Subtitle: How One Man’s Kindness – and a Trove of Letters – Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression
Sam Stone was a man of mystery, able to sever relationships with his own siblings, but also capable of enormous compassion and generosity toward total strangers. The author is Sam Stone’s grandson, an investigative reporter and journalism professor. Twenty-seven years after his grandfather’s death, Ted Gup’s mother gives him old suitcases with family papers. In it is a packet of letters regarding “Xmas Gift Distribution.”
Just before Christmas in 1933, Sam (using the alias “B. Virdot”) placed an ad in a Canton, Ohio, newspaper saying that he will give to 75 families the sum of $10, and asking those who could use the help to write to him at a post office box in the city. Sam amended his offer to giving $5 each to 150 people after an overwhelming response. The letters are from the people who received checks from “B. Virdot.”
Ted Gup goes on to research the people in the letters and their descendants – and his grandfather’s mysterious past. A Secret Gift is the result.
At first, I thought the subtitle, claiming that the letters tell “the hidden history of the great depression,” was an overstatement. But after reading A Secret Gift, I felt as if I understood for the first time how the Great Depression affected ordinary people.
Being an amateur genealogist myself, I realize what a huge job the author took on when he researched what happened to the families his grandfather helped, generations later. I don’t want to give away too much about this wonderful book – just a wish that everyone read it and absorb its lessons. In an age that often seems devoid of compassion (just listen to the politicians!), A Secret Gift is an antidote to that affliction.
