"There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue."
—Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury (September 1929).

Personal Information
Census Image
Name:   Frank Hause
Age:   63
Birth year:   1867
Birthplace:   Michigan
Home in 1930:   Richmond, Macomb, Michigan
Occupation:   Farmer
Owns radio:   Yes
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1930 United States Federal Census Roll: 1009; District: 38; Image: 620.0.
   The Great Depression was a dramatic, worldwide economic downturn beginning in the United States with a stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as "Black Tuesday." Industrial areas were hurt the worst, and Michigan was hit hard. By 1930, car production was down to almost two million cars from the year before. Jobs were lost, and people were starving. The Detroit Mayor's Commission on Unemployment came up with the idea of the jobless becoming apple vendors. Veterans and men with dependents were eligible. Apples were bought from Washington State growers directly at the produce terminal and sold for 5 cents each. Vendors were licensed and had to be Detroiters with at least one year of residence, and were assigned to specific locations. Some 11,000 apples were sold the first day, November 24, 1930, by 150 vendors. The ranks soon swelled to 700 on Detroit streetcorners.
   The Great Depression hit St. Clair County hard, as well. Just a few years before, in 1926, the St. Clair Inn had opened its doors as the first U.S. hotel to be equipped with central air conditioning. The Rotary Club had even sponsored the fundraising for the development. But by the end of that decade, most of the men in the area were unemployed (the county eventually received federal relief funds and put all the men to work repairing the deteriorating roads and bridges in the area).
   Frank was still trying to make it as a farmer, but once again a fire threatened his livelihood. The Port Huron Times Herald reported on 2 Aug 1928 that as Frank returned home from a Chautauqua entertainment he discovered that an oil heater had exploded in his barn, setting the building ablaze. By the time the fire department had put out the fire, the floor had been destroyed and a hundred chickens suffocated. Soon after, Frank and Fladella then moved into Melissa's last home in Riley Township, at 34730 Maple in Memphis Village. Frank's sister, Alice Young, also lived in the house, which was split in two, staying there until she died in 1939.

THE WORLD DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION:
  • During the worst years, 1933-34, the overall jobless rate in the United States was twenty-five percent, with another twenty-five percent of breadwinners having their wages and hours cut.
  • The average value of shares on the NYSE went from $89 to $19.
  • Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by 40 to 60 percent.
  • In Great Britain, unemployment more than doubled from 1 million to 2.5 million (20% of the insured workforce), and exports had fallen in value by 50% by the end of 1930.
  • Germany's Weimar Republic was hit hard by the depression, as American loans to help rebuild the German economy now stopped. Unemployment soared, especially in larger cities, and the political system veered toward extremism. Hitler's Nazi Party came to power in January 1933.
  • It was not until 1941, when World War II was underway, that the official unemployment rate finally fell below 10% (The good news: You have a job. The bad news: It's killing people).
  • Frank and Fladella Hause
       Frank was listed in the 1930 census as a farmer (maybe at age 63, and with no available jobs, Frank just hated to say "retired" and gave farming as a career to please himself), and were renting rooms to boarders.
       Meanwhile, the economic crisis of October 1929 had forced many companies in industrialized Michigan to close. Detroit was heavily dependent on large, locally based industrial manufacturers, and when these companies were forced to suspend operations, a banking crisis developed. The Ford Motor Company managed to remain in business, despite losses of as much as $68 million per year, by lowering the company's minimum wage to $4 per day. Then Ford Motors (and Edsel Ford, personally) extended about $12 million in loans to these banks in an effort to maintain their solvency. But these efforts failed and the banks were forced to close in February 1933. Ford lost over $32 million in deposits and several million more in bank securities. General Motors suffered a similar crisis. It was a tough time to make a living in Michigan—Memphis even had its own banking scandal: The State Bank closed on August 18, 1932, and cashier Henry Brown disappeared, but was found in northern Michigan a few days later in a "demented state," according to the Memphis Bee. He was brought home to be charged with embezzling $500 from the bank. More shortages were discovered (eventually reaching $3,300.00), and Brown was subsequently found dead with his wife, Ameretta, in an apparent suicide pact. On the run, they had parked their car in the orchard of the James Sweeney farm, where Ameretta inhaled ether, and Henry shot her and then himself in the head with a shotgun. But Memphis was still a friendly, forgiving town—at the end of its murder-suicide report that September, the Bee still noted, "Henry Brown was born, raised and lived the greater part of his life in this community, and for the past 12 years has been the cashier of the State Bank here. He had the confidence of the majority of the people who had always known him."
       Through the hard times and scandals, Memphis remained a close-knit community. Every Wednesday night a free movie was shown outdoors on a screen hung in front of the Memphis Hotel. Bordman St. was blocked off to accomodate the crowd, and the movie projector was set up across the street.¹
       Frank and Fladella could be generous, too. Memphis resident Linda McGuire-Hannon remembered in 2014: "Frank & Della Hause (as I knew her) lived on Maple St when I was a little girl. Della would give me a treat of brown sugar on a piece of waxed paper when I would visit her!" With so many empty rooms in their house, Frank and Fladella began renting to borders. Eventually the family house would be split into two homes and sold (Basil would eventually buy both homes and use the west lot for a tree farm). Linda McGuire-Hannon notes: "Several overgrown shrubs are still there on the lot today."

