Byron Gross and Sam Weber: The Full Interview
Watch the full interview of Byron (born in 1914) and Sam (born in 1913) talking about President Roosevelt’s fireside chats, how the crisis affected them and their fellow St. Louisans, and the lessons they learned from the Great Depression.
BYRON: My name is Byron Gross
BYRON: Born in St. Louis in 1914, July the 4th.
HOST: So that makes you--
BYRON: That makes me 93 years old.
HOST: --93, right?
SAM: My name is Sam Weber. I was born in St. Louis, Missouri on May 1, 1913.
SAM: Well, I know personally I didn't suffer much from the Depression. But we know because the banks were closed, we were depositors of Union Trust Company-- trust bank. Which was on Union and Martin Luther King Drive. They closed with many other banks. We had no funds. And my dad's business went bad, and no customers, he was in the shoe business.
SAM: I know my dad went broke. And my mother took in sewing to make a living. And my dad moved to New York, he got a job at a shoe factory there. And he made a deal with his employer to sleep on the cutting board-- cutting table, and he used to go around to the deli, pick up different condiments. It was a couple of slices of bread, for his food. And when things got a little better with him, he came back to St. Louis. I was still there going to school and I was working on weekends. You asked me about money, making $2 a week.
HOST: $2 a week.
SAM: And then in the summertime, one summer, I was, I worked as a chauffeur for a wholesale dress salesman. Have lots of [INAUDIBLE] at $5 a week.
BYRON: Well, in '31 I graduated from high school, and then I went directly to college, and that was from '31 to '36. And even after I got out of school and had my office, which was downtown in St. Louis first. Then I moved out to University City and I sat there and waited and read “Gone With the Wind” from cover to cover, and the phone didn't ring.
BYRON: I remember one incident in particular when this woman came in, and the mentor that I was talking to you about earlier, who had his office downtown was just about as great a professional man you ever wanted to meet. And what he taught me I was carrying out to the suburb. And I was charging at that time, $5 to clean your teeth, and somebody came in and said, well so-and-so across the street is doing it for three. [LAUGHTER]
BYRON: Well, let's see. After I got out of school, high school, I worked for a Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, drove a truck for a cleaner, worked as an usher. I don't remember how much money I made but apparently it wasn't a lot. And unfortunately, only because my father was in the commission business which is eggs and poultry, we managed to live. But it was not easy. And I always remember him decrying the situation but, there wasn't much he could do.
SAM: We had this development under the Eads Bridge called Hooverville.
HOST: Hooverville, right.
SAM: And the sleepless persons would be-- they'd make, I think, shanties out of cardboard or something, and live there. And that was a big thing here in this area. And that's all they worried about. And you'd see the guys selling apples on the street corners.
BYRON: And I recall vividly, that when the produce would come in from the farmers, they had these great, big, galvanized cans out at the curb, and they throw in the stuff there, and a few minutes later people knew what the schedule was. They'd come out and pick it out of the garbage so they could have something to eat. And when the farmers would bring their chickens in on the trucks, and I will never forget this as long as I live, the chickens were hot because it was summertime, they had their heads out of the coop, and as they pulled the coops off the truck, some of them got beheaded. And of course, they got tossed in with the garbage, and people just couldn't wait to grab them.
HOST: Chicken heads?
BYRON: No, the chicken. They threw the whole body in there.
BYRON: Well, it was after my father passed away and the banks were closing was called Delmar Savings and Trust Company on Delmar, East of Kingshighway. And she was in line. And by the time she got to the door they said that's it, no more, we're not giving out money anymore. So that was very difficult. My sister was working at a place called Metal Craft in North Penrose, and without her I think we'd have been in big trouble.
BYRON: As a matter of fact, my sister help put me through college. Without her, I would have never been there. I would've been-- I don't know what I would have done or been, but she was the breadwinner for us.
BYRON: Franklin Roosevelt.
SAM: It was just good to listen to him. He gave you a lot of hope. He visualized better things all the time. He always buoyed you up. Those were some good chats, and people would look forward to hearing him, watching him, seeing him.
BYRON: We had a neighbor whose name was January, and one day before I got here, I got a phone call and he said, “Are you Byron Gross?” “Yes.” “You're the dentist?” “Yes.” “I just wanted to make sure I had the right person before I told this story.” I said, “What is it?” He said, “Well, you remember us?” I said, “Sure, you lived right next door to us on 3000 Sheridan Avenue.” He says, “Yeah.” And I said, “What's—what” He says, “Well, only because your father was in the commission business and your mother was very generous she gave us some eggs. Without that, we would have starved.”
HOST: What did you wish for back then that you might have lacked? Something you wanted more than anything else at the time. Maybe a car, maybe--
BYRON: You got it, in the first one. Of course.
HOST: Yeah.
BYRON: That hasn't changed, really. As far as kids today, they still want cars.
HOST: Yeah.
BYRON: Save your money.
HOST: Watch your money carefully?
BYRON: That's exactly right. Because you didn't have very much of it, and when you begin to get it, people have said to me, well, that's because you were raised in depression days. Even my kids would say it to me because I've always-- wouldn't buy anything unless I could pay for it. There was no installment plan. And if I couldn't pay for it, I did without. And I did without a lot. I used to walk home from Kingsbury, from the Delmar loop to North St. Louis to save a dime.
HOST: That's a long way.
BYRON: Well, I used to walk home from-- you know where Union Station is?
HOST: Yeah.
BYRON: From Union Station to Natural Bridge and King and Union. I used to walk a lot.
SAM: Not withstanding the fact that people were concerned about themselves personally, there was always someone there ready to help you out, share something with you. That was an amazing situation about people in those days. Everybody was in the same boat.
Watch in Segments: Byron Gross and Sam Weber
- Introductions
- What were you doing during the Great Depression?
- What were some difficult adjustments you had to make during the Depression?
- Discuss the conditions endured by some during the Depression.
- Were you affected by bank closings during the Great Depression?
- What was it like to listen to Roosevelt's fireside chats?
- A story about helping each other to get by...
- What was something people wished for?
- Lessons Byron took away from living through the Great Depression...
- Lessons Sam took away from living through the Depression...
The Great Depression Interview series, recorded in 2008, is made up of conversations with St. Louis-area residents who lived through the Great Depression. The interviews provide students with first-person accounts of life between 1929 and 1940. Teachers can get students talking about the videos with discussion questions (PDF) based on the interviews.
For additional Great Depression-related multimedia resources, from newsreels to oral histories, visit our audio and video collections.