Islandport Press, 2006
Soft cover, 305 pages, $15.95
Bringing the Depression to Life
Thomas Hanna painstakingly pieces together the memories of his Depression-era childhood in a new book entitled Shoutin’ Into The Fog: Growing Up on Maine’s Ragged Edge. Set in the village of Five Islands in Georgetown, five miles downriver from Bath, Hanna writes of soul-crushing poverty with the clear-eyed honesty and direct simplicity of a child, deftly making it easy for the reader to forget that an octogenarian just wrote this autobiography.
In a thin-walled, 24-by-26-foot bungalow built on swampland, two wood-burning stoves provided heat in below-zero weather and cast-off shipping materials from the National Biscuit Company separated the two tiny bedrooms of the eight Hanna children. The author’s happy memories of his family’s Saturday rituals provide limited warmth to this harsh tale. Oatmeal and molasses for breakfast, beans on biscuits for dinner and that once-a-week bath, filled with precious water carted from a neighbor’s well. The reader almost hears Hanna’s father strumming a poorly tuned guitar, belting out ballads.
This autobiography is sprinkled with tales of cherished pencil cases, a Christmas wish fulfilled by the gift of a second-hand tricycle and the sensual splendors of visiting relatives who enjoy such comforts as a refrigerator full of food and beds of clean, white sheets. Hanna possesses a remarkable skill of conjuring vivid images with understated language. Electric jolts kill the nerves in his mother’s rotting teeth. And with no well on their marshy property and no electricity in their flimsy bungalow, the challenge of hand-scrubbing laundry for a family of eight makes for fascinating reading.
Anyone harboring romantic illusions about year-round life on the Maine coast will find this book a bucket of ice-water reality. Hanna’s father suffered ill health; an ulcer compromised his ability to do heavy lifting and after he was summarily fired from his long-time job as caretaker for summer houses, he used the $500 check the government sent to surviving World War I veterans to purchase a Model A Ford and became a traveling salesman. Poverty-stricken, the family must live “on the town,” and spite in this community of 200 takes a further toll on this child’s shame; when his father builds three swings on adjacent property he believes his family owns, a neighbor hacks them to pieces, disputing the land’s ownership.
Hanna helplessly watches his father surviving on sheer tenacity while losing his hopeful nature; as his father turns “irritable,” the author takes to gulping his baby siblings’ milk in the middle of the night. Hardship means kittens are drowned without fanfare and a sick puppy is shot — with understated stoicism, the author makes clear that money to pay a veterinarian is an unthinkable luxury. Thanks to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Federal Emergency Relief Administration, government surplus food keeps the family from starving. The Works Progress Administration provides Hanna senior with work, but when these programs wind up, Hanna’s childhood hits a dead end. His father dies at 47 and his mother coolly informs him he’s now “the man of the house,” leaving a 14-year-old boy to seek full-time employment at Bath Iron Works.
The book ends somewhat abruptly, changing tones with a camera sweep befitting a black-and-white melodrama. In comes World War II and service in the Navy saves Thomas Hanna. When the voice of this autobiography turns adult, the narrative loses force. Nevertheless it makes an excellent read — perfect for anyone who either lived through the Depression or wonders about the experiences of family members who did.
Portland-based Sally Noble is a regular contributor to Working Waterfront.