This article pulls together real stories from readers whose parents and grandparents actually lived through the Great Depression. How were rural families far better off than city dwellers? How did those years affect people for the rest of their lives, what did people do to earn money when there was almost none to be had, and why did neighbors mattered more than almost anything else? There’s also some hard truth about what happened when the banks closed, what food actually cost relative to wages, and why so many Depression survivors spent the rest of their lives hiding cash under dresser drawers and keeping their pantries stocked. It’s a good read if you’ve ever wondered whether you’d actually know what to do if the bottom fell out.
This article has been completely rewritten with new, personal stories. June, 2026.
There’s a woman I know of, she’s been gone for years now, who always kept a needle threaded with white thread and another with black thread sitting ready in her sewing box at all times. She knew eventually she’d have to sew on a button or mend something really quick, and this would save her time. A small detail, but she planned ahead, and that was her mindset for the rest of her life, and that small habit was noticed by her young granddaughter, Lisa D.
She also watched her grandmother pull a loose thread from a scrap of old sheeting and use it to sew on a button. “I was shocked,” she wrote, “to see how she went right to the source to get what she needed to solve a problem.” She didn’t have to drop everything for a quick trip to Walmart for thread. What she didn’t have but needed, she found a solution for on her own.
That’s what this article is about. The women who lived through the Great Depression and what they figured out.
This article completely rewritten with new, personal stories and data. June 2026.
Table of contents
- They Were Already Living This Way
- Food Was the Center of Everything
- The Garden Was Not Optional
- Skills Were Currency
- Everyone Found a Way to Earn
- The Neighborhood Held Things Together
- Free For The Taking
- Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, or Do Without
- When The Money Was Gone, It Was Gone
- Some Old Habits Never Die
- What Would You Do?
- Related Great Depression Content
- Check Yourself: Could YOU Wear It Out? Use It Up? Make It Do? Do Without?
They Were Already Living This Way
One thing that gets missed in most Depression-era memories is that, for a lot of families, 1929 didn’t change that much for them. The crash that devastated city-dwelling professionals and bank investors was just another bad year for people who’d never had much to begin with.
Earl Nelson heard it straight from a great-uncle who farmed through the whole thing. “All those pictures of long lines of starving people were in the cities,” he wrote. “Most of my people lived in the country. They had always been putting up canned goods for a long time when the Depression hit, so it was nothing new to them. They were already prepared for hard times.”
His uncle had families camping in his fields under tarps and cooking meals over campfires. He let them cut wood off his property and carry rocks to clear land. He paid them in vegetables. Some of the houses they built out of gathered stones are still standing.
Susan Heggestad’s mother grew up on a prosperous New England farm and barely noticed the Depression had happened. Her family switched from selling wool to being paid in blankets by the mill that couldn’t afford cash. They reinstalled the old wood stove they’d replaced with “modern” equipment, and, thankfully, hadn’t thrown away, because you didn’t throw away something you might need. Single family members were sent back to live on the family farm to help, and when they couldn’t sell their milk, they pivoted and made cheese.
“She was a child at the time,” Heggestad wrote, “and never realized there was a Depression.”
Country people usually fared better because they had the means to grow much of their food and were less reliant on modern conveniences. Ask how people survived the Great Depression and even though many of these rural family suffered plenty, still survival was easier with land, skills, and the knowledge of what to do when cash disappeared.
The families who struggled most were almost always city dwellers, people who had moved into large towns and cities for more opportunities and conveniences, but when The Crash happened, they didn’t have much to fall back on. They didn’t have a large garden, perhaps they had forgotten how to preserve food or keep animals, and may not have had a lot of those hand-man, jack-of-all-trades skills to bring in some extra money. In a lot of cases, the bread lines and soup kitchens were the answer.
Food Was the Center of Everything
When cash dried up, food became a central survival focus. What you could grow, raise, catch, or preserve determined whether your family ate that week. Once a family went through their savings, there was no other safety net. Government assistance came much later. So, for most families, survival came down to, what are we going to eat?
Howard Lisech’s grandmother made butter by shaking cream in a gallon jar until it thickened and became fresh butter and kept milk cold in a spring some distance from the house. Her community butchered hogs together, salted and smoked the pork in a smokehouse, and that meat was exchanged with each other — no cash payments involved.
“Everyone in that rural community helped each other,” Lisech wrote, “with putting up hay and butchering hogs and cattle.”
Carme Turner’s grandmother in Detroit pooled her family’s meat rations and occasionally came home with a “roast”. Nobody asked questions. They were just happy to have meat for a change. Her daughter Carme’s mother, took a bite, found the taste odd, and asked what it was. Horse tongue. Cheaper than beef, and there was more of it. Her grandmother had stretched the ration as far as it would go. Turner’s mother was grossed out. That was one thing she just couldn’t stomach.
Pat Miraldi’s family made tuna salad with dampened white bread mixed in with the tuna. Her mother did it because her grandmother did it — that was just how tuna salad was always made. Turns out it stretched the tuna to feed more mouths. Flavor-wise, the bread also cut the oily taste of oil-packed tuna. By the time they figured out it was a Depression trick, they didn’t care because now they preferred it that way.
Dan Vest’s family had a family meal-time ritual his grandfather called “depression food”. Once a month, they gathered together for a meal of seasoned brown beans, wild rabbit or squirrel, small potatoes, chicory coffee, oak leaf tea, and either milk custard or a mock lemon pie made with vinegar. His grandfather would open with prayer before it and close with “may we never forget.” Then the family talked about how their family had survived the Great Depression years.
“Learn now how to do with less,” Vest wrote, paraphrasing his grandfather’s whole philosophy. “Practice these lessons. Then if those times come again, you can shift gears and never miss a beat.”
Especially prized were the hardened ends on a slab of bacon. They sold for almost nothing, yet they seasoned just about everything in the kitchen! A pot of beans, some chopped onion, and a bit of that bacon was all anyone could ask for at the end of a hard day. Moms in the kitchen came to rely on their own ingenuity, sometimes coming up with things like lard gravy or lettuce sandwiches, anything to keep the family fed, and their pantry was filled with the cheapest basics they could find.
Codfish gravy, bean sandwiches, vinegar pie — the Great Depression is proof that most people will eat just about anything if they’re hungry enough.
You might expect that food prices were cheap, but in reality, they were pretty high when compared with wages. For example, a general laborer made $2 per day, that would be about $40 in today’s dollars, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a new government agency that put people to work on projects like building roads and parks, paid just $1 per day. But bread was 10 cents a loaf, milk 8 cents a quart, and eggs 7 cents/dozen.
If you went grocery shopping and just those three things, bread, milk, and eggs, it was almost 13% of that day’s wages. Factor in things like rent, and the margin got even tighter.
There were churches, missions, and charities that provided whatever help they could. Over time, between the rising level of demand and their own financial difficulties, a lot of these ended up shutting down.
Again and again, people have told me how grateful they are for the lessons passed on to them by parents and grandparents who had no choice but to learn them first-hand. “I feel very blessed to have grown up with a mom, and later a stepfather who knew how to do repairs, teach me to sew, iron, preserve food work hard and become a responsible adult,” Lynn Ferraccio said.
The Garden Was Not Optional
Almost everyone who made it had a garden. If it started out as a hobby garden or just growing a few things for the kitchen, it didn’t stay that way for long. Even in cities, families found a way to grow as much food as possible.
