Friday, February 14, 1936 - Valentine's Day

 

"I got six Valentines.  Our teacher gave each pupil a Valentine with a sucker in it.  I went down to Aunt Elsie's.  She gave me two peices of cake.  Jack got five Valentines.  Aunt Elsie got a Valentine from her sister today."

Friday, January 31, 1936 - Mother Got Her "Knew" Coat

 

"Marie Server came over and Jack poped corn and I got some apples out and we had lunch.  At school today we played games.  Mother got her pay today.  She got her knew coat.  I got a ride home with Mrs. Rosengren from school.  Mother got her dresses back from Evans dry cleaners.  You can get one garment cleaned for fifty cents and two for fifty one cents."

Evans Dry Cleaners was at 1121 Third Street in Muskegon.  Google Street View shows that the building now houses a game store, The Griffin's Rest.

Wednesday, January 29, 1936 - Arithmetic and Uncle Angie's Job

 

"I went to Marie Server house and played school.  Uncle Angie got a job working at the Norge.  Mrs. Rosengren showed me how to do a problem in arithmetic.  I think I did it the way she told me and I got it wrong in arithmetic class.  I must to have not watched her very close.  Bob, Bill, Jack went down the hill."

I found this online article, which explains the history behind the building that held the Norge, a refrigerator company: "Norge Corp., which came to Muskegon in 1891 as the Alaska Refrigerator Co., bought the factory building in 1936 as part of a huge expansion program. Within two years, Norge would employ an estimated 4,500 workers."  I'm sure this was a huge relief to the many previously unemployed families in the area.

This Facebook page for Muskegon Heritage Museum has some photos of a Norge refrigerator at the museum.  And this photo on Pinterest shows the Norge building likely around the time Uncle Angie worked there.

Monday, January 27, 1936 - The Veterans Are Awarded Their Bonus

 

"Great News!  The bonus became a law!  Today at school Mrs Rosengren and Mrs Smith our teachers was late.  We played colors till they came.  I b[r]ought a grit for Billy to my teacher.  I brought my playmate magazine to school.  I went Down to aunt Elsie's house."

In 1932, 17,000 World War I veterans and their family members (totaling 43,000), marched on Washington D.C. to demand early cash redemption of their service certificates.  They came to be called the Bonus Army.  The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had awarded them bonuses in the form of these certificates but they could not redeem them until 1945.  The Bonus Army set up makeshift  housing, called Hooverville, in "honor" of the president, Herbert Hoover, who then ordered the U.S. Army to clear out their campsites.  The veterans were also met with resistance by the Washington city police who shot at the veterans; two were wounded and later died.  When Franklin Roosevelt became president, he offered the participants of a smaller Bonus March in 1933 jobs in the Civilian Conversation Corps, most of whom accepted.  On January 27, 1936, Congress overrode Roosevelt's veto against early payout and paid the veterans their bonus nine years early.  This was very good news for all those unemployed veterans whose families were suffering.

Grit was a weekly newspaper that was published out of Pennsylvania.  It was very popular in rural areas.  I remembering getting it when I was a girl, living in Alaska.  Billy must have had a subscription route.

Shirley's Friends, Neighbors, and Community Members

There were two families that Shirley mentions frequently in her diary: the Servers and the Taylors.  Marie Server was Shirley's best friend.  In 1930, the Robbins and Server families were enumerated three homes apart, living on East Broadway in Norton Township.  The Server family consisted of the parents, Thomas and Lillian, and two much older siblings, Lyle and Genevieve (b. c. 1915 and 1917, respectively).  Marie was born c. 1926 and was the same age and in the same grade as Shirley.

Lyle and Doris Taylor, 1935
Grant, Michigan
They were probably visiting Bob who was working on farms
 in the area, as there are several photos of them with him.

The Taylor parents seem to have been close friends with Bill and Marie, Shirley's parents, and frequently visited from their home in Ashland Township in neighboring Newaygo County, often staying for a weekend at a time. The parents were Ernest Sr. and Orah, and their children were Lyle (b. c. 1920), Doris (b. c. 1921), Ernest Jr. (b. c. 1923), and Phyllis (b. c. 1925). These children were close in age to Bob, Billy Jr., and Shirley Robbins and were good friends with each other, too.

Mrs. Rosengren and Mrs. Smith were mentioned as Shirley's teachers in elementary school.  Mrs. Rosengren was probably Ora Fern (DeCamp) Rosengren, wife of Alvin.  There were three Mrs. Smiths, all teachers, listed in the 1940 census who had lived in Muskegon Heights in 1935: Mildred M. Smith, an English teacher, divorced; Gladys L. Smith, a Kindergarten teacher, married to Vernard A. Smith; and R. Jessie Smith, enumerated simply as a teacher, married to T. Lynne Smith.  Mrs. Smith, Shirley's teacher, was probably not Mildred, as that Mrs. Smith likely taught high school, given that she was a teacher of a specific subject.  Perhaps we'll be able to learn more through the diary entries.

I will update this post with more information on the above families as I research them.  I'll also post about other friends, neighbors, and community members as we come across them in the diary entries.