Collection Title: Jackson Purchase Oral History Project - Lifestyles
Series Number: OH124
Interviewee: West, Rebecca R.
Interviewer: Anderson, Margaret
Date interviewed: December 8, 1988
Processed by: Tara Marcum
Date processed: July 19, 2011
Description: 1 sound disc (75 minutes)
Abstract: Rebecca West discusses her life in Murray, Kentucky during the 1930s and 1940s. She recalls her father's wholesale grocery business, the effects of the Great Depression and the local public school system. She describes how children met at the drugstore after church to talk about events in town. She remembered picnics at Pine Bluff, receiving her driver's license at sixteen and local remedies and medical treatments. She remarked that a friend was quarantined for being diagnosed with scarlet fever. She remembered the family sitting and listening to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats during the Great Depression. She states that teachers were paid in script or grocery food stamps and that school sessions were also reduced from nine months to seven months during the depression.
Biographical / Historical note: Rebecca West was born in 1921. West's Parents were Etna Huie and Luther Robertson. Her father operated a grocery store and her mother taught at a local school. She attended first grade at the Murray State Teachers College (presently Murray State University) training school. She transferred and finished at Murray High School in 1938. She continued her education at Murray State Teachers College, where she played in the school band. She graduated in 1942 with a degree in library science. After graduation, she worked with her father at the grocery store. Her husband graduated from Murray State in 1943 and afterwards joined the United States Navy. Her brother was drafted before Pearl Harbor and died during the war.
General information: No user access to original recordings. Use audio user copies, digital derivatives, transcripts, and/or tape indexes. This collection may be protected from unauthorized copying by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code). Permission for reproduction must be requested from Murray State University.
Subject Headings / Descriptors:
West, Rebecca R., 1921-
Murray (Ky.) – History.
Murray State University – History.
Depressions – 1929 – United States – Personal narratives.