Leslie’s grandfather had a half-acre plot that fed him and his wife, their four children with spouses, and twelve grandchildren. He was such a skilled gardener, they had enough for all the families to put some up for winter and even then, he had some to sell and give away. “His garden was always lush and abundant,” she wrote. She still can’t eat a store-bought tomato without thinking about the lunches her grandmother and she used to go pick straight from the garden out back — tomatoes, cantaloupe, fried okra, fried cabbage with biscuits, homemade apple pie.
Linda Morgan’s father gardened until he died. One of her earliest memories is watching him pull a carrot from the ground, wash the mud off with the hose, and hand it to her. “I will never forget looking past that carrot at my father’s smiling eyes.”
He also spent an entire summer canning food with her one year. They put up around 500 quarts. By fall, she knew how to can anything, and he’d found and refurbished every kind of canner and pressure cooker he could locate, and then gave them all to her to keep.
Lisa D.’s grandmother in North Texas did all of it herself. She hand-tilled with a donkey plow, saved seeds, got manure from farms she trusted, pulled weeds and picked what was ripe every single day. Her younger siblings, after marrying, moved in when times got tough. There were multiple couples sleeping on pallets in a 600-square-foot house, eating when they came in from working.
Now, how much food you could grow depended on where you lived. If you lived in the panhandle of Texas, you lived in Dust Bowl country. Some women became so desperate to feed their families, they home-canned tumbleweed so, at least, they would have that to keep from starving.
Skills Were Currency
Food kept people alive, but ultimately, skills were what kept people afloat year after year. In an economy where cash had all but disappeared, what you could do with your hands was worth more than anything sitting in a bank account, assuming the bank was even still open.
Carme Turner’s grandfather knew how to sharpen knives and tools and would show up at wealthy houses and traded sharpening work for whatever they had to trade — money, food, even furniture. He had five children and six boarders at home. He took in men who could find work in Detroit but had traveled from out of town and needed a place to stay. So when he was sharpening knives and tools, it wasn’t just for his own family but for others he felt responsible for.
Gary Scarborough’s grandfather was a blacksmith and horseshoer. His grandmother was a seamstress who made shirts out of feed sacks. He still has them, and he still wears them. “Hey,” he wrote, “don’t waste nothin’.”
Linda Morgan’s father-in-law had no education past eighth grade and could build furniture, weld, engineer, farm, and garden. He was known for saying, “There’s a mindset for tackling things and doing them, and either you have it or you don’t.” He thought most people today don’t as lives have become more and more comfortable with every convenience just an Amazon click away.
The skill that showed up most often in these stories wasn’t any one thing. It was the ability to look at a problem and ask: what do I have that could solve this? Not, what do I need to buy?
Everyone Found a Way to Earn
There was no sitting around waiting for things to improve after the stock market crash. After a while, people began to realize this was their new normal. Entire families packed up — thousands and thousands of them — and followed the work, sometimes hundreds of miles, picking crops from one harvest to the next, moving on when the season ended. Staying together as a family mattered more than anything else, and everyone in the family was expected to contribute.
Jay’s family ran on that model from top to bottom. When it snowed, somebody grabbed one of their three shovels and started knocking on doors. In his family, the oldest boy finished concrete for almost nothing, and a younger brother got hired at a lock shop at fourteen for cheap wages, but the family was grateful. The girls took in washing, ironing, and sewing and did whatever odd jobs came their way. Every person in that household had a role, finding a way to bring in some money.
Susan Heggestad’s father, a poor immigrant outside Boston, apprenticed as a silversmith as he got older. His sisters danced, sang, and performed in live productions for pay. The family used what they had, in their case, talent, and turned it into income the only way they could.
Lindy Bryant’s father grew up in an Appalachian holler so poor he wore old tires laced around his feet for shoes. He and his father mined slate from a cave on their own property and sold it for chalkboards. When he was old enough, he worked the railroads. There was always something, if you were willing to do it, and many people were willing to do just about anything to help keep their families from starving.
It’s said that “necessity is the mother of invention,” and you can see that in some of the innovative ways some women started their own businesses. Some got up before dawn and spent their early morning hours cooking dozens of meals to sell to workers heading out for the day. Delene Cornell’s mother and aunt made fried pies in the Houston Heights and sold them door to door.
And in a truly low-effort family business, Gina Gould’s family left fresh eggs at the mailbox, and people driving by would stop, leave a dollar, and take a dozen. It was the chickens who did most of the work!
Very touchingly, in some communities, the people who had just a little more than others managed to find ways to create work for their neighbors, like odd jobs on the property, tasks that needed doing, small wages that meant everything to a family with nothing coming in — the kind of work that preserves a man’s pride. Nobody called it charity. It was just what you did for your neighbors, if you could.
If you were lucky enough to be a jack-of-all-trades, you rarely went hungry. The man who could plumb, carpenter, paint, and fix things had something to offer almost any day of the week.
The Neighborhood Held Things Together
No family survived the Depression entirely on their own. The ones who made it through usually had a network around them. If it wasn’t nearby family, it was neighbors who showed up to help, communities that organized when a farm, business, or family was threatened with bankruptcy and eviction, and sometimes even a town council who quietly kept track of needs. The individual family unit mattered, but so did all the families around you. That was often the difference between a hard year and a catastrophic one.
Marjie Cleveland’s grandparents in Cape Cod fished and dug clams, grew vegetables and berries, and baked enough bread for their family and others. They swapped with their neighbors, whatever you caught, grew, made, or outgrew. “Bartering was very common,” she wrote, “and depending on what skills people had, they would help each other. Communities were much more generous. They took time to know each other and went out of their way to help anybody in need.”
Carol’s grandmother in Painesville, Ohio turned ninety-two and said the Depression was the best years of her life because nobody was better than anyone else. They had block dinners where every family brought what they could — a vegetable, a covered dish, a loaf of bread, a cake — and made sure every family in the block had food. They ate together, watched the children play, and talked about the day. When someone was sick or having a baby, the women showed up, and in families where the men had left to find work, the neighbors watched out for the wives and kids left behind.
Many kindhearted farmers kept workers on the payroll as long as they possibly could, even if it meant paying them with produce, and some towns had “welfare budgets”. The town loaned money to individuals, but there was a strict keeping of books. Some towns even published in their newspapers how much each person owed and expected repayment.
But not everyone would, or could, be generous. A landlord might give a break on rent for a while, but ultimately, that couldn’t last forever. A store owner who started out by offering credit and accepting things for barter, eventually had to pay his own creditors. And that’s when times got even tougher for families and communities.
Free For The Taking
Sometimes a family got by with what they could grow or repurpose, but often, they went looking for the freebies — anything they could get for free to stay warm and fed one more day.
Paul Thuneman grew up hearing his father tell the story of kids lining the railroad tracks in winter. The train engineers knew they were there. They’d slow down just enough and start tossing coal over the side, chunk by chunk, so the kids waiting below would have something to bring home to heat the house. The engineers saw a need among people they’d likely never see again, and did the one thing they could do to help
That kind of resourcefulness, looking at what was freely available and figuring out how to use it, ran through nearly every family that got through the Depression intact. Carol Jackson’s father learned to find the specific weed that caterpillars loved, because wherever you found that weed, you’d find a worm in the stem, and wherever you found a worm, you had fishing bait. He foraged dandelion greens, chickweed, and other wild plants his mother cooked like spinach. He walked the railroad tracks picking up stray pieces of coal that had fallen from passing cars. Nothing that could be used was left unused.
