IN ‘33 LIFE CHANGED In the last issue of Home & Harvest magazine I talked about Pvt. Henry Lorang of the White Spring Ranch in Genesee serving in World War I in England and France. After seeing the original Armistice Day first hand in a French camp, Henry returned to marry his sweetheart, Marguerite Tobin. He wanted to build a little bungalow for his new wife. All while journaling the whole process of course. After his father, John Lorang passed away in 1926 and his mother Mary moved to Spokane 2 years later; Marguerite and Henry moved into the big farmhouse with their four children. Almost immediately the Great Depression hit.
People in Genesee and elsewhere bartered for goods, raised pigs, chickens and more food in gardens. Henry and Marguerite traded eggs for the children’s birthing bills. Tires on people’s autos wore out and some drove on the rims. One local person put wagon wheels on his car. It was the price of wheat and the bank closures that scared everyone. The Genesee Exchange Bank closed without any coverage for depositors. Mary Lorang, Henry’s mother, lost $100 in the Genesee Exchange just when taxes were overdue on the farm. Marguerite’s parents lost quite a bit as well. People got very good at bartering, so when the price of wheat went down to .25 because of competing farmers; Henry Lorang talked to his neighbors. From the Genesee News of August 1932, a newspaper preserved here: “Henry Lorang, Genesee, pleaded with the large number of farmers in attendance to hold their wheat in an effort to obtain better prices that more money could be applied on their outstanding debts, and again put the farmer on a purchasing basis, which would relieve the number of men in the jungles from ekeing out a daily existence from door to door and from refuse barrels, as it is said that are doing in some centers. Farmers are willing to begin buying again, especially machinery, lumber and labor, said Mr. Lorang…..Charles Schooler moved that Genesee farmers organize to hold their wheat until it reached a price of 75 cents per bushel at Genesee or for a period of 60 days.”
