Have your parents told you stories of the Great Depression?

Parent Cafe
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<p>I defnitely think farm families had it better than city folks since they could grow vegetables, raise beef, hogs, chickens and milk cows. Several of my and H’s relatives have said things like the Depression was awful, but they were dirt poor before, during, and after and they always had enough to eat. That “always had enough to eat” was very much a recurring statement.</p>

<p>My paternal great grandfather owned an insurance business. All his personal funds were invested in his business so he didn’t lose much through the banks. My grandmother and siblings were late teens and early 20’s. I have an immense volume of their genealogical “stuff” inlcuding financial records and daily diaries. I don’t think the Depression affected their social lives, activites, etc. much. I have pictures of the 3 girls in fur coats. They were often at some social outing or another. Then I flip open the other family line and see dresses that look as if they can’t possibly make it through one more wash.</p>

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<p>"They were gritty, determined, down-to-earth people who did enjoy life but never collected “things.” "</p>

<p>They didn’t collect, but boy did they save! My grandfather never saw a tool he didn’t like. After he passed away all the guys in the family spend days going through boxes of screws, bolts, tons of really old wood/metal things no one could identify. You never know when one of those things might be just what you need to fix…something! Wrapping paper was reused til it fell apart, cloth flour bags were embroidered and reused and then cut down and reused some more. I still have some of those and I treasure them.</p>

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<p>Awesome story, DougBetsy!</p>

<p>There was an old female lawyer, Louise Raggio (who actually just passed away earlier this year), who was responsible for getting the laws of coverture changed in Texas. Amazing. I still see old legal documents where the notary’s acknowledgement for a woman states that the document was *explained *to her. Being married was considered a legal “disablity” for a woman, in the same category as “infancy.” A conveyance of property by a married woman was void unless it had the special language by the notary.</p>

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<p>My dad’s uncle who supported three famlies+ during the Depression was also in the insurance business…I think sales. You would think that the insurance business would decline a lot during a depression, but I guess not. (Maybe the smart folks on CC can tell me why not.)</p>

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<p>My father and his three brothers grew up on the family farm, which was a “gentleman’s farm” in Independence, Missouri owned by my grandfather, a Kansas City lawyer (back when the law was a respectable profession). He graduated from college with an English degree in 1929 and got work as a reporter for the Kansas City Star; he married the same year. He moved from the Star to United Press International almost immediately and never had any financial problems, right through the Depression and the War. The family farm was fully paid for and quite self-sufficient (they grew most of their own food); they dammed a river and stocked the resulting ponds, charging a small amount for people to fish. In short: they were wealthy and stayed wealthy. My grandmother apparently always found work and a meal or two for anyone who asked for help.</p>

<p>In my mother’s family, my grandfather was a professor at Ohio State; while his salary was cut quite regularly during the recession, my grandmother worked (she’d gone to the London School of Economics) and was also very frugal. They didn’t struggle, and in fact, all five children graduated from college during the Depression years. </p>

<p>Reading the other stories, and thinking about my college-educated family history, I think the Depression must be very like our current Great Recession, in that the poor and less well-educated were then suffering and are now suffering a great deal more.</p>

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<p>Both my parents grew up during the Great Depression, in NYC, and it is an interesting contrast. My mom (who would be 84 if she were alive) and her family were relatively well off, her dad worked for the controller of Union Carbide and he was employed all through the Depression, though they obviously saw the impact on others, they lived in what is now called the South Bronx and saw the effects, obviously. My dad was the son of an immigrant stone mason who had done pretty well in the 20’s, but obviously, there were no construction jobs, and my dad always said that people who claim the depression wasn’t that bad, that it ‘built character’ and so forth either lived through it and were well off, or never experienced it, and he got furious when he heard that time mythologized like that. He said if it wasn’t for WPA and such, a lot of people wouldn’t have made it, and despite all the anger at the government these days, they did help hold it together until WWII ended up ending it.</p>