    Life at the 110-acre Raven brick house in Memphis; The sons visit; the house (colorized) and barn.

    Personal Information
    Census Image
    Name:   Frank Hause (Della)
    Age:   72
    Birth year:   1868
    Birthplace:   Michigan
    Home in 1940:   Memphis Village, Richmond Township, Macomb, Michigan
    Occupation:   Farmer
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     (PDF 136K)
    1940 United States Federal Census Roll: 1016; ED#50-50; SD #7; Page 1A. Census taker: Frank Hause
       The Depression finally ended with the onset of the war economy of World War II, beginning around 1939—a very mixed blessing. But times were good for Frank and Fladella, who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Sunday, February 20, 1938, with a party at their home. The rooms were decorated with yellow flowers, and lit with yellow tapers. Over a hundred friends called on them from Detroit, Pontiac, Port Huron, Richmond, Armada, Imlay City, Riley Center and Capac. Raymond sent them a shipment of fifty oranges from his home in California (at that time it was such an exotic gift that it was even mentioned in the local newspaper's coverage of the anniversary party). Their marriage would last well past even that milestone. In 1940, Frank himself took the local census.
       The next year, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the United States was plunged into World War II. More than half a million men and women from Michigan served in the military. On the home front, Michigan became one of the most important states in the war effort. The automobile industry stopped producing consumer cars and switched to tanks and bombers. The unemployment rate nearly vanished and per capita income of Michigan residents increased 115 percent.

    MICHIGAN DURING WORLD WAR II:
  • During World War II, 613,543 Michiganders served in the armed services. Of those who served, 10,263 or 1.6 percent died and 29,321 or 4.7 percent were injured.
  • Nearly 5,000 Italian and German prisoners of war worked on fields and food processing centers in 20 camps in Michigan. Fort Custer near Battle Creek was the central intake of prisoners; there were camps in Hart, Fremont Dundee, Owosso and Romulus. They worked 6-day, 48-hour weeks and were paid 80 cents per day.
  • Michigan companies produced 4 million engines and 200,000 mobile units during the war. Detroit, with 2 percent of the U.S. population, made 10 percent of the material for the war. Ford Motor Co. made 8,500 B-24 Liberator bombers at Willow Run and Chrysler produced 25,000 tanks.
  • There was a 0.6 percent unemployment rate by the end of the war in Michigan. Just 12,000 people were without work in 1944. The national unemployment rate was 1.2 percent. That was a large drop from the nearly 15 percent jobless rate in Michigan in 1940.
  • The need for workers brought an influx of African-Americans to Detroit, who met stiff resistance from whites who refused to welcome them into their neighborhoods or work beside them on an assembly line. In the spring of 1943, more than 20,000 white workers at a Detroit plant that produced engines for bombers and PT boats walked off the job in protest over the promotion of a handful of black workers.
  • A race riot took place in Detroit over three days in June of 1943, leaving 34 dead—25 African Americans (17 killed by the police), nine whites (0 killed by the police)—wounded hundreds more and damaged and destroyed property worth millions. Military police and M3 Stuart tanks were brought in to guard stores from looters. The Axis propaganda machine jumped all over the news of the race riots, citing them as evidence of a corrupt, weak and fatally divided culture.
  • When the war ended, some 500,000 people flooded downtown Detroit to celebrate. One hundred thousand in Grand Rapids' Campau Square.


