April 25, 1936

Estelle Bridges (white)
9 Green Forest Drive
Boone, NC

Public Health Nurse, formerly District Nurse

Interviewers: Catherine Hoffman and Shannon Fyfe

Estelle Vivian Bridges, 34 years
 

"I’m so sorry this place is such a mess, but it’s not easy keeping anyplace neat with two little ones running around. Please, do come on in and have a seat over here," was the warm greeting I received upon arriving at the home of Mrs. Estelle Bridges. The exterior of the house gave the appearance of the owner having wealth by its size, but the obvious lack of recent maintenance and repair quickly contradicted this assumption. Despite the fact that the house had not been well cared for in recent years, it looked as if it had once been a nice residence. This observation was confirmed as I was ushered into the parlor by Mrs. Bridges and saw ample furniture, but most of which was shabby and in need up new upholstery. I sat down on a faded green couch, while Mrs. Bridges slid into a rocking chair across from me. As soon as we were settled, Mrs. Bridges began to tell me about her childhood on the other side of Boone.

"Well now, I was born on December 9, 1901 in my family’s home across town. My father was the town doctor and my mother stayed at home to take care of the seven children, two boys, four girls, and myself. I had a wonderful family life growing up, and we were pretty well off because of my father’s position in our community. We were a well-respected family and participated in all of the community functions. We went to the Boone First Baptist Church of Christ. I have wonderful memories from my childhood, which I am very lucky for and appreciate now that times are tough. I only wish my children could have the same."

"I decided I wanted to become a nurse when I was very young. I attended public school through high school. I then studied in the Hamlet Hospital in Hamlet, NC until I finished my nurse training in 1924, when I moved back to Boone, ready to practice as a certified nurse. A mutual friend introduced my late husband Evan and me soon afterwards back here in Boone. He had begun a very successful bank in Boone a few years prior to our meeting, and had quickly become an important member of our society. Even though he was ten years my superior, we fell in love after only a few meetings. My father approved of our match and when he proposed to me one year later, my father jumped at the opportunity to unite our successful families and create the next generation of our lineage. I was 24 when I married Evan and it was obvious we were meant to be."

"After we were married, our life settled into my work as a district nurse and his as head of the only bank in town. I practiced as a mid-wife, practical nurse, and school nurse in Watauga County. I had plenty of business because the closest large hospital was in the next town, and my patients were those who did not want to go that far. The one in Boone was very small and not very clean. Meanwhile, Evan was doing extremely well in the banking business so we decided to build a big, new house so we could start a family. We built this very house and furnished it with the best furniture available at the time. It was our life investment and we planned to have a large, happy family. Our marriage was working out beautifully and our jobs were doing well when the stock market crashed in 1929. It was because of all that stupid stock market business. All that speculation kept the stock market artificially high. Then it just collapsed. You know, about nine thousand banks failed in 1930, but we were lucky because Evan’s bank survived. Another wonderful thing happened that year. We were blessed with our first child."

At this point, Mrs. Bridges offered me some iced tea and got up to pour the glasses. When she returned, two small children accompanied her, clinging tightly to her thin, white threadbare dress. She set down the smudged glasses and then proceeded to seat her children on her lap. They stared at me with wide, wondering eyes, and the boy stuck his thumb into his mouth. I then began to observe the children. The larger one was a girl, perhaps five years old, wearing a dress similar to her mother’s. The little boy was a few years younger, and he wore a white sailor suit, obviously a nice outfit at one time, but one that had been downgraded to daily wear because there was nothing else for him to wear. Both children looked shy, but not unhappy.

"These are my babies. This here is Gwen, she’s six. And this here is little Timmy, only four years old and he’s already a spitting image of his daddy, God rest his soul. I was twenty-eight years old when Gwen was born. By the time she was born, we weren’t quite as secure as we had been before the crash of ’29 because Evan’s bank was becoming more and more shaky every month. With the high number of deposit withdrawals, his bank was losing business and going into debt. By 1932, $2 billion in deposits had been lost since 1929 all over the United States, my husband’s own bank helping this statistic. This was quite a stress on our family as I wasn’t making enough money as a nurse to support our family without Evan’s bank. His clients who were affected by the stock market crash could not pay back the loans they had gotten from Evan’s bank. So, a large amount of the money Evan had lent out was not going to be returned and there was nothing he could do about it. He got very stressed out as a result of the possibility of financial difficulties for our family. The sad thing was, he blamed himself for the bank’s insecurities."

"Things got worse and worse for our family as the years passed by. In 1932, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president. He began a series of programs shortly after his inauguration on March 4, 1933, which included the Emergency Banking Relief Act. In this act, there was a national banking holiday and every bank in the United States was closed so they could be checked for stability. We heard that 4004 banks failed in the first two months of 1933, and that $3.6 billion dollars in deposits were lost. With our luck, Evan’s bank was one of the many banks that did not reopen because of financial insecurity, so all of his customers lost their own deposits. The government closed his bank and we were left with nothing. The financial responsibilities for our family were placed on my own shoulders. Then, to make our financial situation even more precarious, I had given birth to our son Timmy a few months earlier, so that created another mouth to feed and another body to clothe."

"Though I was getting on okay with my job as a nurse, my husband was not dealing with his own financial failure very well. I was working during the day and he was forced to stay home with our small children. He was moody and depressed and could no longer deal with the fact that he couldn’t support his own family any longer." Mrs. Bridges’ s eyes began to water as she struggled to continue her story. "The tension in our house mounted daily, when finally it reached its peak. One night, when I returned home from work, I found the children asleep in bed as they were supposed to be, but I couldn’t find Evan. After looking around the house for about ten minutes, I went into the backyard. Hanging from the apple tree, oh my heavens. . . .excuse me. . . . hanging from the apple tree was my beloved Evan. This sudden occurrence almost killed me as well, but I knew that I had to go on for the sake of Gwen and Timmy. I will never forgive Roosevelt for closing down Evan’s bank when my husband hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t his fault there wasn’t enough money in circulation; the government was to blame."

"Soon after my husband’s unfortunate death in May of 1933, the Public Works Administration, another recently established part of the New Deal, came to Boone. When I heard about it, I was glad and thought it would help my situation as well as the rest of the community’s. When the hired men and women arrived, I learned they were going to build a much larger and cleaner hospital here. I was devastated. It meant my business would greatly decrease since everybody would no longer have a need for me when they could go to the hospital. Of course, after the hospital was finished and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration took control, my only chance for a decent job was to work in the new hospital as a public health nurse. In this new position, I was in charge of venereal, pre-natal, and well-baby clinics. I also had to hire somebody to watch Gwen and Timmy while I worked because I wasn’t allowed to bring them with me as I did when I was a district nurse. I just hired a young girl down the road and didn’t have to pay her much, but it still cut into my income. The pay was considerably less at the hospital which caused our standard of living to greatly decrease."

"That is basically the situation our family is in today. The WPA, Works Progress Administration, has replaced the FERA and taken over the hospital. My wages have not changed, however. I work all weekdays from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. I make about seven dollars per week now when I used to make between ten and twelve, depending on demand. As you can see, we are in desperate need of new clothing. The only thing the kids have to wear is what you see now. I have this dress and my nursing uniform, which consists of a blue uniform, a white apron, black slippers, and gray cotton hose. We are more fortunate than some in the fact that I have a steady job and we have a house. However, when Mr. Roosevelt made his Democratic presidential nomination speech, he said, ‘I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.’ All I know is that I haven’t seen one for me or my children yet."

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