Families who lived near water had a significant advantage. Marjie Cleveland’s grandparents dug clams on Indian Mound Beach and fished regularly, swapping whatever they caught with neighbors for whatever the neighbors had. Jay’s father fished with a cane pole from age five, not for sport, but because that was how the family got protein for their dinners. He fished for carp — anything. Whatever was in the water.
And if you lived near a beach or large lake, driftwood could be gathered and sold for firewood. There’s no overhead in that kind of business!
Some towns organized shared garden plots on empty lots, where families could grow whatever they needed in their own small patch of ground. Smart moms quickly learned to show up at the market on Saturday night, when vendors were about to close for the weekend and would rather sell their food for cheap rather than haul it home to spoil.
The Depression taught people to see their environment differently. The ditch alongside the road, the creek behind the property, the wild asparagus growing along a fence line — everything around them had to potential to provide for one need or another.
Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, or Do Without
When I think of this saying, my mind immediately goes to the Great Depression years, but it didn’t originate then. It actually dates back to World War I, but it was the Depression generation who made it a way of life.
You can see it in every story in this article. Linda Morgan’s father refurbishing old canners and giving them to his daughter. Gary Scarborough still wearing the feed-sack shirts his grandmother sewed decades ago. Shirley’s mother washing and reusing plastic bags until they fell apart, and my own Nana saving rubber bands, margarine bowls, and aluminum foil like her life depended on it. It was just how things were done.
If you’re curious how your own habits stack up against Depression-era thinking, I put together a free printable worksheet that walks you through all four parts of the saying — use it up, wear it out, make it do, and do without — to help you take an honest look at where your money and resources actually go. It’s a good reality check, and maybe a little humbling. You can request that free worksheet here.
When The Money Was Gone, It Was Gone
For all the ingenuity and camaraderie that are embedded in these memories, beneath it all was the constant awareness that the money was gone.
Nobody saw it coming, that Black Thursday on October 29, 1929. You went to bed one night with money in the bank and woke up to find the bank had closed while you were sleeping and there were only zeroes in your bank balance. There was no advance notice or explanation — just a locked door and, if you were lucky enough, a sign on the locked door saying, “Closed.”
Even though the Depression began in late 1929, there was virtually no assistance from the government. That meant that every individual and family were on their own. No food stamps, no unemployment money, no subsidized housing — families had to rely on their own ingenuity, family, friends, and community. The New Deal work programs starting in 1933 gave people jobs, not handouts, and many Americans were too proud to take even those. Direct assistance programs like unemployment insurance and Social Security didn’t exist until 1935, six years into the crisis, and there was no such thing as “retirement”. Everyone worked until they became physically unable to continue.
In desperation, some families cashed in life insurance policies just to survive a few months longer, and homes were refinanced in hopes a family could ride out the wave with that extra bit of money. They were trying to live in “normal times” when times were anything but.
Linda Morgan’s father never trusted a bank again after that. When he died, his family rifled through the pages of every single book in the house, pulled every drawer out and flipped it over, because he’d taped cash and precious metals to the undersides. They found small amounts hidden in several places throughout the home. He’d spent decades spreading his resources around so that no single failure could wipe him out. It wasn’t paranoia. It made perfect sense for someone who learned the hard way and never unlearned.
Carol Jackson’s grandfather lost his job and couldn’t pay for groceries. The local grocer let the family run a tab, but wrote it down and kept the books. In this high-trust community, the grocer trusted that things would eventually turn around and he would be repaid. When her grandfather found work again, her grandmother paid back every penny. “People were so kind back then,” Jackson wrote. The grocer could have said no, but he didn’t.
Harold Thompson’s father walked to work every day rather than spend the nickel on bus fare. That’s how tight the margin was — a nickel. Five cents could be the difference between eating and not eating, so you walked and you saved it.
One woman tells the story of a notions salesman who visited their home every few months. He looked very dapper and wore expensive-looking clothing, even as a door-to-door salesman. Even in the bleakest times, for many, appearances were important even if shoes needed to be repaired and clothes were nearly threadbare.
The lesson these families carried for the rest of their lives wasn’t just frugality. It was a deep understanding that the physical money you can see and hold in your hand is the only money you actually have, thus the legendary coffee cans full of cash that, I’m certain, remain buried to this day. Somewhere.
Some Old Habits Never Die
Years later, just because the economy recovered and people were earning money again, the Great Depression was never really left behind for most people. They buried jars of money out back because they didn’t trust banks, ever again. Every spring they planted the biggest garden they could because they remembered the hunger.
Harold Thompson’s parents met just before the crash. His mother owned one dress, and she washed it at night and wore it the next day. They ate mostly fried potatoes on five dollars a week for food after paying rent. Eventually they moved to family farms in Iowa, where there was enough to eat. The Depression was technically over, eventually. But “the experience profoundly changed all of them,” Thompson wrote, “and most continued the habit of simple fare the rest of their lives. They couldn’t move beyond that mindset of lack.”
Shirley’s mother washed and reused plastic bags. Kept every glass jar. Kept her pantry stocked with flour and grease and cornmeal until she couldn’t live alone anymore. Not because she was afraid, exactly. It was just the only way she knew to live.
Gina Gould grew up with two families who had lived through it and calls herself somewhat of a hoarder. “You never know when you might need something.”
“Back then,” Vest wrote, “life was hard and life was fun and life did continue. You are proof of this.”
What Would You Do?
Reading through these stories, it’s hard not to stop and ask yourself, if the bottom dropped out tomorrow, what would you actually have and how would you and your family survive? If your investments, retirement account, and money in the bank zeroed out, what skills and knowledge would help see you through? Do you have the mindset, like Linda’s father-in-law, “…for tackling things and doing them, and either you have it or you don’t.”
Related Great Depression Content
- Could You Stomach These Great Depression Meals?
- 25 Ways People Earned Money During the Great Depression
- How People Stayed Healthy During the Great Depression
- Do You Have the Skills to Survive a Great Depression
Check Yourself: Could YOU Wear It Out? Use It Up? Make It Do? Do Without?
This post was originally published on September 16, 2016, and has been updated.
Thank you. I really enjoyed your article. With the way the world is today, I would not be surprised if history repeated itself.
God bless you!
Enjoyed your article so much, and it brought back so many memories. I was born in 1937 so was just a child, but I remembered so many things that you wrote about.
Love your article. I was born into a large family,we
Had to make things last. We wrote hand me down clothing, never had a dryer, we hung our clothes on wash lines, yes even in the winter. We never wasted a thing. To this day I jar a lot of my own food, make my own clothes, People waste too much of everything these days, from food to clothes. No one needs to buy more clothes then they can wear at any given time, a d never pay full price for anything, always buy on sale. I don,t buy a lot of electronics. To me they are all too expensive. I still use old electronics, till they wear out. Why do people need so many pairs of shoes? We in AMERICA waste too much money un STUFF. when I hear people complain about having no money, well watch how much you spent and what you spend it on. I don,t consider my self deprived of anything, I just feel that a lot of the thing that people spend money one. Is a waste.
There we so very many variables at play in how well families got thru’ the Depression. The contrast between my mother’s family and my Mother-In-Law’s family were striking.
