechard, 82, who was just 5 years old when the stock market crashed in 1929.

“My father only got 5 percent of his money back.”

Memories of those lean years are becoming fewer as time passes, but hardship cemented them in the minds of North Country senior citizens.

“Tupper Lake was hit hard,” said Donald Bates, 80, who until recently lived at the Skilled Nursing Facility at CVPH Medical Center in Plattsburgh.

His father, who owned Tupper Lake hotels and did other work, too, “took sick” with the Depression’s arrival; Bates helped out when he was old enough to get a job.

He had to find work all summer long and as much as he could in the winter, usually in the woods.

“Most men worked in the woods,” said Elizabeth Bates, 71, and Donald’s wife of 51 years.

It wasn’t easy, Donald said. He made 35 cents an hour when he worked for the railroad and then $4 a day with $1 for board in another of his jobs.

“So, we didn’t get rich.”

“When I was a kid, the only things I had were my food, my clothes and a place to live,” said Ed, who still lives in the Champlain hamlet of Coopersville.

His father, Alderic Bechard, was a farmer, and living off the land eased the hardship somewhat.

“But I heard stories of people in the city (New York City) jumping out of buildings,” Ed said. “None of that stuff happened around here — the people down in the city lost everything.”

And those city folks depended on farmers such as the Bechards.

Ed’s father was among many, he said, who sent hay by rail to New York City to feed the horses relied upon for transportation there.

“We would ship hay down, and they would ship coal back,” he said. “In those days, hay was just like gasoline.”

The Depression-era trains that carried the hay also brought about surprises from time to time.

“As kids, we would go and stand by the railroad tracks,” Ed said. “We used to see a lot of people standing between the cars.”

Those people, he said, were hobos who had more than likely lost everything in the Depression; they hitched rides from place to place in search of jobs, food and a place to sleep at night.

“One time, a hobo came and stayed in our barn while he waited for the next train to come,” Ed said. “Someone must’ve seen him go in there, because they came and put handcuffs on him and took him away. My father said he looked awful sad.

“Another time a hobo came and said he wanted some money, so my father said, ‘I’ll give you a job,’ and he put him to work on the farm.

“One day,” Ed recalled the hobo saying, ‘I’ve got enough money to go where I got to go.’ So he left — and we never saw him again.”

Alba Chilton, 89, of Plattsburgh, who grew up during the Depression in Ellenburg Depot, was also accustomed to hearing of hobos traveling by train.

“Some hobos got off and went to my mother-in-law’s home … and she would feed them.

“She always had someone on her back porch.

“My husband used to say he never knew who was coming to breakfast,” Alba said.

Like Ed, Alba credited farming with her family’s ability to sustain an adequate lifestyle in those days.

“Most people depended on farming for their livelihood,” she said. “If we didn’t live on a farm, jobs were very scarce.”

Alba recalled that job opportunities were especially lacking in winter.

“It was a hardship. People would steal; there were chicken thieves.”

Alba, herself, looked forward to the 5 cents she got weekly and the treat that provided — well, almost.

“We used to go to the movies in Ellenburg,” she remembered. “But the films we used to see were always breaking down.”

The challenges of the Depression gave way to new ones, as World War II brought rationing of gasoline and food.

“Everything was rationed,” Donald said. “(And) a lot of the government produce was sent overseas to the troops.”

As part of the war effort, and to supplement food available for purchase, victory gardens were planted all over Tupper Lake, Elizabeth recalled.

The Depression had sent Eva Nolan and her family to Florida in search of work.

“(My mother) purchased a restaurant, and she would make all Jewish food,” said the former Skilled Nursing Facility resident, who’s 87.

In the 1940s, Eva found wartime work in the airplane division of a New Jersey factory.

The Depression had implanted a lasting lesson on its children, one of continual industry.

“I learned to work on machinery,” Eva said. “I learned to make dresses — little girls’ fancy dresses, and I learned to work hard,” she said.

“We were just living, I guess,” summed up Donald. “You didn’t feel any different because everybody was living the same way.”





Christine Murnane and Lucas Blaise write for the Plattsburgh (N.Y.) Press-Republican.