Posted on 11/12/2008 5:13:33 PM PST by SJackson
(Shawano County)
The only time we saw money in the 1930s was when our neighbor, a bachelor veteran of World War I, gave us a nickel for an ice cream cone. We didn't need money. We lived off the land and we kids had the woods, creek, and railroad tracks to hike along and a swimming pool in the summer.
Our mother was widowed in 1932 and received $30 a month from the county for aid to dependent children. Most men were earning only $1 a day. Many of them worked for Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration - WPA - which we jokingly called "We Poke Along."
There were five of us kids, from 6 weeks old to 6 years. Dad died of pneumonia and we left the farm to live in Ogdensburg.
One year we had capons, and another year we had a pig on our lot and a half. Mother always went deer hunting in November and got her buck. The pork and venison meatballs she canned were to die for. A big garden, three apple trees and currant bushes filled our dirt cellar with winter eating. We kids picked the wild asparagus in spring and those long juicy blackberries in August.
We burned wood for cooking and heating. A reservoir held warm water from the cistern for washing up and shampoos. Of course there was homemade bread from scratch. We all had baths in the same water in a large tub by the kitchen stove. Water from a pump went in a pail with a dipper for drinking. No need to tell us old-timers to save water.
The outhouse was a new one and Mother scrubbed it each wash day with water from the rinse tubs. The shelf held Sears Roebuck catalogs from which the soft yellow pages were long gone. Luxury came during the canning season when those soft peach wraps went to the outhouse.
We girls ironed stacks of hankies, and in those days socks were darned. Our clothes were handed down from one sibling to another. We never went more than 10 miles in our Model A to Grandpa's farm and other relatives. We had free shows outdoors in summer.
Our small town of 200 had everything we needed: two grocery stores, two garages, two taverns, a drug store, a doctor, a hardware store, a mill on the mill pond, a cheese factory, two churches, a post office and a state-graded school that took us through the sophomore year. I graduated from Little Wolf High School in Manawa. We're having our 64th reunion this year.
The old cliche "A dollar saved is a dollar earned" doesn't mean much anymore. Neither does picking up a penny lying on the street, but pennies do still make dollars. My brother used to fill his little bank with pennies he earned doing chores for neighbors. He still has that first penny.
Zoning violations, unsanitary conditions, livestock in the city, and a tavern for every grocery. Amazing America survived.
The number of people now actually capable of living off the land in the USA could probably be numbered on the fingers of one hand.
Sometimes it's possible to be TOO civilized.
What land? Most of us in the city and 'burbs have postage stamp size lots.
I know how to grow tomatoes and cucumbers, but I doubt that we could live for very long on that. :)
Isn't it amazing how our dirt poor parents, grandparents, great grandparents lived better than most well off kids today?
We lived in a country where people respected each other and their property. They didn’t expect someone else to be blamed for their own failings. They didn’t demand that the government fulfill their dreams at someone else’s expense. They understood that life was hard, and fraught with danger, and it doesn’t work out perfectly for everyone, yet you must try. They expected to receive the legitimate fruits of their own labor. They were charitable to people genuinely in need and deserving of help, but had no compunction about rejecting the lazy. They trusted in their God, and regarded government with skepticism.
I could go on all night.
I’ve always wondered how the people living in cities coped during that time. I’ve read some Depression era stories, some good some not so ....
I save my change too - pick up a penny here and there. Last time I went to the coin machine I got $94 ... dinner and a concert out ....
I wonder if someone here knows what sort of food would be good to stock (hoard?) - Glen Beck today said to start putting some away just in case things get out of hand ....
I was thinking beans and rice and canned meats of sorts - ideas?
You’d be surprised what you could do on a little bit of property.
...sounds like a better life than I’m living right now....
Dry goods.
Grains, dehydrated food. If you know a Mormon family ask them, they’ll know reasonably priced sources.
foxfire the series might also be available at your local library.
the father of my brothers wife has an 8x8 plot as a "front yard" outside of tokyo. he is considered a "farmer." but he does well enough supplanting a portion of his income with fresh vegetables.
Thanks - actually it was pretty self evident after I posted. It was like a “yeah, D’oh” thing .... scary to even have to think of it ... friend says that ammunition might be the next underground currency ...
My ancestors were Prussian and Hessian immigrants who homesteaded throughout Shawano County. My dad grew up in Shawano and my mother on farms around the city under my grandparents later moved to town.
I grew up with children of the depression and WWII vets in Shawano. Toughest folks you’ll ever know. I can tell you stories of my grandmother in her 80’s and now 90 finishing up physical labor after falling and breaking bones because the work had to be done.
No bailouts with that generation. No complaints about serving in the war. My great uncle was the warmest most positive “community” minded man I’ve ever known. He fought through the Rhineland and was part of the liberating force that opened up some of the Aushwitz camps. Artillery corps. Was proud to have served and left it all at that.
No politics, just service and duty and simple joy.
That's old Ruff Report stuff from the 70s. Which isn't to say it couldn't be true, but I doubt we're going there. Food, and ammunition for personal use, make sense to have around. And DON'T FORGET WATER. Basic first aid, and sanitary conditions depending on where you are.
It was reported today on CNBC the biggest selling items in the US this month were home safes and guns. Does that tell you something.
There’s a good PBS documentary called 1940’s house - follows a family of 4 as they live through wartime conditions and rationing in London (modern folks with 1940s rules). Amazing how little those folks could live on and did - including victory gardening and an awkward bit when they were told that the rabbits in the backyard hutch weren’t pets.
On My last pheasant hunting trip to Logan Kansas, myself and my buddy had to stay at a bed and breakfast in town because our farm owner friend had people staying out at the farm.
this B&B was owned by a 94 year old lady who was sharp as a tack and I had the pleasure of sitting down with her for a while and talking with her.
The house we were in had been built a couple miles outside of town and had been brought into town by mule train and dragged on logs constantly placed in front of the house. While living outside of town, they had no water so her father drilled a well using a post and driven around and around by a mule attached to the post.
She then told me about life there during the "Dust bowl" of the 1930's where there was absolutely no rain for almost two years..........It was an incredible experience to be able to sit down with a person who endured such hardship at such a pivotable time in our country's history..........
If you get some time, do a google search on the Dust Bowl. Its probably the most forgotten and under reported period of our country.............
Forgot about that part of the Depression ... will do some reading .... thanks ...
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