Story Stories of the Great depression and advice from survivors

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WanderLore

Veteran Member
Debt was a huge No No also. Grandparents bought their land and built their home from scratch and it was gorgeous.
I think my DH and I are ok. Everything is paid for including the little farm. We have everything we need and then some. Plenty of food and other items I won't mention.
Right now, food and OTC and other things are pretty cheap if you think about it. If you have a way to store it, it can be done right now.
 
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moldy

Veteran Member
Re-reading this thread. It reminds me where I came from, and the people I came from. My grandma came across to Oklahoma as a child. Her mother died along the way from 'consumption' or tuberculosis. My great aunt was partially responsible for cooking. She would set up the tripod and put the kettle on, then fill the kettle. Otherwise the cast iron kettle was too heavy for her to lift (at age 7 or 8). Then she would help set the fire underneath.

mudlogger said:
I knew a woman from that era...her father was a tailor. They would disassemble clothing to reuse the thread. Government men came out one day and made them kill all their cows and plow under their growing cotton crop. She and her sister still cussed the president...FDR
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People need to remember things like this happened too - with the government destroying property to help control prices. Talk to your elders - they are the most important library we have.
 
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wab54

Veteran Member
mudlogger said:
I knew a woman from that era...her father was a tailor. They would disassemble clothing to reuse the thread. Government men came out one day and made them kill all their cows and plow under their growing cotton crop. She and her sister still cussed the president...FDR
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WHY???

WAB
 
C

Chicken Mama

Veteran Member
Over the years Dad shared what he remembered about the depression. He, one brother, one sister and his parents lived in Washington, Indiana and moved to Cincinnati in an old Willey's Whippet. Grandpa started working for B&O railroad in the stockyard (these cars carried live animals and produce) and would occasionally bring home huge stalks of bananas and other "exotic" produce.

Grandpa bought some used bee hives (bees included) for $1 each. I recall counting 17 hives. He'd sell quarts of honey so grandma could buy flour, sugar, etc, plus fabric to make clothes for the family. Dad swears that they wouldn't have made it if not for that honey.

Dad and his brother would walk the train tracks and collect pieces of coal in a bucket to take home for heat.

He too talked about putting cardboard in the bottom of their shoes when the soles wore out.
 
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Chapulin

Veteran Member
I am in the process of writing a story starting in Southern Illinois of diversified farmers that end up going through the Great Depression and rationing of WWII with less trouble than is often quoted from this era. They grow what they can use and trade with selling the surplus in small town markets. They stay away from new mechanized farm equipment until after WWII and they use cash on the barrelhead accounting. It is a pair of brothers with woodlots, fruit trees and small acreage crops. The further west people went and the more dependent they were on cities the worse the stories get.
 
psychgirl

psychgirl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
my grandma would put out sandwiches for the “hobo men” wandering around. She’d set them out on her back porch.
Grandma was an extreme food hoarder too. She’d sit and practically cry when mom came to clean out the canned goods because grandma had some saved that were 20 -30 years old, just convinced they were just fine and too good to waste.
Some of the dry goods things she saved literally had bugs crawling through.

And by this time of her life she had PLENTY of money to eat whatever she wanted. She just couldn’t real the depression habits.
 
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Troke

On TB every waking moment
I have my father's archives. From 1924-1933, maybe five pieces of paper. Just in 1934, about five times that.

None of the programs put in place actually worked. But they showed that FDR felt their pain. He ran on that for two more elections.
 
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Old Gray Mare

TB Fanatic
Herds have also be put down because of TB. Remember seeing tears in the eyes of an old work hardened farmer who's herd had been put down. One, yes one cow tested positive for TB according to the farmer. To this day I can still see his sad wrinkled, leathery face in my mind's eye. Imagine the pain of having a herd you've carefully bred and nurtured for decades slaughtered in front of you?