While both were immigrant families, one had valued education and training far more than the other. One lived in Chicago, where most of the rest of the extended family had immigrated to, one was rural and isolated from the rest of the family. And one family was headed by an alcoholic, one was not.
Being around extended family, and having most family members educated/trained and in jobs before the Depression (all men, all women without children, and all widows with children), the extended family always had enough money coming in to get everyone by. Standard Oil kept their best trained secretaries, the gas station a couple of my great uncles had stayed open, the butcher shop my grandfather had stayed opened, etc.
Alcoholic, isolated from family, rural family didn’t do as well, but still got by. They farmed – mostly sorghum and Kentucky Wonder pole beans for cash – along with the sales income. My Mother In Law (who was, literally, the red haired step child) left home to work at a small town grocery store for room, board, and money for school in order to finish high school, but never got training or education after that.
While both got by, in this case only one family could/did help others get by.
Thanks for your infomative comment. I am always fascinated by the depression era, especially the individual family stories. I think that it would be very interesting to myself and others, if you elaborated on your family’s experiences!
I’ve written a book about my family going through the depression in Oklahoma and migrating to California. My book is called “Glorified Chicken Coops.”
The houses that they lived in and the cabins they moved into at the Wasco Labor Camp my brother said were just glorified chicken coops. When they moved into the labor camp the Cole children had to work in the potato fields at a very early age.
My mother was a little girl. She was so skinny that she was given the richest food her mother could afford for her: some cow udder! It was something thrown away by people who could get meat, but my mother remembered it all her life as a delicacy and she wished she could have it again. I cried when she told me this story. After all they went through they were still were the “greatest generation.”
This is great! I absolutely love learning about survival and self-reliance from the older generations. I think it’s possible that those living in the Depression era probably had a better chance than contemporary Americans will have when SHTF, mostly because they were already living in a more self-reliant way. These days we have gotten so plugged in and the global economy is so much more dependent on resources shipped halfway around the globe. That’s why its so important to learn survival skills now before it’s too late!
I remember very well my maternal grandmother, my grandfather passed away when I was 5. He was a farmer with one mule. No tractor~~They were very frugal, raised their own food, both vegetables and raising chickens and pigs. I think they only bought things they couldn’t produce, like salt and flour. They had their corn ground for cornmeal. I remember Grandma made her own lye soap, I watched her do it! I can still smell that distinctive odor. I have a picture of myself as a 4 year old in a dress made from a flour sack, it was printed with daisies on it.
There was a ‘rolling store’, a truck that would come by that sold things like a general store. Grandma would buy needles and thread, things like that. She would send me with eggs to trade for what she needed. This was not so long ago~ I am 61 years old!
Yes, you can get by when things go pear-shaped, but there would have to be a lot of changes made in the way we do things now. I’m not so sure people would be willing to sacrifice and do things the old-fashioned way. ‘Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without’, that’s what Grandma used to say.
I know what you mean.I grew up in the later years also I’m 64 yrs.Also.Up here in Canada we had a easier life than you did.I know it was tuff but you just tougher.I grew up in a small logging camp and live in a tarpaper shack with sawdust filled walls.Wood stove to heat and cook on also.I swear that life was better living that what is going on today.I remember stories my grandparents told me before I was born.It to was a place that you did what you could and what with you had.To live that life you were tough and grew up RESPECTING adults also.
Sadly, we seem to be heading down that road again…truth is the American people have always been stronger than their government…thanks for posting this…
I’m loving your Great Depression posts. A few years back I found a wonderful YouTube channel hosted by an old lady that was a child during the great depression. She would tell stories about it and cook some of the meals she had growing up. All super simple meals. Like potatoes and hot dogs in a skillet.
That was Clara. She told wonderful stories
We try to live the old fashioned way now, as much as possible. We buy and hold onto ole time tools of all kinds, cause we never know when we will need them again, to be self-sufficient (as possible), and not addict our kids on everything electric like most do. We train them on living outdoors and all those food gathering and processing skills, cooking, wood heating, etc. We make it a kind of Daniel Boone game, and supply them with stacks of classic American pioneer stories and such, to keep their minds in the game. Develop pride in them that they know things most other kids have no idea of. Of course, they want what their friends have, but they see the need to keep one foot in the old ways as well and if they want that stuff, they can get it on their own, if so inclined. We only have sons, and I just pray there is some other families out there doing the same with their daughters.
My parents did this with my siblings and i as well. They always say they raised us to survive. And honestly, i wouldnt have it any other way. When i start having my own children they will also be raised to survive and live off the land.
Great article! I have studied the Great Depression in depth as a history/textiles lover and most of this is spot on. In fact, because history has a way of repeating itself, we prep for an economic collapse. For those readers who don’t think it could happen, everything we are seeing on FB and in the media happened 80 years ago, too. The difference is, back then it was socially embarrassing to be on the “dole” or to panhandle.
I do want to say that I disagree with you about the lack of “processed” foods during the depression. Many of the brand names that we know and love today were manufactured in the 20’s & 30’s. Campbell’s brand is just one. I have multiple Depression era cookbooks that mention several “tinned” items that were thought necessary to round out the good housewife’s pantry.
My grandfather still made depression soup until the day he died. He always had a pot of soup on the stove and just kept adding to it daily, sometimes for weeks at a time.
My daddy was a kid during that time and he would tell me about the work they would do. You did not fuss about what you did not have you ate it or you did without. He would work from sun up to sun down. It did not matter, pick cotton by hand, chop cotton, when he would pick cotton he would have a cotton sack and then they would when the cotton get picked ans stacked they would stomp the cotton . It was tuff in those days, you either get to work or starve to death plain and simple, now a days we fuss because we don’t have this or we don’t have that it we went thru thae we would be more grateful.
These are not all pieces of wisdom. Cashing in life insurance to delay the inevitable? Not very wise. These are also not all absolutes. All food was made from scratch? Really? Go ahead an Google “grocery store 1930” and you’ll see lots of food for sale that was processed. Way too many generalities that aren’t truths. I couldn’t even get through the list.
I didn’t invent these, Mr. armyone. 🙂 They came from hours of research and from stories who actually lived through the Great Depression. Not everyone had the exact same experience, but you know that, right?
guess it depends on how close your belly button is to your backbone.”to a starving child god is just a loaf of bread”.
Maybe your are too into generalities. Yes they did have canned goods. The question is ‘could they afford it’!
I remember my mother telling me of how my grandmother would give food to who, mostly men, who would come to the back door and beg for food. My grandfather was not too happy about that because the safety problem it could cause, which never happened. So they were somewhat more inconvenienced by the depression. They had a roof over their heads and food on the table,
My father was a different story. He and his siblings went hungry a lot. My grandfather fell at working, on the RR and struck his head about 1926. He was a vegetable – couldn’t do anything include feed himself, the last 20 years of his life. So my grandmother had to work to try and feed him and her and 5 children from that time on. So buying store bought food was out fo the question. There were plenty of people in her shoes when the depression hit!
My father had to quit 8th grade to go to work to help grandma. He eventually was in CCC and got paid $50 a month. He got $5 o
f that and the rest was sent to grandma. Yep – lots of spare change to buy ready made bought food and goods because a can of peaches were on the shelf in stores.
Something being available and affordable are two different animals.
