101-Year-Old Man Tells Glenn Beck What He Remembers About the 1929 Stock Market Crash

James “Chippy” Qauresima, a 101-year-old New Yorker, was born in 1915, when Democrat Woodrow Wilson was president. Today, very few remember what he experienced as a teenager when the stock market crashed in 1929, but what happened changed his life forever.

“The crash of 1929 formed my basis for the reasoning of how I spent the rest of my life,” Qauresima told Glenn Beck, who asked him to share his earliest recollections about the United States. “I say I was born in the heart of adversity.”

Newspapers are seen for sale at a newsstand September 16, 2008 in New York City. U.S. stocks were mixed following yesterday’s Dow Jones Industrial Average plunge of 4.4% or 504 points, being the worst single day loss since the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Today the Federal Reserve is scheduled to announce the target interest rates for the federal funds. It’s not clear how the central bank will respond to recent turmoil in the world’s financial markets. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The 101-year-old man described the incredible “imprint it put on my life” and “the values that it set” when the market crashed. He told Beck that those who have never experienced or understood austerity “only know half of life.”

Qauresima was only 15 years old when the market crashed on Oct. 29, 1929, but he remembers that infamous “Black Tuesday” well. Earlier in the 1920s, the market expanded feverishly. But after reaching its peak in August 1929, production was on the decline and unemployment was on the rise.

Because of the rapid downturn, stocks lost their value. The devastating crash came as investors traded around 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange all in one day. Ultimately, billions of dollars were lost. Weathering the economic nightmare gave a young Qauresima a different way of seeing life, a perspective he feels today’s millennials just don’t — or even won’t — understand.

“Unfortunately today, I hate to say it, but young people think everything is OK — it isn’t,” he said. “Austerity is the basis of understanding that there’s other things in life, and you have to work for them.”