Chapter 1

It was a very difficult time to live in indeed. The great depression of the thirties had just begun and only those that had save a little money could be assure of eating their three meals a day. But putting money aside for possible harder times, had never been one of Jack Welden preoccupation. All his life he had been a hard working man, and although his job as a machines repair technician, at the Norwidge Iron Company earned him enough money to feed his family of three including himself, it wasn't enough to enable him to put anything aside for possible harder times.

But even then, he knew that he was lucky. Since the beginning of the great depression - as people later began to refer to it - people everywhere were loosing their job, but he still kept his, even though his salary was cut in half.

His salary was not quite enough to feed the family and pay the taxes on the big house they lived in. Food prices had dropped a little, and with a dollar you could go a long way if you had any money, but that was exactly the problem, money was exceedingly rare.

Many years previously, Jack had inherited from his father the house they were living in.

He didn't owe anything on the house and he only had to pay the taxes on it. Being located just half a mile outside Norwidge it was easy for him to either ride to work in his bicycle or simply walk there.

The depression had arrived very suddenly and many people that he knew had been forced out of their house and thrown in the street with nowhere to go.

Yes it was a very difficult time for everyone - except for the very rich of course - but still Jack considered himself lucky since his house was all paid for and he still had a job that earned him a little money each week.

Jack's wife, Elizabeth, had been almost forty-year-old when the only child she ever had was born. Now sixteen year later she was well past her prime while Jimmy - her son - had just turned sixteen. Jimmy's education had ended when he completed the eight grades at Norwidge Elementary School. His mother had hoped that one day he would attend Sutton High, which was over forty miles away, but that met that he would have to live in Sutton and there was not enough money to pay for his boarding there.

During that first summer of the great depression, Jimmy remained at home and he kept himself busy doing minor repairs to the house and also to the large barn at the back of the house. He also tended a large garden that went a long way to help feed they all.

Jimmy had been raised in such a way, that respect and constant obedience to his parents were the law. But on the other hand, that part of his education that had to do with the opposite sex and sexuality itself had been completely neglected.

His mother always took a lot of care to cover herself properly in and around the house, this even if the weather was very warm. By the time his school days ended, the only things he knew about girls was what he had heard from his friends at school, which was not much indeed.