FYI like grandpa used to do.....

[A.J.'s]

Im sure that feeling that a stronger power there watching over you was a blessing that was even better than more food would have been. You touched me with your words and I thank you for that. How I hope that perhaps you could have been one of the many who flocked around me at recess time to share my bounty. Id love to know that Mammy was a messenger for you.
Ive always been fussed at for sharing so much of my stuff. Often I would give it all away. I always knew there was more from where that came from. The fussing never did stop me. And your story assures me that I did right.
(not that there was a selfish bone in my Mammy and Pappy, they knew that Id go without to give to others and that upset them) but tonight as I sit here reading ur post Im so glad that I didnt let their fussing slow me down. I think I always felt a little guilty that I had so much in an area that had so little. Even if the price I paid was losing my daddy. I have always considered anything I was blessed with as coming from him. I hope you never know a hungry day again and your family to.

 

[nivtup]

I am not so sure how this thread developed into what it has.

I do want to say that reading through this was good for my soul.

Thank you all for the stories, it helps to keep life in perspective.

 

[crazyhen]

This is such an insightfull post. When my Mom was young she said they were so hungry they would get the field corn before it was ready and eat it. They were always hungry. Her father was an alcololic. Their Mom though was their strength. All of the 10 children did well in their lives and reared good children. I wish the Great Grandchildren were as well though. They seem to have lost the desire to work and succeed.
When I was young we did not have water in the house or a bathroom. but Mom always said being poor was no excuse for being dirty so we always took baths at night in a great big silver colored wash tub. She would heat the water on the stove and pour it in. We had a hand pump on the back porch that we got our water from. Once when i was learning to do dishes I forgot to remove the Ivory(thats what we used for everything) soap bar and fed it to the hog in the washwater. I was so upset and sure it would kill it. We only had one to kill for the fall to eat during the winter. Mom later said she was more upset about the loss of the soap because it cost so much. My Uncle laughed about it and said we would have a hog with a clean liver is all.
Yes we used the sears catalog for bathroom tissue. You'd have to watch for spiders when you went to the out house too. When we finally got one. My Mom and Dad both worked and we finally got a house of our own with a bathroom. I felt rich. During the Summer I would work in the fields. It would start for me on my knees picking bush string beans. Those rows were so long but you know I never thought of not working. Why, I could get clothes in the fall to go to school with that i could pick out. That was great. Later would follow the pole beans and some of the kids, being kids would slip up on someone and drop a greensnake down their backs. There would be shreiking and screamming until next time that they would get them back. All us kids worked hard. Then it was to work into tobacco fields, barns and then pack houses until school started. Oh I loved it then. Yes, it was hard work and hot nasty work but we made it. We did not complain that the work was menial. Work was never beneath us in any way. Some kids today would never stoop to doing what we did to live. I think we are the winners though. It gave us our attitudes and joys of life. If this is another Depression then we will make it. jean

 

[Chicabee19]

Great visual stories everyone!

This is one of my favorite quotes:

"Accustom your children to hardship and they will not falter when times get rough..."

 

[curliet]

Just want to repeat what someone ele said, This is the best thread I've seen on this message board. Puts things into perspective doesn't it?

 

[A.J.'s]