Read this and it took me back to being a kid,raised in good times. (the 50s)
My family all had back yard gardens some bigger than the part they mowed.
Picking berries and fruit,helped a neighbor cut dandelion plants from the gravel piles at the county garage. Two sets of grand parents each had wells with Deming hand pumps to pull up the water. One was at the bottom of a hill at the edge of a swamp. The other had a pump on the back porch-luxury. r dixon
The New Deal and WPA projects helped many with work projects like Hoover Dam or National Park projects. I like your article, but have to point out that govt. assistance did not start until LBJ and the mid to late 1960’s. My grandparents both worked for WPA in their hometowns. I found it interesting to see a phone book from the 1930’s listing not only their phone number and address, but employment. You saw quickly who was on WPA — lots of hurting people back then. After WWII, my grandfather secured a good job for the railroad.
Perhaps that’s true of federal assistance, but local towns did provide assistance to needy families.
And we forget the people who died constructed the Hoover Dam.
This isn’t really survival wisdom. This is a list compiled of facts of life during the Great Depression. This is a very misleading article
Thanks for the comment.
I certainly see it as
survival wisdom. Thank you for doing the research!
Next time just throw in some Survivalist buzz words like ‘Tactical’ or ‘OPSEC’ and those guys will eat it up. (sarc).
I liked your article just fine.
Exactly, the preppers don’t get it. Obviously can’t transfer the info to modern day that would take more critical thinking skills.
Very interesting info. Folks might find it interesting that economically today the US is no better off than during the Great Depression. When you consider the level of employable individuals not working (including those who have stopped looking), the percentage of workers actually involved in creating the wealth society needs, and other economic factors, our economy is actually in bad shape – in spite of the “job creation” reports. The big difference is now the “Government” is using borrowed money to finance the “entitlements” and It has surreptitiously enslaved a whole society in an unprecedented manner. “The happiest slaves are those who think they are free” is a reasonable corollary to Goethe’s quote “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” God Bless.
Well said Vic,
I grew up with parents who had gone through the depression and their frugality was so ingrained that we followed many of these even after things had improved. In turn, I learned many of the ways and still use them. My grown children are wasteful and make little preparation for hard times or retirement. They tend to make disparaging remarks about me being cheap or a hoarder , but I feel confident in my knowledge of “making do” if a real need arises.
I too tend to get that here in New Zealand, remarks by people including my own children. There is a difference between a hoarder and keeping things that are useful. I am a 1969 vintage, however was raised by parents who were from the late 20’s early 30’s so can totally appreciate this era gone before us. A lot of light was created by candles, soap was created at home, no such thing as flushable toilets for many, long drops and the night storeman was common. Milk was delivered by horse and cart and poured into your bottles. Brooms were made from cabbage tree leaves and porches (if you were lucky to have one) were swept daily. The biggest thing for many was respect, sadly something that is very much lacking in today’s society.
My parents were children during the depression. My grandfather was a tomatoe farmer, as a very young girl I watched my grandmother make lye soap in a black cauldron over an open fire and she made all her clothes and gardening bonnets ( she wore them till her last days on earth). Neither of them ever learned to drive so they walked three blocks to church ( they were very devout in their faith and knelt to pray together morning and night). My grandfather walked on crutches due to a diabetic wound on his heel that never healed but nonetheless he never missed church. They planted the seed in me as a girl and I am so thankful . My grandmother also always had a pot of soup cooked on the stove and it was the best I’ve ever had. I didn’t realize it but it was probably depression soup. Enjoyed reading your info!
I was born in 1936, so missed out on some of the horrors of the Depression…I firmly believe all of our electronic contraptions will go down someday and this world as we know it will be in a world of hurt! If you go to the Dr or anywhere else ALL ages of patients are sitting there twiddling away at a device of some sort…I asked my teenage Grandson what he would do if all the electronic stuff was taken away..He thought for a minute and said “Kill myself.”
Feed sack dresses were common when I was growing up, and Daddy was given close instructions on what pattern to look for when he went to town in the wagon. Mama canned hundreds of quarts of all sorts of food from Polk salat on down to feed her hungry family. I could write all night about my hard times memories…
I would love to read more about your experiences!! Very interesting!
Being 77 years old, I myself saw none of the depression, but it was always a dominant portion of discussions.
As I grew up I listened to the “old folks’ (anyone over 25) about the “Depression Years”. About the CCC Camps, WPA projects and how the democrat party flipped from conservative to liberal.
My mother was one of 11 kids. Her daddy was a paper hanger and walked barefooted 13 miles one way each day to find work. He made 50 cents a day. Christmas time was one where the men went out to the forest, found a tiny pine tree, chopped it down and brought it home to be decorated by the wife and kids. A lighted star (by candle) was placed on top and popcorn was strung around the entire tree. Food was always on every ones mind so apples, oranges, pears and grapes also decorated trees. Gifts were individually made for each member of the family and my mothers greatest gift was when her daddy made her a doll when she was eight. The only doll she ever had.
My dad never knew the shortages of the depression. He, his brother, and their father were professional musicians during the depression. They traveled the Vaudeville Circuit and traveled by train to all the cities in the country. Speak Easys were in vogue every where they went and although none of them drank, the booze was where the money was.
To listen to my Mother and Father’s versions, you would think they grew up on different planets.
I grew up with electric lights, coal stoves, and out houses. School was always a great place because it had steam heat and flush toilets. At night we listened to radio and it was really scary to listen to all the war news on the radio.
Summer was a time of squirt guns and gliders. Cap guns and Block City and Tinker Toys. I always wanted a chemistry set but never got one. Years later my Dad told me he never got me one because he was afraid I would blow up the house! (Probably would have, too!)
Lionel train sets, gas model airplanes, spark plug and handkerchief parachutes, sparklers, BB guns and fire works that would kill you if mishandled. We were trusted not to take advantage of any of these things and we always respected our adults. Life in the 40’s and 50’s were a far cry from the 20’s and 30’s but we knew the difference too.
Mr. Brown,
Please write more!!
I have been brought to tears with your recollections.
I’m a ’62 baby, but an old soul that lived with and learned a great deal from all my grandparents and parents. (Townies and Country folk.)
We learn something from everything and everyone (if we pay attention)…
How to be/ How not to be.
God bless us all!
I, for one, would live to read your memories! .when I have gone collecting Poke sallet people are shocked, but its pokeberry, its that poke weed.. My Gram wrote live letters with the berries and dyed her hair with them too! We also take Ho Pye Weed and do the four changes of water to make it edible.. We collect berries both bush and tree. Black walnuts every year… And Acorns which we soak and change water often to remove all the bitter tannins..white oak taste better.. We use the strongest water for tanning. The acorns are then divided..the prettiest go into a brittle and the rest are dried for flour. We also collect the roots and pollen of cattails, early shoots in spring as well… Jerusalem artichokes are dug as well as chicory and dandelion roots.. And dandelion flowers for jelly, fritters and wine. Violets flowers for jelly and syrup and leaves for spring tonics.
