Evening star., 1932-05-08

~ OMETIMES man has pearl OF
great price in his wife and
doesn't know it.
This would seem to be the case
with Lewis White, husband OF
Martha. Martha has had about enough
of these bad times. and she wants to
pull the White family out of them
somehow. Lewis is afraid
A woman asked me at club lunch
con recently if / thought that women
were facing this depression with more
courage than men; perhaps the answer
isn't a question of any such sweeping
generality But certainly Martha White
is facing it with more bravery, imaglna-
ton. resource than Lewis has shown.
The Whites live in a large city; an
Eastern city if you live where I do. a
Western city to New Workers and East
coasters generally. The Whites have
been married nine years. Lew Whites
salary was $50 a week when they were
married, then $40, then it went up to
SIS a week, and now 1t is S45. Pretty
hard to come down suddenly to two
thirds of your income, but the Whites
took it sensibly, thankful to have any
income at all, and realizing, too, that
prices had come down almost to corre-
spond.
They've paid various rents in the last
line years; just now they have an
apartment of six rooms for which they
pay $40. With the reduced income, 1t
is too much; bus Lew fond]y hopes that
things will come back to normal In
1892 and he doesn't want to move.
MARTHA wants to move, and in fact
is going to move. Her father left
her a few thousand dollars some years
ago. but the Whites never had to draw
on it until this year. Then, when their
capital had to be touched, Martha, as
she herself says, woke up. 1 realized
that for most of my life I'd been accept
ing what came along. not demanding
nor creating anything" says her forcible
letter, and I decided that by the time
the next depression came along I'd be
ready for II"
BY scrimping and saving and paying
less rent? No. not at all. That's what
is soaring Lew. and that's what indi-
Gates that Martha is an unusual woman,
and that her husband is lucky to have
her
Martha had found, on tn quiet out
skirts of the town, a large, old-fashioned
house of II rooms. Its price few
years ago was $1,000; it is mortgaged
for $1,000. Martha could have it for
$4,000. by paying down $4,000, which
she has in the bank, and paying OF the
rest at $3.50 a month.
ITS a brick house" Martha writes
me. built as solid as bridge. 1t has
fine grounds, and there arc no restric-
tions. I can open tea room there, or
sell kitchen aprons, or raise chickens,
aal into two
apartments splendidly, or I could build
four or five garages on the side street,
without hurting its looks from the front
at all. The new State highway is going
to slant in within a block OF 1t, ana
there1l be need of restaurants, lodging
houses everything. in that nelghbor-
hood, once they start building.
0pEFORE was married, and for
ID a year afterward," she goes on,
s'I used to make an easy hundred a
month teaching music. But you can't
do anything like that in an apartment:
Once when my mother and / started
making doughnuts, for the Womans
Exchange, there were complaints OF the
smell of hot fat. But If we buy that
place on st. Paul street ! can do ex-
actly as like.
"Of course it will be a strain, in
creasing the rent. Seven hundred and
fifty is a big rent, for us-almost one
third of what we have now.
But what We have now isn't what
we're going to have. year from now.
If / can't find some way to make that
place pay for itself, I'm not as smart
as think am. Those two apple trees
were thick with fruit last Fall, and
there's room for so chickens. Rooms in
that neighborhood rent for at least $40
a month, especially big airy rooms like
mine, and if I rented two of them my
own rent would be down to what Lew
and ! paid when we were first married.
IF I have to, I'll board a couple Of
children. I'd love it, and it would be
good for Junior and Jane Lew thinks
ned hate it, but men often think they'd
hate things they really wouldn't mind
at all.
In short" says this spirited woman,
in conclusion, I've let Lew carry the
load long enough, not realizing how un-
fair it is. The next time depression
strikes us I'll have some sort of income
separate from his salary; I'll never let
him feel he's got the whole responsible
1ty again. There are scores of ways
women can make money, and one of
them is to buy now when everything Is
cheap, and terms are easy, and nobody
criticizes you for admitting honestly
that you are poor"