Depression in DeLand: chicken and simplicity

By Al Everson
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Oct 30, 2009 - 8:54:44am

Work was hard to find and hard to do, and money was hard to come by, but life in DeLand was simpler during the Great Depression, according to someone who lived through it.

“Nobody had any money. Laborers worked in the orange groves for $1 a day, and it was a 12- or 14-hour day,” said Bill Dreggors, of the West Volusia Historical Society. “Groceries were cheap then, because nobody had money to buy them.”

There was no industry in the immediate DeLand area, he added, but there was a broom-and-brush plant near DeBary. Other employers included sawmills, but the Depression brought slowdowns in building.

To reduce unemployment and put cash into circulation, the Works Progress Administration financed construction of two buildings that are now DeLand landmarks: the stadium that would later be named in memory of Spec Martin, and the old DeLand Junior High School building that now serves as the Volusia County Schools Administrative Complex, at 200 N. Clara Ave.

“Daddy always said it took four men to do one job,” Dreggors said. His father had been on the WPA payroll.

Dreggors, whose family moved to DeLand from Georgia when he was still a small child, recalled his neighbors often had their own ready source of fresh eggs and poultry.

“We always had chickens. Even in the city, people had chickens,” he said.

Though the Depression was a trying time for virtually everyone, life was simpler, and Dreggors spoke with some nostalgia.

“For a kid growing up, it was a good life. We went barefooted. A lot of the girls went barefooted,” he said. “We enjoyed life.”

The city was bigger before the Depression, Dreggors recalled.

“The city limits went all the way out to the [rail] depot,” he said. “After the Depression came, they couldn’t provide anything, so they drew it in to the 4-square-mile area. They had extended it out.”

Like much of the country, DeLand and West Volusia saw boom times return when the U.S. was bombed into World War II.

The DeLand Naval Air Station took shape in 1942, primarily to train pilots for combat against the Axis powers. Construction of the base facilities — including buildings that still stand on the DeLand Municipal Airport — and the presence of hundreds of military personnel at any one time during the war years, brought much-needed cash into the local economy.

— al@beacononlinenews.com

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