    Four University of Detroit students try out gas masks in a campus drill on June 23, 1942. (FS/AP photo)
  • Frank and Fladella Hause with Lillian Raymond Huber
       After World War II ended, the demand for workers dried up, and Detroit started plotting its postwar course, an era of big automobiles and bigger highways to accommodate them.
       Frank and Fladella kept the family's home base in Memphis. They had outlived two of their sons, Prohibition, the Great Depression, and two World Wars, and yet another fire, when faulty wiring caused the refrigerator to catch fire as they slept in their newly remodeled home, leaving $250 in damage. They also witnessed the onset of a post-war boom economy—and they watched the number of Hauses grow right along with it. But as the family increased in number, the distance between their homes increased, as well. Frank and Fladella's sons had ventured off to find work and make their fortunes in other areas. Basil worked for Dodge in Indiana; Raymond moved to California and dabbled in law and land speculation; But Carlisle had a safe job in Detroit, teaching.
       Frank and Fladella still had a working farm that raised goats, rabbits, chickens and livestock—but the land was no longer being used to grow any crops, because in the post-Depression U.S., a farmer could actually make more money by not growing food. Marjorie Hause remembers sitting in the back seat of a car as her grandfather, Carlisle, and Frank argued about all of the unfarmed property at the Raven House. Laws had been passed during the Great Depression (and remain in place to this day) in which farmers are paid not to grow corn, in order to lower the supply and keep prices high. Carlisle felt Frank could make more money growing the corn and selling it on the open market, but Frank was satisfied with what the government paid him for growing nothing.

    Personal Information
    Census Image
    Name:   Frank A Hause (Della)
    Age:   82
    Birth year:   1868
    Birthplace:   Michigan
    Home in 1950:   Memphis, St Clair, Michigan
    Dwelling:   75
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    SOURCE INFORMATION: Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; 17th Census of the United States, 1950; Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Roll: 3979; Sheet Number: 8; Enumeration District: 74-107.
       Fladella was the matriarch of the family, and Marjorie Hause-Kibbe remembers the immaculate, beautifully decorated house. Fladella would let her go upstairs and try on the complicated corsets and period clothing that Fladella had refused to discard. Marjorie's brother, Carleton Marchant Hause, Jr., remembers the breakfasts: "Fladella would cook up a big pan of bacon, take the strips out, then cook the eggs in the bacon fat. She would then plate the bacon and eggs, place hot toast on top of the eggs, then pour the remaining bacon fat over the toast, instead of butter." But surprisingly, it was Frank who was the professional cook. He cooked lunches for the Detroit Edison in Maryville, in order to bring in some extra money. In fact, Frank's grandson, Gerald, remembers Frank cooking chicken dinners with biscuits and gravy for the entire family, which Gerald calls "the best chicken dinners I've ever had."

    Frank and Fladella on their golden anniversary; relaxing at home; Candid snapshots on the porch; Frank prepares a fresh dinner... too fresh for my taste.

