Hello
To all of you who are awaiting with "baited breath" the SS info, I have
been slowing digging away and finding bits and pieces. The site below is
good and also has a time line of info as to when the social programs were
enacted. I did find this on my own, plus another person emailed it to
me. I have also emailed some questions to the SS dept as I have found
there are dated deaths from the years 1900 to the present under the SSDI on
rootsweb. The SS as we know it today was enacted in 1935, so I am
wondering if these earlier benefits were perhaps benefits paid by certain
states with federal monies to certain individuals. I did ask that
question to the SS, and when they they do respond (whenever that might be)
I will pass there info on. From the site below-- the first federal
old-age pension was introduced in Congress in 1909. This has been quite
interesting to say the least.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/briefhistory.html
Unless we have lived throught depression years, we have no idea how
families had to struggle to survive, even with the father working. With
the father not working, due to death, disability, etc-- then it was horribly
rough. My own mother( Katheryn Eakins Zuber-- from Henderson Co., KY) has
told stories of herself and her young siblings picking tobacco worms for
pennies an hour after their father died in 1919. When I was a teen-ager I
asked her once what they did during the depression to survive-- mom replied
they did the same before the depression to survive, as they never had enough
money. Another lady from LA sent the following to me-- I am using parts
of it with her permission-- it is quite interesting (from Bea of LA):
The first payments to orphans and mother's with children under
18 years of age were paid in January 1940; my father died at age 36 on Feb.
2, 1940 and had been paying into Social Security about 3 years, from 1937.
My father was working in the oil fields of New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana.
My mother drew $34 and some cents ( I do not remember exactly above the $34
a month). My sister and I each drew $17 plus until we reached 18 years of
age. Even then the combined amount would not take care of the family but it
was a great help. .....................Had it not been that SS check my
mother and my sister
and I got we would have never made it..................... My mother
remarried in due time
and drew no more SS on my father but my sister and I did until we were 18
and the
law was that; so any widow with children under 18 could draw benefits if her
mate
paid into the system. The children drew if until they were 18, regardless.
No, an older person could not draw S S benefits unless they paid into S S.
The states maybe with government funding created "old age pensions"
which my grandmother received from age 65 until her death;
she lived to be 102.
Thanks to Bea for sharing her story. I was born two wks before my dad left
for WWII, and my generation seemed to have it better than my parents
generation and theirs before. We do have much to give thanks for at this
Christmas-- all we genealogists need to do is look over birth/death records
or our ancestors and realize that we are lucky to be alive today in a
country such as ours. Everyone have a blessed holiday. Helen Zuber
Keusch
forever searching the EAKINS, FORD/FOARD, MELTON, WALCUP, SANDEFUR, EZELL,
HANDLEY, THOMASSON, ZUBER, GUTEKUNST/GOODART, ANTHIS, BANGERT, LAND,
CRABTREE, BENNETT, EDWARDS, REEVES, WOOFORD families--my lines; and on
hubby's side the families of MEHRINGER, SCHITTER/SCHUETTER, HOCHGESANG,
SCHMITT, HURST, BECHER, KEUSCH, ACKERMAN, BURGER, and HOPF.