Of course.
Families struggled to succeed, IN SPITE of the challenges...
AND, there was irreversible, shameful stigma associated with law breaking of any kind.
My mother’s father owned a small coffee house and when he was 65, sold the business and the building.
THEN he took a job at the local coke plant.... (a steel mill). This was s dirty and dangerous job for an old guy.
He didn’t own a car and wouldn’t pay for a bus ride.
He got up daily and walked 4.5 miles to the plant. The local police all knew ‘old John’ and in bad weather, they’d give him a lift to work.
It never occurred to him to be idle and he never had debt.
Your grandfather was a good man. How did they accomplish all that with no government safety net? Also, in that time, especially in rural Alabama where my Mom grew up, guns were everywhere, yet gun violence was virtually nonexistent.