Author, 89, relives Great Depression in book

Saturday, Dec. 30, 2000 | 9:46 a.m.

In the living room of his Las Vegas apartment, Byron Boyd flipped through the pages of his recently-published book "The Shanty."

Looking for his favorite stories, the 89-year-old said he could easily write another 25 pages about his experience living along the Los Angeles River during the Great Depression.

"But this is it," he said, setting the book on an end table. "You'd be surprised at how many yellow-lined tablets I used and threw away writing that in long hand."

Called Grandpa Moses by his sister, Boyd began six years ago to piece together stories, faces, adventures and letdowns from his life in a shanty town in 1933.

Telling the story would take him three years. The book required numerous revisions and evoked memories and emotions that had been stored up for years.

He had never written before. His niece in Rockfield, Ill., typed the final manuscript, and then Boyd secured a copyright with the Library of Congress. The book was published Nov. 1 by 1stBooks Library.

"I got real scared writing it," Boyd said. "It came back so real, and the people I kept seeing are long gone."

The story recounts a 15-month-period when the 21-year-old Boyd, his cousin Whammy and three other men in their early 20s were forced to live in a shack they built in a Los Angeles shanty town.

Boyd had just moved to Los Angeles from Columbus, Ga., after serving in the U.S. Navy.

Unlike other stories about life during the Depression, Boyd's memories include optimism and enthusiastic accounts of how he and the other men battled the odds against them.

In the book Boyd referred to the group's move to the shanty town as "an expedition of hardy pioneers."

"Only hours ago we were depressed and unemployed," he wrote in his book. "Now I couldn't wait to set out and explore the new territory."

What little money each made working odd jobs was pooled and used to buy groceries -- mainly bread -- for the household.

"We had hard times," he said. "The most I had in my pocket was 35 cents. But we had a lot of fun.

"We sort of boosted each other," he said. "When one was down. The other was up. We carried each other. Without them I couldn't have made it."

The group met regularly at the soda fountain at Bicky's drugstore, a neighborhood hangout. They dated women, went to movies, played baseball and got into rumbles while protecting their property.

Using materials salvaged from a fire-damaged apartment, they had built a frame for a small dormitory-style house. The walls were made from corrugated cardboard coated with varnish.

They slept on cots, warmed themselves around a makeshift heater, cooked on an outdoor stove and searched for work on near-empty stomachs.

Other residents in the shanty town were living in cardboard boxes or under tents made from quilts.

"Remembering those days, I find some of my memories at odds with the times and actual conditions that we were subjected to," he wrote. "We never really felt sorry for ourselves, and, when discussing how tough times were, it was always the other people whom our hearts went out to."

Brief relationships were made with different characters, such as Buck, a stranger with a dog, who arrived in the shanty town the day the group was building the house. The stranger assisted the men and then left without a trace.

"It was like he appeared out of nowhere, then he disappeared," Boyd said. "Without him I don't know what we would have built. All we did was follow his instructions."

Like Buck, most of the people he met during that time disappeared. He eventually lost contact with some of the men he shared the shanty with.

"When the war came, everybody scattered," he said.

While living in the shanty he took a free course in light steam engineering at Frank Wiggins Trade School. With no high school diploma he tested his way into UCLA, where he studied engineering and worked his way through college.

He later became an engineer for Anheuser-Busch, working for the company 21 years. He retired in 1975. Boyd said he never knew he'd be writing a book about his experience in the shanty. His inspiration came after reading about Oprah Winfrey and the tough life she had growing up. He said he wants his book to serve as an example to others who are struggling.

Too many people today are giving up, he said. They're waiting for handouts from the government.

"We never gave up," he said. "If I can survive that, I can do this. I can do that."

The anchor tattoo on his hand for the past 68 years has faded. Two of the four men he lived with in the shanty have died.

As his wife, Mary, of 61 years chats with friends at the dining room table, Boyd looks back to another era.

"Time runs out real fast," he said. "I look back on my life and ask, 'Where does the time go?' But you know, I've lived my life."

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