My grandfathers' depression

kw: observations, business, entrepreneurs

Helping an executive prepare a speech, I had occasion to gather a list of inventions and new technologies from the 1930s. There were many, from technologies like CRT television, helicopters, jet engines and sulfa drugs to new foods like Twinkies, M&Ms and the chocolate chip cookie, to consumer products like affordable refrigerators and air conditioners, "Tabu" perfume, Polaroid cameras and 35mm film, even new pastimes like electromechanical pinball machines and the Monopoly game.

My parents got together because of the entrepreneurship of my two grandfathers. First, my mother's father, who'd begun as a piano salesman in Oklahoma City, learned to tune pianos from colleagues in the business and set up his business in Fort Smith. In 1926 he moved the business to California, first Fresno, then San Gabriel.

When the Depression hit, people stopped buying pianos, and a few wanted to sell their old ones for ready cash. Grandpa bought a few of these and refurbished them, then offered them for long-term rental. He reasoned that people still wanted music in their homes. This was quite successful, and even after the depression ended, many people still preferred renting a piano. This built his fortune.

My father's father did reasonably well as a painter and maintenance man, plus some farming, until the dust bowl conditions in 1935 led to economic collapse in Missouri. He visited relatives in California who were doing better, and decided to set up a painting business there. By mid-1937 he was able to bring the rest of the family out from Malta Bend to Alhambra, and the business prospered. There was a lot of construction as millions of people moved to California, and all those new houses needed a coat of paint.

My father and mother met at Alhambra High School. Their marriage was delayed while my father was away to war from 1941-1945. Their fathers, taking the "kick in the pants" provided by Depression conditions, started businesses at which they prospered better than before. A depression is what you make of it.