Interviews of Lucille Adamatz and Eugene Fucci, by Chelsea Linsenbigler

Getting the life stories of those who survived the depression was incredibly interesting. I interviewed a quiet, 88 year old woman from the Haddam Senior Center named Lucille Adametz. She was 8 when the depression hit, and her younger brother was 6. They lived in Higganum, CT on their grandparents’ fruit farm with her parents. Her father was a construction worker, and her mother stayed home to take care of herself and her brother. She remembers her neighbors- one raised cattle and beef and the other grew vegetables. Between the 3 of them they would trade and barter their goods, so money wasn’t a huge issue to get food. She remembers walking down the streets and seeing the bread lines- although she claims in Higganum everybody knew everybody. If you needed help your neighbor would help you, and you would do the same for them. “That was the great thing about living in a small, close town. Everybody was your friend” Ms. Adametz told me. Her worst memory was not being able to have friends over because they couldn’t afford to feed them. “We couldn’t even give them a cookie if we had them because we didn’t have any to give” she said. Her family cut back on everything clothes, to food. They didn’t have money to go get a sweet candy for $.01. Lucille Adametzs’ strongest memories was seeing all of the men from the WPA building bridges and roads in her town, and playing with tinfoil, thread, and spools because they couldn’t afford real toys. Ms. Adametz made it very clear that she never felt poor; that she was the same as everyone else. The thought of her family being poor never even crossed her mind.

I also interviewed my step-fathers mother, Jean Fucci. She lived in Auburn, NY at the time. She lived with her mother, and sister. Her mother ran a convalescent home in their home, since Ms.fucci told me that there were no such things as retirement homes back then. Her mother didn’t make a lot of money, and they were on welfare. They could only go to one store, and couldn’t get luxuries like candy or new clothes. Hand-me-downs were all they could wear. She remembers walking to school in the morning, walking 2 miles back for lunch, walking back after lunch, ect. As Lucille Adametz told me, Ms.Fucci didn’t feel poor either. She also told me that she felt the same as everyone else. Sadly, that is all Jean Fucci could remember.