Depression Era

Hardship and Endurance

Just fourteen years old at the start of the Great Depression in 1930, Alfred Watson lived in a small house near the Ohio River with his mother, sister, grand- parents, and two uncles. His father had deserted the family in 1924, and the family was forced to survive solely on his Grandfather Thorn’s $95 railroad pension. With insufficient funds to feed a family of 6 , Alfred and his sister frequently searched for their family’s dinner in a local restaurant dumpster.
The hardships of his childhood years in Pennsylvania. are reflected in the following photographs.