A Way Out

              I was only 18 when it came like a blow to the industrial world. The people crying, screaming, people dying and many riots. Banks closed, prices raised up making it harder to live, and the government in complete dis knowing of what to do. This event was the deepest and long-lasting economic downturn in the history of the U.S.

                It was 1928 and everything was going marvelous, mom was happy, dad had a stable job, and I was a wonderful student. Dad worked at a metal factory near the Detroit suburbs, and mom worked around the house and made sure everything was nice and neat.

             We use to go to many events as a family, and had great times. It use to be the most wonderful times of my childhood life, but then of course it hit.

               It was 1929 when the stock market crashed and banks all over the United States closed leaving people with no money and no solutions. Businesses struggled causing foreclosures, also resulting in the lost of jobs for many American people, including my father's. We no longer had money for food, water, heat, or even for new home appliances. My dad would find a job for a small amount of time, sometimes for a week, 2 weeks or even a day, because business couldn't afford to keep someone. It was a tough time for me I was falling behind in school, I also missed many days of the school year. Which resulted in me dropping out, so that I could find a little job producing military equipment, so my parents could have an extra income. There were even days I would act as if I had no appetite so my parents would eat the little we had of food.

               It became a custom, coming home eating a piece of bread, and go on with my day. I no longer was the weight I was before this. I became thin, and weaker, and couldn't perform Daily tasks as easily, but I pushed my body forward.

               That's when I might a boy, his name was James Tarff. He was a high class gentlemen with a degree in Criminal Justice. He was perfect, tall, brown hair, and buff, but not to much, and he had the cutest smile, that would make me melt each time he would laugh. The only thing that was holding me back was my confidences,oh and also that he was my boss' son.

               I would have never thought see the day he would approach me and ask me out on date, but he did so on August 19, 1931. We went to a beautiful fancy uptown italian restaurant named Francisco Da Vinci. I wasn't at all looking as sharp as him, I had a simple white and yellow polka dot dress that looked like it was fading because it was so old. We talked and talked and laughed all night long, until they kicked us out because of their closing time. He walked me home that night and and before parting he told me, "I really like you" , this just blew up my poor little heart it was like a dream come true, like I might finally have a future with my prince.

              Two years past when I got fired from my job, because my boss find out that James and I were secretly dating. He couldn't live with the fact that his only son was "messing around with a low life, low class, no good, nasty, ugly, and gold digging girl." Those were his exact words, I hate that man till this day. That occasion left me with nothing to provide for my family, it put us right back where the the Great Depression put us in the beginning.

              When I lost my job, I was back in the same cycle, no appetite so that my parents can get the strength they needed. When james found out, that I wasn't eating properly, he began helping us through most of the Great Depression years, he would give me money under the table at least $600 a month, which I thought was outrageous because all I needed was his love. But of course the money did help, we had food on our tables every day.

             My father loathed Mr. Tarff, and the whole Tarff blood. But I loved James and his family. It felt like I was in a Shakespeare play, like Romeo and Juliet play, with both families disliking each other.

             A year later James and I continued to see each other secretly everyday. Father had found a somewhat stable job now in a new bank that was open because of our great president Franklin D Roosevelt, he had made it possible for my dad to get a job because he made people trust the banks again. He was so happy that he got the job it was starting to feel like the old days.

            I moved out when I was 24 with James. He had a huge house in California, and my parents would come visit once in awhile. This wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for James standing up to his father and telling him his feelings he had for me. He told him he was leaving with me and that we were going to get married whether he liked it or not.

          And that's how it happened James and I got married with a couple of friends and my parents. He made it possible for me to send my parents some cash for the last years of The Great Depression until it ended in 1939 .

           We lived a very happy life in California, James had gotten a job in his field of criminal Justice. I was to stay at home keeping the house clean, taking care of the children, and having dinner ready by the time that James got home.And yes I said children, James and I had 2 babies, a boy and a girl, we named them Romeo and Juliet. So that every time we call them it reminds us of all the trouble that we did and went through to get where we are today. 

           If it wasn't for that tragic event, and I finding a job, and finding true love, and I fighting through the downfalls, I don't know what kind of woman I would have became, or even know what would had happened to my family.

-The End