Lessons of a lifetime

CHAPIN — Bill Dukes was just a boy in the 1920s when the rural Ridgeville bank where his father worked as cashier failed and the town folk, scared and broke, accused his dad of stealing the money.

Dukes, now 93, relaxes in his worn office chair in a living room filled with family photographs and keepsakes, including big Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls that sit on the sofa like great-grandchildren. From his home in a retirement community outside Columbia, Dukes recalls his family's survival during the Great Depression and the life lessons he learned. He was 14 when the stock market crashed, launching the decade-long depression.

"I know my dad went through a lot of trouble; I had that much sense," Dukes said.

His childhood

Dukes doesn't want to leave any question: His father, William Jefferson Dukes, was a great man and a wonderful dad. His mama was wonderful, too. Gertrude Keels Dukes had a reputation as the best cook ever, he said.

Dukes doesn't remember his dad talking much about the trouble he was having when the Ridgeville bank failed. He shielded his wife and sons from grief, but soon Jeff Dukes moved the family to Charleston to get away and start over.

His mother's cooking skill landed her a job at a boarding house on Calhoun Street, mostly for students at what was then known as the Medical College of South Carolina.

Duke's dad was unable to find a job in Charleston and finally leaned on a state senator from Georgia who helped him get a job across state lines with the Farm Credit Administration.

It would be about 10 years before Dukes' parents would be able to live together again, and by that time Dukes was a student at the University of South Carolina.

"We didn't have any choice" but for the family to be split up, Dukes said. "We waited it out."

Today, Dukes does not easily offer details about those difficult times or how much he and his brothers relied on the leftovers from the meals his mother cooked for boarders. He helped his mother by earning money as a paper boy hawking copies of the Charleston Evening Post.

He simply recalls that it was "rough going."

The biggest lesson in his long life, Dukes said, is the importance of family.

"We all worked together," he said.

Lessons carried with him

Dukes grew to adulthood and married as the Depression still tore at the nation's soul. He and his wife, Evelyn, were able to work through government initiatives such as the Work Progress Administration. He compared some of the recovery efforts by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to those of President Barack Obama, but Dukes shied away from talking politics.

After serving four years in World War II and returning home, Dukes said he learned another big lesson: credit. He had gone to a local dairy in Columbia to open an account to get milk delivered, but they refused because he hadn't established any credit. The first thing he bought on credit was an ice chest.

None of the lessons Dukes learned from the Depression is a big secret, mostly just common sense, American values. His father never let them throw away food and always kept a vegetable garden. He shared the extra with neighbors and stored the rest in the cellar on ice and sawdust.

Dukes and his wife raised their sons Bill and Donald with the same values. He always told them to never buy what they couldn't afford and to make sure to take the family to church on Sundays.

After 58 years of marriage, Evelyn died in 1999. Dukes is quick to show off her picture and calls marrying her the best thing that ever happened to him.

A history lesson

Lauren Sklaroff, an assistant history professor at the University of South Carolina, said the Great Depression forced society to re-examine its values and changed the way people felt about the culture.

She is the author of the forthcoming book "Black Culture and the New Deal: The Quest for Civil Rights in the Roosevelt Era." It will be out Nov. 5.

On the home front, fathers lost jobs and more mothers went to work for the first time. The idea of what it meant to be a husband and father evolved and gender roles began to change. Many families, like Dukes', were forced by economic necessity to live separately and the marriage rate fell, Sklaroff said.

Entertainment and the arts returned a focus to the common man, highlighting everyday experiences. Concern for the rights of workers increased. The country entered its highest period of organized labor. Federal social welfare programs got their start.

One thing is certain: The Depression propelled society in a new direction, she said.

"The people were kind of forced to be very creative and the government was forced to be very inventive," Sklaroff said.

Whether this recession will prompt any lasting social change is hard to speculate, Sklaroff said, noting that the country was a very different place in the 1930s.

The next generation

Dukes' eldest son, Bill, is a successful restaurateur who was a founding partner with LongHorn Steakhouse and owner of Blue Marlin in Columbia's Vista district. He got his start working at a grocery store, stocking shelves, sweeping floors and slicing meat. In college, he delivered bread from Claussen's Bakery, where his father worked.

Bill Dukes said he owes much of his success to the stories his father and grandfather used to tell about the Great Depression. Now, as the recession grips South Carolina, he said his sons are beginning to rely on those same family stories for lessons about how to pull through.

Some good will come of this recession, he predicted.

"It is a challenge for a lot of people; I do, however, believe that our country is maybe going through a cleaning. We have enjoyed prosperity for a long, long time, and so many people have taken it for granted," he said.

Reach Yvonne Wenger at 803-799-9051 or ywenger@postandcourier.com.