The release of the 1931 Canadian census this month has given me a chance to take a closer look at how my grandparents Emily and Thomas Ingham were doing in the Dirty Thirties.
Above: 23 Manning Street in St. Catharines in 2007 when I took my mom over to visit it. She was living in a nursing home not far from her former childhood home.
In 1931, according to the Census of Canada, they were living at 23 Manning Street in St. Catharines, Ontario. They were renting and paying $25 per month. The family had 5 rooms. (This is a pretty good deal, considering that my paternal granddad Garnet Spencer was paying $35 for an apartment over a store in Welland). Rents in the area range from about $15 to $40 although many of the people in the area seem to own their own homes. The house is decent (see photo above) but there doesn’t appear to be money for luxuries. The Inghams do NOT own a radio according to the census box asking about this (radios were considered a luxury at the time).
Thomas is now a stationary engineer for a cereal plant. You’d think this would be a step up from the labourer job he had during the last census but he has only earned $492 in the past year and was unemployed for 16 weeks in the past 12 months. This is less than half of what he made 10 years prior to this ($1,000). The Great Depression has really taken its toll on the family but at least he has some employment. On the same census page, there are 5 men with “no job” written beside their names. And some who are working have earned less than $200 in the past year. Occupations include jobs in mills, a tailor, a bridge master, a teamster, and construction workers. Neighbours list their identities under the column “Race or Tribe” as Austrian, Scotch, English, Italian, Polish, Irish and Negro.
All six children are listed on the census. Joan, the oldest, is 14 years old, and George the baby is 6 months old. My mother Ida is 3 years old.
Above: Back: Emily holding Ida; Joan; Thomas. Front: Tommy, Eileen, Edna
The picture above was probably taken about a year and a half earlier, perhaps in late 1929, because my mom is the baby in the photo and she looks to be around a year or so old. The parents are only 40 years old, but to me they look much older! Maybe because they’ve been through a war and a global pandemic, and the stress of immigrating to a new country and starting over? Many people looked old for their years from that era. And in this photo, if I’m correct to assume it was taken in 1929 …. was it before or after the crash on October 24? It looks like warm weather so it’s probably still summer. The parents both look worried, but they can’t even know yet what lies ahead in a few months: the start of a decade of deprivation that is reflected in this Census of 1931.
HOW WERE MY DAD’S FOLKS DOING? See Exciting News about the Spencers
Guylaine Spencer 