Birthday greetings, letters, songs and other stories about

Quotes and Comments from the "kids"

Chris Wall's Interview with S.J. Rudolph

Dad's Songs from Ginna's songbook

A Pop-Pop Poem

To contribute something to this page send an email to Tom at terudolph@aol.com

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A POP-POP POEM

There is a fine man called SJ 
Who abideth in Springfield, PA
Five children had he,
Bounced each on his knee
Discovering an old football inj'ray

Now Rudy's a quite clever man,
Stars to cars his interests do span-
Building scopes and TV's,
Transmissions fast as you please,
All while weeding tomatoes to can.

To keep his five kids well instructed,
A home manual Rudy constructed,
With notes on the drier, 
Fridge, cabinets, and pliers,
Their rules were quite easily deducted!!

His eightieth year now approaches,
While the millenium's close also encroaches.
From far and from near
We gather to cheer
Eat Italian and have many toastez.

Grade 6, Feb. 11, 1995

I was born in 1919. The stock market crash occurred exactly on my tenth birthday, October 29, 1929. I lived in a small town west of Philadelphia named Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania. The people in the town were not affected by the stock market crash immediately because the town was supported by The Kent Woolen Mill. This is where most of the people in the town, including my father, worked. He had been trained in Italy as a bootmaker and shoe repair man and now worked on the side in the basement of his home as a cobbler. It was around 1929 when he left the mill to go into business for himself as a full time cobbler.

My father converted the front parlor of his house into a storefront. The house had only one sink in the kitchen and a small toilet in the basement that drained to an outhouse on the property. There was only one central coal stove in the kitchen. Each bedroom had a pitcher and a basin in it and was unheated. Sometimes when I would wake up in the morning the water in my basin would be frozen and so I couldn't wash up before going to school. The only tub the family owned was brought into the kitchen once a week. My mother would heat water on the coal stove for use in the bathtub. Then everyone got a turn taking a bath, starting with the youngest child and going in order of age until the water was no longer warm. Other children in the town were less fortunate and could only bathe in Darby Creek. This meant that from October until at least early March, they had no bath at all.

By 1931 the effects of the depression had become noticeable in Clifton Heights. My older sister Rosie chose after completing the 8th grade not to go to High School. Instead, at age 12, she took a job at the Kent Woolen Mill that brought home $13 a week. This provided the family with food and coal. It was difficult for my father to collect from his shoe customers, because families did not have any cash. People during the depression had to say " Put it on the book." Most of the stores in town kept a logbook of how much each family owed and they would just pay when they were able. Dad kept a book for his shoe customers in the same way. However he had to order supplies on Thursday and pay for them on Saturday. At age 12 I had the job of going from door to door all day, every Saturday to ask people if they could possibly pay anything on their account. I often remember spending the entire day collecting, and coming home with less than $1. There were times when my father owed his supplier over $1000.

The WPA (Work Progress Administration) offered people in the town work. They built a large stone garage for the city vehicles and repaired the roads. The Conservation Corps offered jobs to younger men 16 and over clearing forests or replanting trees. These jobs paid about $15 a week. There were other ways to make money. A truck used to deliver wire frames and lamp covers to our house. When they returned the next day they would pay 5 cents for each one you had sewn together.

People still found ways to have fun. Once I bought a bicycle from a street peddler for 50 cents. This made me very happy as I pulled up to the local swimming hole to show off my new treasure. It wasn't long until the bike was broken. Luckily I was able to trade it to another peddler for a banjo. Everyone loved to go to the movies. Kids would go to a matinee for a nickel and see Westerns. Just as the hero and his horse would jump off a cliff, words would flash on the screen saying "Continued Next Week". For the adults they would have things like "Dish Night". If you came to the movies on a Tuesday night, you got a free plate. If you wanted a complete set of eight, you had to come every week.

Father Buckley, the parish priest went to the houses and if he noticed that it was cold he would use the collection money to order coal for the families. He came to the Rudolph family to discuss sending me to West Catholic High School in Philadelphia. The parish would be able to help with the tuition but the car fare to and from school was a problem. The bus from his house to the 69th Street Subway Station was 5 cents. The subway that would take him the rest of the way to school cost 8 cents. This meant that it would cost him 26 cents a day to go to school. My father said that was too expensive. However if I walked from the Subway station to school it was only ten cents a day. Since it was going to make the difference between whether or not I got to go to West Catholic, I agreed to walked the last mile each direction to school

At West Catholic High School I played football. One day after practice it was 6 PM and already dark. I had not eaten at all that day and still had to carry my many heavy books to 69th Street. I wished more than anything that I could take the Subway instead of walking just once. But I did not even have 8 cents.

After High School, Father Buckley wanted me to attend St. Joseph's College. At that time the only program they had was liberal arts which I was not interested in. I had decided that I wanted to study Engineering. Besides there still wasn't enough money to send me to school. If there were jobs available there was a line out the door before daylight of guys waiting for the jobs. Once they were digging a new sewer line. The job was to dig a trench 2 and a half feet wide. 8 feet long and 8 feet deep. They were paying $5 for that. I told the foreman I could do it, but he insisted i was too small.

Eventually I signed aboard the School Ship Annapolis and became a Third Officer. Then I was assigned to a US Survey Ship out of Lake Union in Seattle. The cheapest way to go to Seattle was by bus. It was 5 days and only made one stop in Chicago. When I arrived I in Seattle I had $5. I had just missed hooking up with the ship and had to wait a week until it returned. They advanced me $25 and I stayed in a rented room over a bar. It was noisy and there were drunks knocking on the doors at all hours of the night. When my ship arrived I was waiting on the dock with all my gear. We traveled to the Aleutian and San Juan Islands, and throughout the Pacific.

Frankly the war was the best thing that ever happened to the economy. Once we began manufacturing war-time materials for Europe people were only too glad to rack up overtime.