<p>And yes, my dad especially had the depression mentality, not buying stuff unless you needed it (he didn’t have a credit card until well into the 1980’s, and he always paid it off), use it up and wear it out, we worked on our own cars (always used), did our own home repairs and so forth. He didn’t stint on important things like education, but we also didn’t go on fancy vacations or have fancy clothing, either. </p>

<p>To give you an idea of how bad the depression was, when they had the first draft for the military in 1939, 50% of the men called up went 4F (physically unfit), and 90% of the problems were malnutrition related. And it hit everyone, keep in mind that many farmers didn’t own their own farms, they had notes on them, and at the height of the depression commodities were selling for negative prices (in other words, to get rid of eggs or grain, farmers would often have to pay to get rid of them, believe it or not). Farmers who normally are conservative people, were in open revolt, and more then a few sherrifs and bailiffs going to foreclose on a farm ended up on the wrong end of a bunch of rifles and shotguns, and more then a few ended up dead. </p>

<p>.Millions of young people,many of them educated, took to riding the rails to find something, anything…and they were accused of being lazy, indolent, etc (and later went on to become what they call now ‘the greatest generation’, go figure). I recall stories like the Chicago teachers who stayed in the classrooms even though they hadn’t been paid in months, who tried to share what little food they had with kids who often were dozing off from hunger, that image alone brings tears to my eyes (two of the best accounts of the Depression I have read were William Manchesters “The Glory and the Dream” in its depression section, and Studs Terkel’s book on the depression, recounting the tales of those who lived it). One account from that book resonated with what some others wrote, an African American woman wrote that to her people down south, the depression was not really all that different then they had experienced for years and they knew how to survive on nothing…</p>

<p>Hopefully people will keep trying to tell these stories, so that the mythology doesn’t win out, that this was some mere trifle, some time that wasn’t really so bad, because it truly was.Farmers were in open revolt and there were strong fascist and communist movements in the country, and Huey Long came within an assasins bullet potentially of becoming the dictator of the US…It was so bad, when FDR took office, congress was kicking around the idea of giving him extraordinary powers, of in effect ceding almost total control to him (that one was in Jonathan Alter’s book about FDR and the first 100 days)…it tells you how bad it really was.</p>

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<p>Huey Long did a lot of good that still helps Louisiana. He taxed oil to improve the universities (and until fairly recently they cost almost nothing to attend), created Charity Hospitals, etc. The life of most people in the state really did improve because of him. I sort of see him as a hero. I am interested that your view is so negative?</p>

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<p>My Dad’s family were farmers in the south. There were four boys in his family born so close together that for awhile my Dad was sent to live with his grandmother so there would be one less mouth to feed at home. He was born in 1920.</p>

<p>My Mom, born in 1925 in the south, told of wearing only homemade clothes, of being thrilled to get an orange and nuts in her stocking at Christmas, of her mother raising chickens to feed them and the sight of her chasing chickens in the backyard and wringing their necks,of working in the tobacco field for a nickel a day (even small children could pick the worms off the tobacco leaves), of having no dreams of college when she finished h.s. in 1941 because there was no money.</p>

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<p>My dad was the youngest of 9 born in 1925. His family was dirt-floor poor and the Great Depression didn’t help. He always worked. He valued paying in cash and would save up enough to pay cash for everything. He was not, however, one of those people that died with lots of money in the bank. When he got back from WWII, he bought the nicest car he could afford. He loved to take long vacations and truly enjoyed life. When his older brothers and sisters passed away, most of them had stacks on old canned food, old clothing, etc. My dad took the other route by only buying what was needed. His “suit” was from the late 60s and he wore it whenever required, which did not include my graduation. He was not buried in it however.
My mom was the oldest of 9, and was the surrogate mother for all brothers and sisters after her. She taught me to can food, plant a garden, use every piece of a chicken, etc. She was also not a saver of cash. A part of me wishes they had when I went to college.
Both my parents worked very hard their entire lives. My mom and I spoke of feminism once, especially about the flap about women in the workplace. She said that for the poor, we had no money for a woman’s gilded cage.
From them I got their work ethic and slight fear of the unknown. Somehow, though, I haven’t been able to push the work (for money) ethic on to DS.</p>