I didn’t go thru the Great Depression, and my mom didn’t either.. For years she viewed these habits as something unique, a bit odd, and fun to watch, yet hard to understand… Now she sees their value. All of these skills came from stories from her parents, aunts, uncles and mostly from a much ikder cousin of my
Sometimes i feel like i was born in the wrong decade. I am in my 30’s and growing up my parents never thought about any survival related issues. When my parents divorced my mom got a job and stopped cooking, almost every meal was eaten out and i was never taught to cook. Never taught any real skills at all. Took a sewing class in high school and through many years of trial and error i can sew pretty well now, i sometimes teach others how to. Taught myself to can and dehydrate, garden and do what we can here in town. Learned how to butcher a chicken and oddly its one of my favorite “farm” things to do lol. I have 5 kids and i realized early on they wont learn it if i dont teach them. I enjoy it but i see it as necessary too.
This site is worthwhile for the memories it brings back..I have bought several Silver dollars. The last ones made and with my birth date. My wife and I are in a rural city retirement community with circle streets more like loops. There are over a dozen widows or widowers in my loop of 100 homes.
Wife and I volunteer to help give away excess produced fruits, veggies and fancy breads. If we receive more of these items than we can give away we can, dehydrate or freeze them. I planted fruit trees, berries and compost everything we can rot for a year then in to our raised gardens. Also a hybiscus bush for blood pressure medicine. We replaced grass with rock to save water for the trees and the garden. I have worked hard to never pay interest except for homes as needed Had 50 foster kids and showed them a different kind of life to benefit their futures hopefully.
I teach family history to help folks connect to the accomplishments of their ancestors. My dad came from Roman Slaves made to work in the tin mines of early England. Mom from Vikings, King Richard the Lionhearted. Cousins Benjamin Franklin,The First Abolutionist and also The Grand Master of The Underground Railroad. I remember how my folks handled the Depression and found other ancestors to be proud .
Don’t forget that many or most people went barefoot most of the time, and men and boys usually without shirts. Children were expected to not wear any footwear, and boys to be shirtless, that was the norm.
There was 7 kids in my family. We always went barefoot except for school and going to the Dr or something like that. I usually never got new shoes. I had 3 older sisters and I got their hand me downs. Shoes were maid to last back then. They were usually bought from a door to door shoe salesman. Our cloths were made out of flour sacks. One dresser drawer would hold all my cloths. Back then we wore our cloths many times before they got washed. Washing was such a chore. Everything was so different then. I remember making soap. We didn’t have toothpaste either we used baking soda. We didn’t go to the store very often either. Not unusual to not go to the store but every couple months. But it was such a treat when company that come to visit might want to go to the store and loads us kids up. I remember getting a soda pop, tater chips, and a couple charms suckers all for the 25 cents I was given. What a special treat it was and rarely happened. I loved my childhood even though we were dirt poor. I have change my way of life with the times. However I still forage for food, medicine and wild crafting. I try and pass that knowledge on to anyone willing to learn especially my children and grandchildren. Last spring I wasn’t feeling very well to get out and forage. I felt very proud one weekend when my 11 year old grandson came in from outside with a bunch of wild greens, wild greens that I had taught him that were edible and delicious. They make me smile when they point out something like elderberry flowers so I’ll remember where they when it’s time to gather them when they ripen. Precious memories and knowledge to pass on.
My mom used to say “one to wear while the other’s in the wash” about clothes and dresses. I didn’t understand that until I was much older and realised what her family went though.
You are a good person! I wish there were more g\folks like you!
Thank you for writing about the great depression. My mom remembered coming home from school in the city, Columbus, Ohio, and finding people who were down on their luck sitting at their kitchen table eating soup. To this day, I donate to Salvation army and shelters because of that story. I used many cooking methods from my mom when we were incredibly broke (deadbeat husband). We ate pancakes 3 times a day for a week, lots of potatoes, accepting any handout given to us…..this was 35 years ago but believe me, people are hungry in the United States.
My grandparents were young adults during the Great Depression. They told me that when a woman got married she was expected to give up her job so a man could be employed. Also, that if you had only a dime in your pocket and passed someone on the street selling apples for a nickel, you bought one whether or not you wanted it, so the person selling the apples would have some cash. They were luckier than most, as my grandfather had a government job.
My dad grew up in a rural community on a farm. He said that before the depression they were poor (financially) so when the depression came there was not much difference. However, they always had plenty to eat so never when hungry. They had gardens, a cow or two, a pig or two. By contrast my mother lived in the city. They suffered greatly. They just scraped by and never knew where the next meal would come.
I am 88 years old and remember those years !! I have worn shirts mom made from floor sacks ! Mom could go into the woods and gather weeds and plants that were editable ? We didn’t have a house, we lived in a tent — today they call it camping ?? I remember so much more but you get the idea ????
Please tell us more.
I have to say this picture gives me the heebie jeebies. One of the first rules of knife safety is to never cut towards yourself or anything you don’t intend to destroy. )Good piece of survival wisdom!)
never peeled potatoes without a peeler then. can’t control the thinness of the peel cutting away from you.
I am 49 and have always peeled potatoes this way and cucumbers. I haven’t cut myself. Now I have often grated a knuckle. That’s what is dangerous!
Many places had lakes that froze over during the winter time. They would cut ice and store it properly so that it would not melt, even in the summer time. They would even ship it to places that didn’t have ice. So, if you could afford it, this ice was used in ice boxes, which let them keep milk, left overs, etc. Many places had cold springs or streams that could be used to keep things cold. On my grandfather’s dairy farm (not huge like the ones they have today), they had a “spring house” over the spring, where they kept the dairy’s milk cold in milk cans until they could deliver it to town. They would cool watermelons and other food in the spring house.
This is a great article. My grandmother is 100, she will be 101 on July 12th. On her 100th birthday I asked her about her 100 Christmases. She said there were some that she was just happy to be alive during the depression. I love her stories during this time. Her mother died when she was 12 so she took over taking care of her father and two brothers. Your article touches on many things she talks about.
The biggest thing I got from her and have used is the envelop method of paying bills. She always had her four envelopes. She still lives at home and loves telling her stories. We now have six generations in our family.
I see that you treasure the time with her, as you should. Most old folks are stored away these days in a nursing or personal care home while the family argues over who will handle any details. I shudder to think how much irreplaceable knowledge dies unheard of every day.
My folks taught me to cook, clean and work at an early age. When I became a homeless person out of high school, these skills saved me. I made it out of total poverty and never looked back. Now I troubleshoot disaster responses for the feds and apply poverty survival knowledge all over the country. I truly fear that we are far down the path to another depression, not from a catastrophe, but from progressive foolishness.
I learned so much from my grandma and others who lived through the Depression. I was always at odds with my mother, who did not like to remember the frugal lifestyle she had worked so hard to escape. But I enjoy the feeling of being able to survive in hard times.
Hi! I found you by accident on Pinterest and found your collection of Depreesio posts I found interesting. My mom experienced the Depression but didn’t talk about it a lot. It might have been nice to hear more about some things. She’s been gone for a while but I know things were tight, unexpected occurances and just day to day living, but whatever I can learn now will help in the future. Thank you for being there.
My grandma lived through the Great Depression. Every time I came over, if I didn’t eat everything that she had on my plate, including 2nds and 3rds, she thought that I didn’t love her. To fill my plate with all of the things that she was proud of in her pantry was how she showed love. She also still used ice cubes to stretch out the milk.
I was born in 1934 and moved to a farm when I was two. Until then I survived by having been given rice boiled with lots of water and put in a bottle with a hole big enough for the rice to come through. My mother couldn’t nurse me as she had no milk. The farm was 4 miles from town and when I was older – maybe 10 I would ride along in the wagon and pick beer bottles from the ditch one side going and the other side coming back so I could sell them. That money went to buy school supplies.
