He was a sharecropper/farmer and picked cotton and hunted game to help feed the family.
Of course he had a tough time of it. Millions did.
A lot of those Depression boys couldn’t believe the amounts of food they had.
I have also read he grew up in an abandoned railway car - his father had deserted the family of something like ten kids and his mother, it was rumored, was part Indian. She died young.
I don’t know why you are arguing about this - it’s perfectly true that many children of the Depression suffered dreadfully. We should all remember that and thank our blessings.