The farm had a dairy with yummy fresh made ice cream. While working thru the last years of college a trip to the dairy for an ice cream cone was a special treat.
 
T

Troke

On TB every waking moment
Old Gray Mare said:
Herds have also be put down because of TB. Remember seeing tears in the eyes of an old work hardened farmer who's herd had been put down. One, yes one cow tested positive for TB according to the farmer. To this day I can still see his sad wrinkled, leathery face in my mind's eye. Imagine the pain of having a herd you've carefully bred and nurtured for decades slaughtered in front of you?

The farm had a dairy with yummy fresh made ice cream. While working thru the last years of college a trip to the dairy for an ice cream cone was a special treat.
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Had an uncle who lost his entire herd to TB.
 
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Old Gray Mare

TB Fanatic
psychgirl said:
my grandma would put out sandwiches for the “hobo men” wandering around. She’d set them out on her back porch.
Grandma was an extreme food hoarder too. She’d sit and practically cry when mom came to clean out the canned goods because grandma had some saved that were 20 -30 years old, just convinced they were just fine and too good to waste.
Some of the dry goods things she saved literally had bugs crawling through.

And by this time of her life she had PLENTY of money to eat whatever she wanted. She just couldn’t real the depression habits.
Click to expand...
When my uncle cleaned out my Aunts home he told me a similar story about old out of date and bulging cans.
 
T

Troke

On TB every waking moment
Old Gray Mare said:
You'er welcome.

One thing (I do not remember the source) was the reason for rationing gasoline was not from a lack of it in the states due to the war effort but due to a shortage of rubber needed for tires for the war effort. At the beginning of WWII rubber trees outside the US were still the major source for rubber. The manufacture of synthetic rubber in larger quantities grew over the course of the war. The less fuel available, the less people use vehicles, the less rubber was used and needed. It points out the vulnerability of dependence on imported goods during war or hard times.

A reoccurring thread I have heard from survivors was how hard it was to buy new shoes and maintain them.
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Yeah, there was a leather shortage. So the shoes were made of some substitute. Not too bad until you got them wet. Then new shoes. And I seem to remember ration stamps for them. We got shoes in time for school. Went barefoot in the summer. Big problem was thistles. We hoed them in the fields. Had to be careful where you walked. And I think there was a 35mph speed limit to save fuel and tires.
 
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Old Gray Mare

TB Fanatic
Berry Mush

Haven't thought of this in ages. Not even the waste was wasted. I saw an old Eastern Shore (MD) farm wife make this. She used blackberries but probably any type of berry was used except where the seed might be poisonous: things like elderberry.

After smashing the fruit to a puree it is put in cheese cloth, in a colander in a bowl so the juice can collect in the bowl. Don't squeeze the cloth bag or the juice will get cloudy and so will the jelly made from it. Use the juice for jelly.

Berry Mush Recipe:
Take the fruit skins and seeds from the bag and put them in a frying pan over low to medium heat. Add sugar to taste. Refrigerate berry mush and use on toast like preserves or jam. You may have to add some water. I don't remember if she did.
 
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feralferret

feralferret

Veteran Member
My father was born in 1917 in Oklahoma. He had several stories that paralleled several of these. He generally wasn't real fond of talking about tose times.

One thing that carried over from making do during the Depression. He absolutely hated whole grain bread. He said that he had eaten more than enough of it during the Depression since that was all that they had. They raised the wheat which they ground for the flour. He would only eat white bread. The old grain mill was still mounted to a table in my grandfather's workshop when I was growing up back in the 60s.
 
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Old Gray Mare

TB Fanatic
feralferret said:
One thing that carried over from making do during the Depression. He absolutely hated whole grain bread. He said that he had eaten more than enough of it during the Depression since that was all that they had.
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I heard a similar story. A group of friends surprised a member with dinner at a high end seafood restaurant. What they didn't know was during the Great Depression, the only meat his family had was fish they caught at a nearby beach. He hated fish and got a stake.
 
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