My grandma patched a broken single on the roof with a piece of a worn out boot.
My parents got married just before their bank closed. Dad had bought two tires for his Model T. Paid by check. Got home and heard the bank had closed. Went back and told the fellow to put his old tires back on and had fifty cents in his pocket. Gave that to the mechanic for the wear he put on the new tires. “That is the best I can do you.”
One of his brothers gave him a milk cow and another let the harrow a tater patch to glean whatever taters they could. “We lived on tater soup that first winter!”
My father told me how his dad grew sweet potatoes for a cash crop one year, only to get offered 3 dollars for a wagon load. He brought them back home and built a bin in the boys room to store them and the family lived mainly on sweet potatoes that winter. His job as a meat cutter at a store kept them in meat scraps that provided protein that year.
Listening to teens crying that they don’t have signal on their smart phones comes close to enraging me some days.
Looks like someone snagged much of this article at http://www.askaprepper.com/50-tips-great-depression/
Yeah, that happens a lot in the blogging world. Unfortunately.
55. Hanging wet sheets over doorways was a way to cool down a room or house during the summer. Hot air was slightly cooled as it passed through the wet fabric.
In the dust bowl areas the wet sheets were hung to capture the dust in the air due to the dust storms. This was an attempt to improve the air quality inside the home. I do not know if you ever read the book The Worst Hard Times by Timothy Egan. It is a great one!
I loved that book!
WOW even the replies are great. Here the my thoughts, the people of that day are a different caliber, people placed in a similar situation will respond, learn and adapt. So that being the case a check list of items, book, equipment ect. To have on hand so a family could deescalate the family life stile to a workable solution in hard time.
Thanks for the great information printing thos one out!!
Good stuff.
Having grown up in dust bowl country where all the adults I knew had stories about the Great Depression, here are a few thoughts:
In parts of the country, there was very little wildlife that was not fair game for desperate eating. In Texas, armadillos were called “Hoover hogs,” for example. (Having chased down a few, I can testify they are a challenge to catch.) Snapping turtle stew and possum stew was also not uncommon.
From 1931 to 1933, the Wall Street Journal a few years ago mentioned that 25% of all telephone subscriptions were stopped in order to save money, although everybody who had radios kept those.
It was very common for travelers, and especially actors, to bring an electric clothes iron along with them. That way they could turn it upside down on a little stand, and cook on the sly (and on the cheap) in their hotel rooms.
A writer above mentioned that hanging wetted sheets over windows helped keep the dust out of the inside of the house. In fact, when a housewife saw an ugly black dust storm on its way in, there was a scramble to water soak those sheets and tack them up. It didn’t take long for the dust storm to cover those sheets with mud.
In the 1930s, pressure cookers were the “microwave ovens” of that era, and provided a quicker way (and fuel saving way) of cooking the cheapest cuts of whatever kind of meat, beans, and vegetables.
It was also common in that era for especially factory and construction workers to carry a little alcohol-fueled burner with them to heat up coffee or lunch, especially since with the end of Prohibition, alcohol as fuel was easier to get again, and not as legally hazardous to make at home as during the Elliot Ness / Al Capone / Prohibition years which ended in late 1933.
A little history: By 1919, just before Prohibition went into effect, Henry Ford was selling 2/3 of all vehicles in America, and his Model T was the original flex fuel car. A driver could switch it between gasoline and alcohol, depending on what fuel was available. The Rockefeller gasoline stations were only established in the largest cities, and in order to justify expanding their network of gas stations to smaller cities, they had to shut down all the local production of alcohol. So they donated $4 million to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union to kick off a morals crusade (the cover story) against alcohol. That led to the Volstead Act and the Constitutional Amendment. Throughout the 1920s, with production of alcohol as car fuel prohibited, Ford dropped the flex fuel capability in his cars. By 1933, the Rockefeller gas station network has been established in the outlying areas, and so a Rockefeller son announced in the press that Prohibition was no longer needed. So even though no cars were any longer being made that could run on alcohol, factory and construction workers could get alcohol to heat their coffee and lunches again.
it is called government payoff and it still goes on today
Grampa
I am strongly persuaded that the wheels are coming off the North American/Western European economy, and that the collapse will be the worst in the past 500 years. American society/economy/government is living so far beyond its means that this collapse in inevitable. I live in southeast Asia (I won’t return to the United States until Executive Order 13603 (“National Defense Resources Preparedness” of Friday, March 16, 2012), so I expect that we’ll be hit, but the collapse won’t be as bad here, or last as long as in North America or Western Europe. The collapse I expect in North America and Western Europe will make the “Great Depression” of the 1930s look like a child’s tea party! You’ll be in the middle of it, but I won’t!
It is truly fascinating how much we can learn from history and from the people that lived on those times. They really give you a sense of the importance of preparation and self-reliance.
Stumbled across this site while trying to remember something I had read. I Homeschool my son and required reading are the following books: A Nickles Worth of Skim Milk , The Worst Hard Times, We Had Everything But Money. It is not just the information or experiences, but the character of the different people. I am so thankful for their storks… and for your blog.
Stories, not storks.
I have a question that has never been answered: What do you use for seed starting when there is no store to go to, to purchase supplies? One personal told me to stock up. I said “that’s great; but what happens when those supplies are gone? THEN what do I use?” I never received a reply.
In your research, has anyone written a seed starting mix in their journal, made with whatever they have on hand to use? And what did they do for lighting when there was no electricity and grow lights?
Shift compost through a fine mesh screen. Then place on baking sheets. Now you will want an outdoor stove or an old one in the garage and you bake that soil 350-400 for apx. 20min. This will sterilize it. You can do it in the house but it will stink! At least that’s what I read. I just buy my mix.
Possibly one of the most stupid things I have ever read. Most are not survival wisdom, most are not even wisdom
Undoubtedly, you are a much younger generation that most of us geezers on here. It was a really hard time, ever doubt that. How about you quit your job and learn to live off the land? Try it. I dare you.
Well said Deborah!
It’s so easy to scoff at others without having first walked in their shoes.
Most kids, IE: Anyone under 50 🙂 today think life is about to end of they lose their damn mobile phone!
They think that “starving” means being hungry because they haven’t eaten for a few hours, but would no doubt turn their noses up at most foods that those in the great depression survived on, until of course they were truly starving.
The sad difference is that back then people actually had moral and values. In today’s world, the moral depravity has sunk so low. Its not going to be like the days of neighbors helping neighbors, but more like defending what is yours because society feels like they are entitled to what is yours. And sadly, they will take it by whatever means they see fit in their eyes. 🙁
There are certainly much lessons ro be learnt from this. Thank you for such an interesting and knowledgeable article
My Mom was 8 when they finally left SE Texas with what they could get into their car & moved to CA.
Her father had a mule left & would do anything, in order to help his neighbors & feed the family.
They had a ranch & a Victorian home, in town.
Mom remembers the oil paintings of ancestors on the wall, the beauty of her home. They left everything. There wasn’t room. 4 kids & Mom & Dad piled into the car & headed West.
They did it.
My Dad’s family had a ranch in KS & a house in Wichita. Grandfather had 17 oil leases on his ranch, but lost it all.
