It Was Good While It Lasted

From my youngest adult years, I remember my grandmother encouraging me to take the Civil Service exam and get a “good government job” with benefits, a decent salary, and job security.  It might have been an opening at the post office, or a courthouse secretarial job – just get a “good government job.” Perhaps she was remembering her own experience in early adulthood and a very good time in her life when she was truly independent and had money.

Lillian Christensen (left) and Pauline Cooper

Beadle County Courthouse, Huron, SD

The year was 1933.  Everything was looking up for Lillian Christensen.  Though the Great Depression was in full swing – low crop prices, economic crash, and extreme drought, Lillian’s future was looking bright.  She began working at the new U. S. Crop Allotment office in the Beadle County courthouse in Huron, South Dakota. The purpose of the new office was to administer the national, voluntary program by which farmers would be paid to only plant certain crops on a certain number of acres.  This program was under the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and part of the New Deal.  Mr. Irven Eitreim took charge of the office staffed by Pauline Cooper, a stenographer; Lillian, who was a clerk, and another young woman named Adaline.  It was the duty of the county office to collect and process all the data associated with the program and write up contracts with the farmers. 

Lillian on her apartment roof

For Lillian, it was a great opportunity, getting a “good government job” in place of the live-in nanny job she had for a number of years.  She and Pauline, who had become close friends, also became roommates in a nice modern apartment in downtown Huron, thanks to their good salaries and steady jobs.

Lillian’s beau, Bill Knutz, was a farmhand who did not make a great deal of money so Lillian’s job was a blessing.  As long as Lillian was single, that is.  Most employers preferred to save the jobs for single women who had no choice but to support themselves.  Romantic sparks were also flying between Pauline and their boss, Irv Eitreim.

It was December of 1935, and big changes were in store.  Pauline was on an extended vacation in California and Adaline didn’t seem to be employed there anymore, leaving Lillian with the office responsibilities. It was then that everything changed.

In Pauline’s absence, on December 28, 1935, Lillian and Bill decided to elope to be secretly and quietly married.  It was so quiet, in fact, that afterward Bill parked his car a couple of blocks down the street and walked to the apartment to spend time with his wife, in order to “save their good names.”

But on a bigger scale, the U. S. Supreme Court was taking a closer look at the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and specifically the Crop Allotment program.  The court ruled it unconstitutional to tax the food processors and reallocate that money to farmers, so on January 6, 1936 it all came to an end and offices were to be closed.

In a letter postmarked Jan. 15, 1936 from Los Angeles, Pauline wrote to Lillian:

“Lillian Dear:

I haven’t written you before because I was just so upset and worried that I didn’t know what to write and thought that just keeping still was better than letting you know how I really feel.  However I had a letter from Irv. this P. M. that made me feel better.  I’m so glad he is going to get something else even though you and I are really in a spot.  It certainly has taken the pep out of me but in a way I’m sort of glad that I was out here when it happened.  It sort of is a dirty trick though to leave you with all the dirty working of finishing it all up without any pay.  Anyway I’m certainly not regretting my trip out here.  I haven’t looked for work and don’t think I will until I hear further from Irv.  I really and truly want to come to Huron and don’t want to stay here very badly even if I could find something to do.  Maybe if I could have you and Irv out here I would feel different about it all.  It makes me sick to think about losing the apartment---all I can say is hang on to it as long as you can.  Maybe something else will turn up.  If I don’t get back before the end of the month I’ll write my folks to get my things.  I’m sure you know how everything is divided and I’ll also split on the bills.”

She ends with “I guess there is nothing we can do but hold our chins up and take it…”

It all had a happy ending though – Irv found a job at the South Dakota State University Extension Department in nearby Brookings, South Dakota.  Pauline also found work in Brookings “just typing” as they did when they first started typing wheat contracts with the Crop Allotment office.  Pauline and Irv were eventually married.  However, in a letter Irv wrote to Lillian a few weeks after the office closure he said he was “floored” when Pauline told him about Lillian and Bill’s marriage, and that he shouldn’t have been so surprised that Lillian was not too concerned about losing her job.  He went on to say that he will never forget the years they worked together and will never know a more pleasant, congenial and efficient person than Lillian.  “Tell Bill I think he is a ‘lucky cuss’” Irv said.   

It’s hard to say how long Bill and Lillian could have kept their marriage quiet if the Supreme Court had ruled differently, or what their long-term plans had been.

Lillian and Pauline continued their friendship for many more years even though their lives took completely opposite turns.  Irv’s career with the United States Foreign Service took them all over the world, while Bill and Lillian settled down on a farm just outside of Huron.  But both of them had their “happily ever after” and Lillian had her “good government job.”