    Newspaper Article
    File Image
    Subject: Frank and Fladella Hause's sixty-third Wedding Anniversary celebration
    Publication Date: February 15, 1951
    Newspaper: Port Huron Times-Herald
    View file
       Despite the all-bacon fat diet, Frank and Fladella lived on to celebrate their 63rd anniversary in February of 1951. But that spring, Frank became extremely ill. Now in his eighties, Frank's time was drawing near—so he used all of his remaining energy for one last, small act of defiance against Laban and Augustus. On the night of his death, the entire Hause family had assembled together again: All of Frank's sons, grandsons—and even a great-grandson (my Father). Frank lay in his deathbed upstairs, talking with his sons as the Hause women made preparations on the bottom floor. Finally, Carlisle hurried down the stairs and grabbed his coat, heading for the door. "He wants beer, cheese and crackers," he said brusquely. The women were outraged—you weren't supposed to feed a man who was near-death beer and cheese. After all, Frank's father and grandfather had led local temperance movements, declaring alcohol consumption a sin! Carlisle bluntly replied, "If my father wants beer, cheese and crackers on his deathbed, then by God, he's going to have beer, cheese and crackers," and left the house.
       True to his word, Carlisle returned with the needed supplies a few minutes later, ignoring the complaints of the women downstairs (and the moral arguments of his paternal ancestors), and Frank's last night was spent drinking beer, eating well, playing cards and telling stories about the family.

    Newspaper Article
    Image
    Title: Frank A. Hause, Long Prominent in Memphis, Dies
    Newspaper: Port Huron Times-Herald
    Publication Date: May 4, 1951
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    Funeral Information
    Program Image
    Name:   Frank A. Hause
    Date:   May 6, 1951
    Birth:   April 14, 1867
    Death:   May 3, 1951
    Location:   Barnard Funeral Home
    View image

    Frank and Fladella Hause
       After Frank's funeral at the lodge and burial at the Memphis Cemetery, Fladella refused any charity, no matter how much her children and grandchildren tried to force it upon her. Instead, she would sell them meat that she had canned—some of it way back in the thirties—which they would promptly throw away as soon as their car was out of her view. (There's no sense in letting anybody else in this family die of Typhoid Fever from eating tainted meat.)
       Then Fladella's sons got the bright idea of opening a tree nursery to support her. (The sign for the Hause 'Green Bush' Nursery, painted by Basil Hause, hangs today in the Memphis Historical Society.) Basil was the most responsible for the business. He bought the property for the farm from Fladella at her residence on Maple, and adjoining acreage from Helen May Yerden, who now occupied the part of the house that had been separated from the first. Basil asked Fladella to handle the company finances and manage the profits. In this way the sons were finally able to support Fladella without her feeling like it was charity. Which was a good thing, because Fladella lived on into her nineties!

       But the Hause brothers' nursery was just a side-business. These Hause men didn't want to become farmers, like their ancestors. They were looking for new challenges. They had their father's thirst for adventure, but combined with their mother's pragmatism and bravery. They all had their grandfather Laban's determination and ambition, as well, and to top it all off, developed a sense of flair and substance, like Melissa.
       They were college-educated, nattily-dressed, with long, fast cars (Hause men all had to drive Cadillacs). They hunted large game, speculated on land, and were determined to live well. But they seemed to eschew Frank's relaxed nature and lifestyle, and practiced a more conservative way of life. (Their children would be raised strictly, unlike them.) The days of exploring and settling the Michigan frontier were over. They had to deal with an industrialized state, driven by a fast-growing auto industry that had caused the city of Detroit to grow from a population of 300,000 in 1900 to over 1,850,000 in 1950. The forests of their youth were replaced by factories. Raymond had moved to California to enter the land speculation field. Basil joined the army and eventually worked in Ohio, but the Great Depression had brought him back home with his family, where Carlisle got him started in teaching, as well. Carlisle had stayed closer to home, where he could continue to hunt and fish in his favorite spots...


    A rare shot of the three Hause brothers and their wives reuniting to surround Fladella in the mid-20th Century (Basil and Hazel Hause, left, Ray and Ethyl Hause, center, Carlisle and Emily Hause, right). And if that wasn't rare enough, they're all smiling, too!!!