I cannot ever find words to tell you folks out there what your words mean to me. I have lived a life of work and pain altho i did my best, i still never found any validation to any thing ive ever done my pity party ends now and i want to tell you a story.
When my monthly periods started I was a mess. I was still a little girl at the age of 13 and lived with my Mammy and Pappy and Uncle Mac.. being the daughter of a son who had died in Korea and having so many uncles and aunts I was surely taken care of. I was left to the whispers of the many cousins who came for sunday dinners and holidays for my lifes education.
An aunt who had gone to the big city and had a good job and was fancy and smart came to the country house one week and and announced she wanted to take me home for the summer. She felt I needed to get out of the country and learn more of life than I had there to teach me.
I had just had my first period and I was feeling grown up and now I was actually going to the big city and see the sights I had only heard of thru my cousins and their tales.
They all came in with their fancy clothes and fancy braclets and hair trinkets and pretty shoes. If I had their shoes they would have been ruined in a week, they had concrete side walks to walk on, I had churt roads with mud and rocks and briars to walk in and so my shoes didnt look pretty long. If they had pretty to start with. Mammy always insisted I wear the brown "buster brown" shoes. they were more serviceable. I think they were buster brown. They were advertised with a goose...a st ore in our community had a machine I would step up on and it would x ray or something my feet to tell what size shoe I needed. HOw I hated those brown shoes. My frinends had the pretty black patent leather shoes and I had athae brown shoes that turned over and I ended up walking on the inside of the shoe very soon
the words arent coming so smoothly today guess i shouls stop and wait til the mood hits but it wont happen so ill continue.
that summer I got in the car with fancy aunt to go to her fancy hose in the fancy city and how strange it felt. she had white carpet in a white living room with a white couch.. really. and me? I felt so dirty in that house. I was clean, but it seemed every step i made i left a trail. I was totally a fish out of water..
When my second period came about, I was so glad to have a bath room with a tub and a comode.. I was left alone each day while aunt and uncle went to their jobs and I spent most of my time in the bath room bathing and rubbing on fancy lotions and combing my hair and painting my nails and trying to be fancy like my city cousins and aunt.
The pads I had were strange and felt so funny. Each gush of liquid that came out of me scared me so badly and made me feel so dirty. I would change the pad several times a day. Each time I did, I would put it in the commode and flush over and over to get it down the pipe and felt so grown up doing that. YES you heard me.. No one told me anyother way. By the end of that day there wasw no way to get them to go down that hole. It was so stopped up even water would not esc a pe... I was so scared I went to my white bed room and tried to fake sleep.
In a while aunt came into the bedroom and asked me if I had put anything down the toilet that would not flush. I finally told her that the pads she bought me would not flulsh easily and that they stopped it up.
She got up and went for the phone and called another uncle and the three of them uncle aunt and uncle all worked together under the house to free the pads and get the toilet to work again.
The house owner uncle was furious he wanted me taken home immdediately. he said loudly "if she is old enough to use those things shes old enough to know what to do with them" i cried so hard I thought i would die.
I snuck out the house and got on a bike that belonged to cousin of the house who was grown and gone at this time and I escapped to the other aunts house. the simpier and not so fancy aunt who lived across town. I hid in her closet and would not come out.
I never did go back to fancy aunts house that summer I chose to stay with simplier aunt that day scarred me forever. I have felt so stupid and felt so backward and felt so less than good That little girl, tho 13 was simple and so backward. Ive never fogiven that uncle for his words. and i never forgave fancy aunt for letting him hurt me that day.
some times i can put words down that relay a feeling or thougth today is not one of those days.. ill wait for later for more.. luv ya'll.

 

[A.J.'s]

I wonder why this topic stopped so suddenly.
I suppose that a chick hatching is more of life than a young girl growing up and the pain that came attached.
life is life is life is life is life. is one faucet of it more than another?


why do i feel rejected? was this part of my life objectable?
Im just wondering.

 

[sundance]

I am a depression person and so is DH, we were both poor, as was everyone in the country at that time, No electricity, and no pluming in the house, but I can honestly say I have never heard any one living like you did. Glad we're in the 2l century. marrie

 

[minna]

I've just found this post. These stories amaze me. I feel like I have been a spoiled brat my entire life. I am thinking of compiling some stories, I wonder what it would take to publish a book. The Simple Times. There are plenty of ppl I could get stories from, heck, you can go to a nursing home and those ppl would love to talk to you, it seems like no one wants to listen anymore. I am going to think on this. If I were to try it, would any of you be interested in letting me use your stories?


ETA: I think I am going to start it with a blog, until I get quite a few compiled, if you are interested in my using your story, please let me know, and if anyone has a story for me to use, you can email me. I am pretty sure there is a link under my name.

 

[briana1975]

Quote:
So did my Grandma. She talks about her lard sandwiches being her biggest meal of the day.