Bridgeport, south of the Loop, is home to the White Sox. Church steeples sprout from this working class neighborhood of the Irish, Italians, Polish, Lithuanians, Chinese and Croatians of St. Jerome’s Parish.

Many of them were born during the ’20s to immigrant parents.

Giggi Besic Cortese, 81, has lived in the neighborhood all her life. She lives on a block full of two-story brick and frame houses with narrow sidewalks between them. She said boarders stayed upstairs, including a man named John Vuk who took her to the show every Sunday.

“Do you known how I survived those days?” Cortese asks. “[It] was going to the show every Sunday to see Shirley Temple, but [I] tell you, she was my inspiration to go on living. Honest to goodness, I couldn’t wait till Sunday, and we would sit and wait for John Vuk to say, ‘Come, ve go to the show, ve go to the show today.’ You can certainly say that people had heart for one another — and if they were able to help, more often than not they did.”

Dusko Condic, 77, who is also from the Bridgeport neighborhood, says his father died “a relatively young man,” in his early 40s.

“He left eight of us,” Condic says. “Unfortunately, we lost the house. I can remember to this day — and I become emotional when I think of it — literally being placed on the sidewalk [with] every last possession that my poor mother had because she wasn’t able to supposedly pay the mortgage. And an incredible number of people came to my mothers’ aid, literally wheeling wheelbarrows of coal to help warm the house.”

Condic and his friends have a lot of good memories, too. They were children glued to the radio every Sunday.

“There’s nothing they like better than gathering around the table and telling stories from the old days,” Condic says. “Today, on Thanksgiving, their children and grandchildren might ask about the Great Depression they say, but they’re pretty sure the kids don’t really understand.”

“My brother Mark has 10 kids, and somewhere along the line they tend to disregard the value of money,” Condic says. ” ‘Oh, Dad, it’s only money. So what, I can make more.’ And on more than one occasion, he tells them, ‘Hey kids, God heaven forbid if the Depression comes around again. I won’t be opening up the window and jumping out, but I can see you guys doing it.’ I think that’s probably true.”

There’s grit in this generation of Chicagoans — and something of a swagger, too. The man who cries about his mother’s struggles can boast in the face of today’s catastrophe.

Says Condic: “Tomorrow I could lose everything, but somehow I’m not afraid. I really am not.”