In the late 1930s, the Federal Writer's Project, a New Deal program, recorded the life stories of more than 10,000 Americans. The following selection is from a statement written by Minnie Stonestreet in 1939. She describes being given work through New Deal programs, her anxiety over her family's debts, and her gratitude toward President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Right away I applied to the Administrator for work. She did not give me anything nor even encourage me, although my application showed how very much I was in need of work. In the meantime there was a shakeup in the administration here and a young man was sent to replace the county administrator. I went to see him and laid my case before him. My mother had never fully recovered from her lung illness and was unable to do anything so the entire financial burden was on me.
After waiting as patiently as prevailing conditions allowed for a reasonable length of time, I borrowed the money and went to Atlanta to put my case before someone in the State Office. Miss Shepperson was not in the city so I was interviewed by Miss Jane Van de Vrede. When I finished my story, I asked: "Is there a place in the program for me?" She replied kindly and emphatically, "There certainly is—you will be put to work at once."
She wrote the local office to that effect and very soon I was indexing the oldest records in the Clerk's office. That project expired about the time Federal Writer's was started and greatly to my surprise and delight I was given a job on that project, which I have retained until the present time and I am still liking it more and more.…
Being so deeply involved, I could not pay but in a very long time, if ever, and a dear friend stepped in and took charge of our affairs in 1935. He sold all of our land at $3.00 per acre, paid up as far as it would go and helped us get the tangled strands of our financial affairs in better order. We had been unable to pay State and County taxes for 5 years—they amounted to nearly $400.00.
All of this happened over a very short period of time but I feel like I lived a lifetime. My mother is frail and I could never let her know how bad our condition really was. She would ask me to bring groceries home when needed and many a time I would not have the money so would conveniently "forget" them. I remember once she told me among other things to bring some coffee that day. I hadn't the price so I "forgot" it thinking surely the next day I would get the money. I didn't get it, nor the next and so on for several days. We had to drink tea, it was in the winter time, and neither of us liked it. Finally Mother said: "I'll declare, your memory is getting as bad as mine and if you don't think of that coffee today, I'm going up town and get it myself." I laughed with her over the "joke" she thought it was, but my heart sank fearing she would find the real reason why I had kept "forgetting" the needed groceries.
Sometimes I was so panicky I almost collapsed when I heard the sheriff's voice in the building, I was so afraid some of my creditors were foreclosing and would put us out—every week I feared looking over the legal advertisements lest our land was listed among the tax sales.…
Sometimes when I think of the hard time and terrific strain I have had, and still am having for that matter, I am reminded of the lines from an old hymn: "Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come." But I do not like to think back too much, for I am so thankful that I did not go down completely; that there were kind friends who stood by me, and that I live in a land under the administration of such a great humanitarian as our noble President, who feels for those who were caught in the terrible depression and lost almost all they had, who in his wonderful kindness of heart has made it possible for us to have the high and rightful privilege of working out our financial difficulties and winning back our rightful places in the world, and still keep our self-respect and our faith in God and man. And I can say with all the earnestness of my soul: Thank God for America! Thank God for Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President with a heart!