Ypsilanti did not plunge into poverty in the fall of 1929.

The stock market crash was, for many, just a news item. The city’s descent into the Depression was gradual. Retail trade began to decline by December of 1929. Factories started to lay off workers. About 2 years after the crash, the Ypsilanti Savings Bank closed. More jobs disappeared.

By the time 1932 arrived, children were staying home from school because of inadequate clothing.

There was no unemployment money or Social Security in 1932. However, the city was still in the end of an era of municipally-provided services. It had its own gas plant, at Huron and Cross, and shutoffs for non-payment were rare. Ypsilanti had its own Water Works too, in the present-day Water Works Park. The local companies were lenient towards their neighbors in the way more distant corporations might not be. The mercy of these municipal utilities allowed many poor Ypsilantians a bit of breathing room in the early 30s, when conditions were becoming dire.

Another municipal resource was the official city social worker, a single woman who worked tirelessly for decades in the Depression and for years afterwards, to help her fellow Ypsilantians. Her name was Inez Graves.

If your family was one of the dozens of families in need in the “Dirty Thirties,” Inez was the person who put several quarts of canned goods on your kitchen table—canned here in Ypsi—and gave you a pair of reconditioned shoes for your son. Although numerous local groups including the Red Cross and the American Legion also provided support, Inez was the single most prominent social relief worker during the Depression.

Born to a carpenter and a housewife in Wisconsin, Inez was the oldest child, with one younger sister, Edith. Inez came to Ypsilanti in 1920 at age 27. In 1921 she founded the Business and Professional Woman’s Club. This charity group bought a painting to loan out around town, decorated vacant store windows with edifying pictures of the Roman Arch and other architectural paragons, and bought birdseed.

The birdseed was given to rural postmen, to take out on their route and scatter on the snow.

Inez didn’t start out as city social worker, though by 1925 she was organizing such charitable events as a community Christmas tree for local children, as well as projects with the BPW. She worked as a school attendance officer and lived in modest circumstances at 324 W. Forest Ave.

By 1930, however, she had achieved her dream of becoming a municipal social worker.

In this year, Inez worked to provide milk money to poor students at Woodruff School.

She also coordinated relief efforts for a family whose house burned down.

The family was given a new house rent-free (though the men had to help build a barn), as well as furniture and clothing.

In 1931, Inez used the Ypsilanti Press to call for clothes. Working with the Press, she organized a community garden program in which property owners donated over 100 vacant lots to community members who planted vegetable gardens. She also helped coordinate canning projects in which church and community groups canned hundreds of quarts of local produce that Inez later distributed to the poor.

In 1932, Inez oversaw the distribution of federal “relief wheat.” She reinstated the community gardening plan and was appointed to a mayoral relief committee to help organize the efforts of the numerous groups in town providing relief efforts. As the Depression wore on, Inez could often be found at the city’s welfare office, at Michigan Avenue and River Street.

In 1935, President Roosevelt created the Social Security Act, which included unemployment relief. Inez continued to work for the remainder of the Depression and into WWII. Though she was now the official city services director, she still lived in modest surroundings as a renter on Cambridge Road.

In 1966, Inez was honored at a special banquet for her 40 years of service to the city. The fancy dinner was a world removed from the cold houses she’d visited years ago, bringing socks and a patched shirt, and the rundown shacks whose doors she’d knocked on, carrying a basket of canned beans and peaches.

Inez Graves worked long days for decades to fill the plates and clothe the backs of her Ypsilanti neighbors, before returning alone each night to her rented room. She died in 1975, almost 90 years old.

It’s only fitting that Ypsilanti’s greatest example of selflessness, charity, and love of one’s fellow man had been born, all those years ago in 1892, on a special day.

December 25.

Laura Bien is the author of the local history book "Stud Bunnies and the Underwear Club: Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives," to be published this winter. You can reach her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

"Cold Off the Presses" is published every Wednesday at AnnArbor.com.