       Fladella grew too old to safely care for herself, and Basil Hause moved her into a Methodist Home at Chelsea. But Fladella hated the place, and was soon moved to a different home west of Richmond, where she lived out the rest of her life. She passed away in 1961 at the Richmond Home for the Aged, at the age of 91—several months after the birth of her first great, great grandson (this author). The Raymonds were a long-lived family: Fladella was survived by her sisters Marietta (who lived to age 89) and Lillian, who lived until 1974, at the ripe old age of 97.
       Her son, Carlisle, would live another ten years in Michigan before his death. But the next generation was moving on once again.
       Michigan had changed enormously in the first half of the Twentieth Century. What had been untamed rural wilderness just a hundred years before was now crowded and industrialized, as factories overtook the farms. The Great Lakes had grown polluted and stagnant—the fish more full of Mercury than a Lincoln automobile plant. The Hause men were't cut out for factory work, anyway. They needed to be challenged. And although Fladella had challenged them with a business side of a broomstick on occasion, it wasn't enough. A century after Laban Hause had left New York, it was time for our line to move on, again. This time to...



    Clockwise from upper left: Frank Hause, Fladella Hause, Marjorie Hause, Carelton Hause, Jr., and family friend Warner Canto, Jr.

    CHAPTER 12: CARLETON MARCHANT HAUSE, SR.,
    1917 - 1983: The Depression is over, and Carleton Marchant Hause, Sr., son of Carlisle, who worked in a factory during World War II, searches for new opportunities, a new career, and warmer winters on the west coast, ending up in beautiful Southern California. The Hauses are no longer a family of farmers: they becpme a family of educators.

    Therefore, Carleton Sr. begat "Legendary coach" Carleton Jr., who followed Carleton Sr. to SoCal and begat Kathleen, Eric, Michele and "non-legendary" Jeffrey Carleton Hause, who is tired of typing "begat."

    NOTES ON THIS PAGE:

    ¹—Milt's drug store catered to town's sweet tooth, by Joe Parrinello, Memphis, 1987.

    TOP PHOTO: The men of Memphis hanging out in front of the downtown drug store. (Memphis Historical Society)

    CHAPTER 1: THE LEGEND OF JOHN (JOHANNES) HAUSE (1690-?)

    CHAPTER 2: JOHN HAUSE OF WARWICK (1719-1794)

    CHAPTER 3: WILLIAM E. HAUSE (1750-1818)

    CHAPTER 4: JOHN HAUSE (1773-1844) AND WESTERN NEW YORK

    CHAPTER 5: AUGUSTUS HAUSE (1804-1875) AND THE ERIE CANAL

    CHAPTER 6: LABAN AUGUSTUS HAUSE (1831-1906)

    CHAPTER 7: FRANK AUGUSTUS HAUSE (1867-1951)

    CHAPTER 8: TWENTIETH CENTURY MICHIGAN

    CHAPTER 9: CARLISLE HAUSE (1891-1972)

    CHAPTER 10: THE GREAT DEPRESSION

    CHAPTER 11: CARLETON MARCHANT HAUSE (1917-1983)

    CHAPTER 12: CARLETON MARCHANT HAUSE, JR.

    CHAPTER 13: AFTERWARD - THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

    APPENDIX #1: HAUSE FAMILY TIMELINE

    APPENDIX #2: WILLIAM HAUSE GENEALOGY

    APPENDIX #3: THE HAUSE FAMILY IN THE CIVIL WAR

    APPENDIX #4: HAUSE FAMILY BIBLES


    THE EXTENDED RAYMOND-HAUSE FAMILY IN 1938: Bottom Row: The first three kids ?, ?, ?; 4th one is Gerald "Jerry" Hause (1926-) and Barbara Jean Hause (his sister, 1928-2001).
    2nd row L to R: Josephine Cottington, Carl Hause (1891-1972), ?, ?, Shook, ?, Marietta DeMotte (1875-1965), Frank Huber (1882-1964, standing), Basil Hause (1895-1985), Ray Hause (1888-1970)
    3rd row: ?, ?, ?, Marjorie Marchant Hause, Fladella Hause (1869-1961), Lillie Huber (1877-1974), Francis Huber, Margaret DeMotte, Madge Vincent 1898-1985 (partial view of her head), ?, ?, and Ethel Hause, wife of Raymond.
    4th row: Frank Hause (in hat), ?, ?, ?, Gretchen Hause (daughter of Carlisle and Marjorie) behind Fladella).  Click on photo to enlarge. (Take #2) (In color!)