38 – Adversity

Adversity can be personal: the loss of a job, the death of someone dear. And adversity can be more general: for example, the Great Depression and World War II affected everyone in America, creating widescale personal adversity. 

Extended Kenyon family circa 1929, Fond du Lac, WI

The photo above shows my father, probably about 4 years of age, surrounded by his extended family. This preceded 16 years of turmoil brought by the Great Depression and World War II, events that deeply affected this family. They lived out the majority of the Depression together, in a home in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin owned by my great-grandparents Louis and Ida Baker Kenyon who are the older couple standing top and right in the photo. 

Louis and Ida were retired after having run the local mental health facility in Fond du Lac County for almost three decades (see my post titled "Outcast"). Their son Louis E. Kenyon, a WWI veteran, had died in 1924, and his widow Dorothy and two sons Donald and Russell had lived with them since they left the asylum. Dorothy is at the bottom left, and her two sons are on either side of my father behind her. My grandmother Marie is seated bottom right with her arm on the shoulders of my uncle Harry Kenyon, Jr. My grandfather, Harry Sr., is missing: another, less-well exposed photo taken at the same time has Harry Sr. in hat and bow tie; so he and Marie were taking turns taking the photos. 

Alternate take with Harry Sr. instead of Marie this time

My Aunt Pat is also missing – she was born 1 Oct 1929, so this was probably some months before her birth, or else she was taking a nap and missed the photo. It's unclear if Marie is pregnant in the photo. They may have all lived together briefly starting in 1928, but Harry Sr., Marie, and their two sons moved to Milwaukee in February 1929 until 1932 when they moved back in with Louis and Ida and Dorothy and her two sons. 

We find them all together in the 1940 U.S. census, living at 132 E. 1st Street in Fond du Lac, the house which stayed in the family until about 1970 after Harry Sr. had died, the house I knew growing up as my Wisconsin grandparents' home. The loss of a job, the result of a bad economy, was probably the reason my family had to move back to Fond du Lac; and it tightly bonded the extended family.

Extended Kenyon family in Fond du Lac in 1940, before the U.S. entered WWII

By the end of the Great Depression and the war, Harry Jr. would have graduated West Point, married a war widow and adopted her son, and died a hero, as captain of a parachute infantry regiment in the waning days of WWII. Louis Kenyon, the patriarch, would die in 1941, early in the war, at 82. Donald, standing next to his grandmother Ida Baker Kenyon in the top photos, would have married his high school sweetheart, and would also be serving in the Army. My father, Lawrence, would be a first lieutenant, on his way to help in the occupation of Japan. And Russell would be a corporal in the US Air Corp somewhere in the South Pacific. Dorothy would have moved out finally, after a decade and a half of living with her in-laws. 

Marie, Harry, and daughter Pat would still be there with Harry's mother Ida, and a boarder or two helping fill the empty rooms. Pat wrote of this in a school essay titled "Room and Board":

It all started when my grandfather died. You see grandfather liked to have a big house with all his grandsons corralled under one huge roof. Nobody thought of disputing with grandfather except grandmother, maybe, so there we were – one great happy family, more or less. Then suddenly everything changed. Grandfather died, the grandsons moved away, and Uncle Sam called my brothers to service. That left four of us and five empty bedrooms.

The war, especially, changed their lives. A huge hole was left by the death of Harry Jr. that was really never filled. Harry Jr.'s widow and adopted son had to make their way to a different future. My father became the oldest sibling, and with the G.I. Bill was able to attend college and become a civil engineer.  

One of the final photos of Harry Kenyon, Jr., in Europe, early 1945

Telegram to Harry Jr.'s widow a week after his death

The adversity of the Depression propelled massive changes in our government, including the introduction of Social Security, and led to today's acceptance of government responsibility for a smoothly running economy. Those changes have averted other serious economic downturns, and their corresponding adversity. The Great Depression was finally ended by the spending required in World War II, an event that had an even deeper impact on this family.

The world wars in the 20th century were adversity brought on by people and governments lacking the skills to solve conflicts peacefully; we are still afflicted by wars, though we have avoided another world war so far. The United Nations and treaty groups such as NATO were created by the impetus of the two World Wars, in an attempt to prevent future adversity, and annihilation that atomic war would bring. And so global adversity has brought global change, as personal adversity brings personal change; not something we ever wish for, but sometimes it does push us to progress.

Sources

Kenyon, Harry Jr. "My Life." 1935. Private holding.

Kenyon, Patricia L. "Room and Board." Undated. Private holding.