He also broke his back in a fall from a roof. He was a carpenter by trade.
I loved the stories. I wish we’d recorded them.
I will tell you one that not many know about. we were dirt poor and carried our lunch to school. we had jelly never jam or peanut butter. we ran out of jelly frequently and my mother would mix up some brown sugar and mustard and spread it on a sandwich. I ate many of them. sounds bad huh ! try it. you have eaten it without knowing it. it is called sweet and sourer sauce.
Grampa
My mom told me they would walk to the school bus stop with hot, freshly baked potatoes in their mittens…their hands stayed toasty warm. They’d eat the potatoes for lunch and it would be a cold walk back home.
Your Great Depression articles are excellent. My maternal grandparents survived by gardening, hunting and fishing. Plus my grandfather would work all day for fifty cents then make willow twist chairs to sell. My Uncle had scars on his arms from climbing trees as a kid and fishing squirrels out of their nests bare-handed. They lived in rural SE Kansas and by the time I came along, in 1950, they had a Jersey cow, chickens, a two acre garden, fruit trees and pecan trees.
My paternal grandpa worked in the oil fields of Oklahoma and Texas while my grandma, who was full blood Cherokee, gardened and gathered wild foods. Both hunted and fished.
With roots like these, I come by Prepping naturally. But the main lesson to be learned from survivors of the Great Depression is that attitude and persistence were the keys to survival!
I find myself connected with GD as I remember especially the food my mom and grandma made for us. She always had some stories for us while preparing a fabulous chicken pie or just cornbread. Great memories…
#63.
Duly noted.
Even though I was born in late 1951, we lived with my grandparents when I was growing up. There was my grandparents, my mother (daddy had died before I was born), my uncle, my two siblings and me. We had a two bedroom house. I grew up with prepping. First with my grandparents and then with mother. She bought what she could on sale. Extras. I still do that. I loved growing up in a three family house.
My grandmother was born in 1898 in northern Minnesota. Soon after she was born, the family moved a short distance to a homestead, which is where she spent the rest of her growing up years. She loved watching Little House on the Prairie as it reminded her of much of what her life was like growing up.
She was married in 1917 and started raising a family. Once I asked her about how it was during the Great Depression and she gave me an odd look. So I don’t know much about that time in their lives. I think that’s when they lost the house they were living in, which so affected my grandfather, that they rented a house all of his remaining years. They had a big garden in the backyard, even though they were on a normal city sized lot. My grandmother made her own lye soap and washed clothes mostly by hand. Later she got a ringer to help get the water out of the clothes, which were hung on a clothesline. Only in the last few years of my grandfather’s life did she have a washing machine.
One of her favorite sayings was “the want of it is more than the need of it”, which has a lot of wisdom in a few words. I’m now 65, living on one acre, with a large garden, fruit trees and bushes, and trying to live a simple life with my wife and other family who live with us. Learning to live below our means has helped us to get by and have a good life.
I love that saying. My grandma had a plate hanging over the kitchen table that said “Thank God for dirty dishes, they have their story to tell. While others may go hungry, we are eating very well.”
I didn’t understand the significance of that until I was older.
That does give perspective, doesn’t it?
My grandmother’s saying was “a wife can throw out more with a spoon than a husband can bring in with a shovel” so true!.
Great article. My grandparents survived by my grandmother making their own clothes and growing vegetables and berries. My grandfather fished, dug clams, and harvested oysters. They shared with others in the neighborhood, or bartered as needed. They stayed positive and did whatever they could to help their family and others.
We are getting ready to do the same again,we all need to apreciate what we have!
Thank you for writing this article. A major percentage of Americans need to read this article. Especially members of Congress and OUR SUPPOSED PRESIDENT.
We’re expecting another depression according to statistics so advice like this is crucial for survival.
I remember ‘DEPRESSION PLANTS’ IN THE 30’40’S MADE FROM A LUMP OF
COAL/SALT/WATER/BLUEING /LYE. THEY GREW INTO CATHEDRAL-LIKE
SPIRES AND WERE UNIQUE AND PRETTY. AS CHILDREN WE MADE THEM!!
Alas, i cannot locate any vintage photo’s of these anywhere on line. Does
Anybody have a foto(S) they can share on line? I’m 80 yrs. old and have keen
Memory of these ‘’plants’…few seniors don’t seem to recall them. TOM S.
Would this be it? https://bizarrelabs.com/charcrys.htm
My grandma used to make those for me when I would spend time with her & grandpa in the summer. Instead of lye she used ammonia (and Mrs. Stuart’s bluing came in glass bottles back then. Also, she would put a few drops of food coloring here and there and the growths would be all different colors.
Regarding the comments made about public assistance, DSHS existed long before LBJ. I know because in 1956, my mom asked for help after we escaped my brutal father. She was denied because we “left” him! ~ I just discovered this article. It is exactly what I was looking for! We all have been “quarantined” for 2-1/2 months, now due to the Covid19 Pandemic. There are people protesting this! They obviously don’t know how to survive and are scared. They are the minority. The majority of people are finding creative ways to keep their businesses running and are being of service to their neighbors. My mom never stopped living the lessons learned during the Depression and us kids grew up with that. My biggest lessons: patience, persistence, Faith, creative problem solving, and humor-to laugh in the face of evil and it will have no power over you.
A few things you didn’t mention:
Church – everyone went to church, whatever religion you were. Missing was unthinkable. And many christian churches had revivals in the fall and spring. There was a great sense of community among church members.
Hobos- both my grandfathers were hobos at one point. It was how men traveled to find work. One of my grandfathers worked on the Royal Gorge Bridge. I can’t even imagine. When I went over it as a kid, I was shocked to think that my grandpa had been one of the brave men who worked building it. My other grandfather was the only survivor of a shootout in Chicago. Things were not as idyllic as this article suggests, and prostitution, gambling, and speakeasies were very common. Many women worked as glorified prostitutes in speakeasies to get a free meal from a date and a few dollars. It was not an easy life. Childhood was very different. My grandfather who worked on the Royal Gorge Bridge was given $5 on his 12th birthday and told to go make his way in the world. He was on his own with no place to live.
One thing I’d like to add is that little was thrown away. Dogs lived off of the guts from the animals hunters killed. Cats were not fed so that they would kill mice and bugs. Buttons and zippers were cut off of clothing and often resewn into new clothing. Nails were kept in cans or jars and were straightened and kept. You did not throw away nails or screws.
Regarding feed sack dresses, what you’ve written is misleading. To increase sales, feed and flour sacks were made out of attractive prints to increase bulk buying (wanting to get enough of one print to make a dress, etc) and most day dresses or a “house dress” were made from these.
Everyone drank milk and also coffee.
Loved this article. One thing I can also add, my grandma would always say that her mother was “POOR BUT CLEAN”. That was essential. My mom still says, “Everyone can afford soap.” I have heard these two phrases all my life.
One of our families favorite deserts from the depression era is vinegar pie. More like a cobbler it was a poor man’s lemon pie. I remember my great grandmother making it for family get togethers. It is so delicious!
My husband’s aunt makes vinegar pie and buttermilk pie. Both delicious. I think pie-making is becoming a lost art.
Loved this post. Especially for today’s economy. Thank you. The comment made by Theresa about her homeschooling requiring the three books be read by the students. I think that’s a great requirement and hope to get them too