You hit the nail on the head, so to speak. My family ended up in Georgia in the penal colony. Never had anything until my grandfather and father worked hard enough to buy a small farm. And because of my mothers illness my dad has had to sell most of it to take care of her. Of course they could get no gov’t cheese and did not want it.
Coal mine deaths, black lung, kicked by the family plow horse and “bleeding out”, grandfather shot for running ‘shine when there were no jobs to be had and 3 mouths to feed.
A widowed gramma raising those 3 kids alone until she remarried.
A daughter who dropped dead of a heart defect at age 11.
Centuries of hard times and they never complained.
They grew what they could, ate what they killed and reused everything until it was all but gone.
Whew...I could type miles of my kinfolk’s sufferings but it would be too maudlin.
And my paternal grandmother [mentioned above] may have lacked money and possessions but she had more than enough love and happiness to share with 10 kids and all the grandkids.
They don’t make people like they used to.
I sure do miss her.