Great Depression....how did your families manage

[DrakeMaiden]

Interesting thread.

Well, my paternal grandmother said that her family had it pretty good. I guess her dad worked for the railroad and that happened to be a depression-proof job.

My maternal grandmother mentioned living on a farm and how they brought eggs in to the market to be sold in exchange for staples. She didn't really say much about how relatively hard or easy they had it. I imagine they just made do.

 

[debilorrah]

My grandmother was born in 1908 and grandfather 12 years prior to her. While they did survive the great depression, they did so in style. They were an upper class family from old money who were always thirfty, never spoiled. Some things became obvious as I grew up - like my grandma washing TV trays to re-use. The money is gone and so are my grandparents, but they left a loving impression on me for sure!

 

[momofdrew]

My mom was in high school during the depression owned a winter coat boots 3 shirts 2 skirts 3 pairs undies and had to wash them her self... her brother paid her to do his ironing...he was in the CCC... she remembers having the oil lamp on the table at dinner time she doesnt know it the electric was turned off or if they were being thrifty...My Grandparents had a 1/2 acre +/- in the city...which they had a garden 5 pear trees and a lot of rhubarb...and my grammy canned...they had an ice box until 1950... Grammy would make quilts from used up clothes...Mom got a job after graduation doing house work for $5.00 a week and they would send her home with food...She married my dad in 1938...he had gone to the aggie for flora culture...he never got to be a florist like he wanted but he did show me how to grow plants... He worked for GE during the War cause he was 4F...
my sister and I ate what ever was put before us or else...no picky eaters allowed...It took a long time for my parents generation to get back on their feet...my mom always made do with everything...I remember she had a winter coat that she wore for at least 10 years...!!! I learned how to darn socks at an early age...

 

[banter]

I am enjoying this thread. The stories are wonderful-bittersweet. I think we all came from strong stock!

 

[The Chicken Lady]

My grandpa didn't have shoes as a little boy. He put newspapers on his feet to walk to school in the winter (REALLY!). My grandma knew him; her family was a little better off. She remembered feeling sorry as a girl for the boy with no shoes.

During the Depression, they ate whatever was available. My grandma still likes to eat Depression foods like fried onion sandwiches (sauteed onions on bread and butter) and fried potato sandwiches (sauteed potato slices on bread and butter). They also had things like a piece of bread in a bowl of milk with a little sugar on it. Obviously they had chickens and some other animals. Everyone gardened and made do with the clothes and other things they had.

They also had enormous families. My grandma dropped out of high school to play "second mother" to her little brothers and sisters. I was the first woman in our family line to graduate from a four-year college, and I am the first woman to hold a "salaried" position.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

i mainly know my mom's side of the family, as those are the storytellers. My maternal grandfather was killed in a coal mining accident in Pennsylvania when my mom was only two. That would have been 1924. My grandmother was left to raise four children alone. She cleaned houses for pennies a day to support her kids. They had chickens for eggs and meat, and even though they were literally dirt poor, my grandmother shared her food with her neighbors. Until her death in 1980, she was always frugal. Had chickens most of her life to sell eggs, never threw out a thing. My mother was the same way, and me and my sisters inherited some of those qualities.

i think my desire to raise chickens, grow a garden, become more self-sufficient comes from my grandmother. When you can't count on anyone to help you, you need to be in a position to help yourself. Thank you, Grandma!

 

[Jilara]

My mom's family was raising avocados and watermelon in San Diego County, California, so they weren't doing too badly. They had a garden and chickens, and my grandmother baked her own bread. They had a policy to never turn away anyone who might need a meal. My mom talked about trading avocados for peanut butter sandwiches at school, because she was sick of them. Even at that, food was tight. She talked about how sometimes she fainted, because she didn't eat all day. They ate eggs and toast in the morning, then nothing until supper.

My father was a lot older, and he and his first wife and my half-brother lived in a one-bedroom house with my aunt, along with my grandmother, his two aunts, his other sister, and cousin Greta, because my aunt was the only one who had a job. He'd been upper middle-class at the start of the Depression, and was a talented muralist and building designer. By 1932, he was bankrupt, jobless, and living with his sister. He eventually got a job painting fake Old Masters paintings for a department store to sell! But he still talked about the bottom of 1933, when it literally took his last nickel to take the streetcar to downtown Los Angeles to stand in the bread line to get a 50-lb sack of beans to take home to the family!

 

[mom'sfolly]

My husband's family has a story that is always turned out at family gatherings. Grandpa Olsen has a great Victory Garden and one year had a bumper crop of parsnips. Grandpa Olson was proud of his parsnips and they ate them any way they could think of. They had parsnip stew, and parsnips steamed and parsnips mashed and parsnips fried, and parsnips salad and parsnip whatever. Nobody was fond of them, but you ate what you had. So they had parsnips in everything and on everything, but the final straw was.........parsnip pancakes. Nobody would eat them and 70 years later they are still a horrible memory for all survivors. Being Minnesotans, a high complement at dinner might be "not bad", but for dh's family, better than parsnip pancakes is good eats.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

LOL! Parsnip pancakes!!!!!!

 

[patandchickens]

The stories about onion sandwiches are really interesting to me -- to this day, my father (now 86) regularly has onion sandwiches but I totally never thought of it as a Depression-era thing. Probably was, though, they were pretty poor. Lots of kids, his father was I think a milk or coal deliveryman but as I understand it lost his job for several yrs during the worst of it.

Pat