Father and son
Father and son
In this oral history excerpt, Stan Hyatt describes how his father had a hard time finding steady work after the Great Depression. Because his father had to move the family to Ohio for work, Stan reminisces how he came back to western North Carolina during two different years to live with his grandmother.
In the late 50s there weren't many jobs around here; not a lot of good-paying jobs and so forth. Coming off of the Depression years the economy hadn't really picked up that well, and my dad just drifted from place to place looking for something better. That's how he ended up in Ohio.
Actually, I moved back and forth to Ohio several times. My parents were up there regularly, but I didn't like it up there in the big city - in Cleveland - near as well as I did out in the country. There weren't enough things to entertain me in the city, so I came back. That's how I stayed with my grandmother. She reached a point in time - her youngest daughter left home in the late 50s - that she was by herself, at that time in her sixties. And so I think it was 1960 I came back the first time, and stayed with Granny a year or two here. Went to elementary school at Barnardsville one year, and then went to North Buncombe High School one year. That's when there wasn't a middle school. You went straight to the eighth grade then, and I was in the eighth grade there. Then I went back to Ohio; then I came back. So I just kind of shuffled back and forth between Cleveland and down here.
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