Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Summer/105/Section 15/The Burns Family

Overview
The Burns family was an Indian family that lived in Coconut Palm Drive, Florida. Leona and Ella were interviewed by Gladys Back for the Federal Writers Project on December 30th, 1938.

Family
There were twenty-seven people in the family. Ella Burns and Mr. Burns were the grandparents. Leona, Ethels, Lilly, Helen, Villiam (William) were the children of Mr. and Mrs. Burns. There were three grandchildren from Leona and her ex-husband, three grandchildren from Ethel and her married advertising man, five grandchildren from Lilly and her married lumberman, twin grandchildren from Villiam and his girl. All family members were tall, dark, with high cheekbones, and they all had an Indian accent.

Early life
Ethels, Lilly, and Helen were born over in Grand Cayman, and Leona and Villiam (William) were born Coconut Palm Drive. Most of them were uneducated. Leona, Ethels, Lilly, Helen finished the eighth grade except for Villiam, who finished sixth grade. Later when they were adults, they found out the importance of education to them. Instead of getting back the school, they wanted their kids to get education and get better jobs than they did.

Adult life
All of them married young. Ethel married an advertising man from New York and lived up there. Lilly married a lumberman in Miami and lived there. Helen divorced fruit packer and lived in the old house after. William married a girl from New York and lived in Miami. Leona divorced a boy from the Worth and only her out of 5 children in the Burns family decided to stay at home with her parents. Mr. Burns, the papa of the family, worked anything that he could find to make as many money as possible, from working at the saw mill, helping with the grove, or planting vegetables. The family never had anymore that they needed, but at the same time always had enough to use. Because the family always had what they need, Leona's friends usually mistook her family and thought the Burns family was rich. Sometimes the family had reunions which every member in the family from different places went back to the house to cheer and have fun. All of them had an ability to dance without the need to take the dance class.

Poverty
Leona operated a dress store in Princeton to work on a percentage basis. but still did not earn a high income for the family. Despite being poor, the whole family ate healthily. They mostly farmed bananas using their high nutritious land to eat without spending money on food. They boiled the banana with meat when they were still green or sliced them and fried them like potato chips in grease. They also never spent money on medical bills unless it was a serious emergency, which was never happened in the Burns family. Leona answered the interviewer with a sarcastic tone, "We don't spend no money like that, honey. We doctors our own self unless there's something bad wrong with us and that don't happen very often." Leona also said, "I think one of the most dishonest things a person can do is to spend money for foolishness when they owe it to someone who has trusted them". Not only they spent and minimized the unnecessary costs in their lives, but they made more money by investing in the apartment to rent out. Each month they got five dollars a month out of that apartment after paying for light bill. With the well-spent money strategy, they were never in debt.

Political Affiliation
The family just started to focus on politics. They started to form their beliefs about what was good and bad to the family. Even though there were debates in the family about the benefits each political party brought, all of the family members were inclined towards supporting the Democratic Party like Leona said, "We may split our vote sometimes, but on the whole we stick to our party." During the Great Depression, they voted for new president Franklin D. Roosevelt against Herbert Hoover in the 1932 Presidential Election. Despite Roosevelt expanded policies to support women's rights to vote and women's roles in society, Lily did not support the women's right to vote. Lily lived in Miami and she said Miami was not a place for women to vote, even though she strongly supported the Democratic party

Religion affiliation
"Just like we are Democrats, we are Methodists", Leona declared. Being the Methodists, they followed the set of principles in the family. For example, Ella restricted herself from going to the shows and fishing on Sunday because it went against the rules of Methodism religion. Despite that rule was taken easier and more people did not follow it anymore, Ella still thought she needed to take that rule seriously, "but not for me. I just wouldn't feel right about it".

Medical care during the Great Depression
During the Great Depression, the rate of hospitalization was higher than ever. According to the US National Library of Medicine, Illnesses were in 600,000 people, which was equivalent to 9.9 percent of Americans who were sick and in the hospital. Furthermore, it included the statistics that proved lower-earning wages correlated to a higher chance of developing illnesses, "The “poor” group showed an illness rate of 22 percent higher than the “comfortable” group—152 as against 125 cases per 1,000 people" during the 1930s" . People who depended on their stable incomes to live for a long time and did not expect the Great Depression to happen were the most likely to develop illnesses because they lost jobs. This could explain that people who stayed at home stressing about their loss of jobs tended to develop psychological illnesses such as depression, anxiety disorder, etc. Furthermore, because people depended on the income to live, they did not have money to pay for the hospital bills which caused another layer of stressors onto them.

Denial of Woman’s voting rights during 1930s
During World War I, women who were stay-at-home mothers and wives entered the workforce as equal to men. During the Great Depression, many new women activists and elites proved their worths in society. The faces such as Ruth Nichols, Anna Morrow, Lindbergh, Beryl Markham, and Amelia Earhart excelled to become pilots to serve the country. Furthermore, Florence Kelley became a mentor for many of the women who were activists in the 1930s. Frances Perkins was the first woman to become a cabinet official. Molly Dewson worked with her effort on labor reform. Despite many activists for women’s rights and roles in society, there was still a failure in society to consider the woman’s vote as important as the man’s vote. The quote “The 19th Amendment has wrought no miracle in politics. It has neither brought about dire consequences foretold by the anti-suffragist nor yet produced the millennium of which the pioneers dreamed” written by Josephine McGowan in the article "A Decade of Women's Rights", explained that society did not recognize the importance of women in voting rights as discussed in the 19th amendment. People were indifferent to the new privilege that women had in the 19th amendment.

Impacts of the 1932 US presidential election and the New Deal
The 1932 US Presidential Election was one of the most important elections in American history. The failure to change the economy was a major factor that Herbert Hoover lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1932 presidential election. Roosevelt took over with easy victory, taking 57 percent of the popular votes, and almost 89 percent of the electoral votes. Franklin D. Roosevelt had done a great job to alleviate the economy. After taking office, Franklin D. Roosevelt created the New Deal program, which provided relief to the economy. The New Deal programs increased the employment rates, creating jobs for the laid-off workers. Not only that, the program prohibited discrimination against black people, and provide tremendous job opportunities for black people. It is proved by this quote: "Roosevelt’s relief programs made him popular with many African Americans, though he shied away from aggressively promoting civil rights or an anti-lynching law, for fear of alienating Southern whites." The Labor laws created during the New Deal Program encouraged union organization and defined a minimum wage and also supported black workers.