Tuesday, February 11, 1936

WPA HELPS SHOVEL THRU DRIFTS IN BOWNE CENTER

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Very cold but not storming.

Morse and Mabel started

for Chicago at 8:20 E.S.T. this

morning and arrived in

Chicago at 3 o'clock. All the

main trunk lines are open

for traffic. Mabel sent telegram

to her mother on their arrival

in Chicago.

Henry went to G.R.

Snow plows thru for the first

time since the storms. The

plows couldn’t get through the drifts

on the mile south so 30 WPA

men from the city out and shoveled

thru drifts to Karcher Oil Station.

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I love that Edna specifically notes that "thirty WPA men shoveled thru drifts."

Edna is clear in her journal entries that she does not like FDR.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was an ambitious employment and infrastructure program created by President Roosevelt in 1935, during the bleakest years of the Great Depression. Over its eight years of existence, the WPA put roughly 8.5 million Americans to work. Perhaps best known for its public works projects, the WPA also sponsored projects in the arts – the agency employed tens of thousands of actors, musicians, writers and other artists." [history.com/topics/great-depression/works-progress-administration]

On this day, Edna may have been appreciative of the WPA but from other entries we know she did not support FDR or the programs he instituted.

Oh how I would love to sit around a table with my great grandmother over a cup of coffee (or the homemade ice cream she notes making in other entries) and ask her about her thoughts on FDR and the New Deal.

It is just 1936. Women were only given the right to vote in 1920.

Perhaps Edna only spoke her thoughts on politics in her journal. She never specially says if she voted but she does express her feelings about politics in 1936.

In 1936, FDR would have gotten my vote. He did not get Edna's vote.

I love that we all have the right to choose I love that women get to express their opinion. I love that Edna expressed her voice in 1936 ...even if it was different from mine.