My parents made it through the depression.
My Dad’s family had the family farm and weathered it pretty well. They never went hungry but there was a definite lack of anything you needed money to purchase. Christmas presents were home made clothes and, if lucky, some oranges or other citrus fruit.
All considered not bad for a family with four children during the depression.
My Mom’s family had it much harder.
My maternal grandparents never owned a place of their own. Over the course of time they lived on three rented farms. Her dad would work the farm and hire himself out as a laborer whenever he could. With nine kids to feed everyone had to work to help feed the family. Even the girls because grandma was constantly sick, we now know it was leukemia.
Of the nine only two graduated high school.
There were times when the only thing they had in the pantry was a fifty pound bag of dried beans and a bag of flour. They canned and preserved everything possible but it was always a struggle to make the food stretch until the new crops from the garden came in.
All in all, a pretty rough life by anyone’s measuring.
But those nine children grew up with an amazing work ethic. When all was said and done each one owned a home of their own and never had to move from place to place. And they could pinch pennies with the best.
Not bad for a bunch of uneducated hicks.
Cool recollection- they definately don’t make them liek they used to
I came from a town near where kids would take off from school during the spring and go work on farms as hires to get the planting and farm work done- it was just the normal thing to do- the kids loved it because they got out of school and got to be with their friends- even though the work was hard— they woudl also get together during harvest and go help the farmers again- if their families didn’t have farms of their own-
The farm kids were the ones that usually took up wrestling in school- throwing around hay bales all summer those kids were strong as ox’s. noone messed with them usually- and when they did- they regretted it lol-
We were lucky that we grew up fairly ok- but we did have to raise our own stuff to get us through- chickens, ducks geese, goats, sheep, etc- we had a fairly large garden too and grew up eating really well- home made butter- cream from off the top of the milk we bought- which we made into icecream which was always a welcome treat- Though i never could get used to goat’s milk- my folks woudl try to fool us and mix it with cows milk- but nope- we could tell right away lol
Sadly though those days are long gone- i watch family members growing up today- sitting on couch all day- cell phones and computers- hardly speaking to each other- Brand new clothes, sneakers, coats etc etc- just a totally different way of life these days- i went to school in home made clothes- which got passed down to the other kids when i outgrew them- to this day i cant throw a pair of ripped jeans out- and have to patch them to ‘make them last’- we also ‘shoe goop’ our shoes when the tread wears out and a hole develops- old habits die hard i guess-