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<p>My grandfather was a civil engineer in NYC. Did well but nothing remarkable. The family story is that before the bank failure, he heard to get his cash OUT which he did.
All three of his children (one of them my dad) graduated from college. In fact, my dad graduated from Georgetown in 1936, did a tour of Europe as a gift from a family friend, saw the '36 Olympics and in the fall went to Georgetown Medical. After he finished his residency, he signed up, married my mother and shipped out - all in about the space of three weeks.
Mom’s dad was a chemist in the perfume industry in NYC - also continually employed.
My h’s granddad, an Italian immigrant, was a shoemaker in Chicago. Everybody needed their shoes repaired so he always was busy. Family was well-cared for.</p>

<p>Now that I think of it, all these famllies had 1 - 3 children in total - not particularly Catholic of them but quite practical!</p>

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<p>missypie, insurance sales go up in tough eceonomic times, and are very popular in poor communities today. I have a policy that my dad got for us when I was a baby. It is enough to “see me buried”. Insurance is all about financial security when everything else is uncertain. </p>

<p>Even when my income dropped 75% in the last few years, we have always made sure that we have health insurance and homeowners insurance. Guess we figure that even when things go bad, they can get worse and it is better to be safe than sorry.</p>

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<p>My father once mentioned an uncle who was “on the dole” and was proud that his family never was. And yes, food was very important to him.</p>

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<p>I’ve heard stories all my life about what it was like during the Depression. As a kid my mother had to wear her shoes until they wore out, whether they fit or not. Consequently she had to have foot surgery as an adult because her toes were so bent out of shape. Her mother made “sack” dresses out of flour sacks. She said the companies printed several different patterns on the sacks because they knew people were using the material for clothes. Her family grew vegetables, kept a few chickens, and had a cow for milk. They didn’t live on a farm, but it was a rural area. They seemed to eke out enough food, and they made it through the Depression without losing their house, but it still affects my mom. To this day she feels guilty buying most anything that is not essential, or replacing anything that is not completely worn out. When I was growing up she made most of our clothes and we rarely got anything new unless it was necessary. Forget the Beatles lunchbox that everyone else in school had!</p>

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<p>My mom was one of 8 children who lived in a small town. Many of our extended family members lived in the town as well and everyone was suffering during the Depression. My grandfather and other male relatives left the family home for months at a time to work in lumber camps far up north so that the bedroom could be rented out and there would be one less man mouth to feed. There was a family farm in the backyard that my grandmother maintained to feed her children and others that needed the food and much of what was grown in the summer was jared for the very cold winter. I also remember seeing the root cellar in the basement where my grandmother would keep potatoes and onions all winter long. They lived off the eggs and occasional chicken that they needed to kill when things were really bad. They wore shoes that had any paper they could find stuffed in them so that the worn shoes would keep them warm. My mother remembered wearing the paper around her legs on the very long walk to school through many feet of snow. Her mother would lead the way and all 8 children followed behind her. Grandma made the path through the snow so the children with old and worn shoes would not suffer from the cold wet winter. </p>

<p>The wonderful thing that I recall about my mothers stories is that her memories were wonderful…full of love…strength… and a sense of unity. They were hungry and worked hard, but as my mother said “everyone was hungry, tired, and poor.” They shared some of the most remarkable memories and as a result my mothers family all grew up strong and solid with no food hoarding issues or obvious frugality. They saw the depression as something that they lived through just as everyone else did. My father on the other hand grew up as the only child, raised by his very successful single mother who dressed him in clothes from Lord and Taylor during the height of the depression. My grandmother, dad’s mother, was a self made woman, and she was known for wearing her mink and sable coats during the depression. My dad was the rich kid when all others were hungry. He became one of the most frugal and cheap men I have ever known. My mother was kind and generous, and always kept to her upbringing of sharing what you have so others could be more comfortable. It must have been hard for her to live with a man who was so different in this major area. </p>

<p>The interesting aspect of being raised by “depression years” parents is the effect it had on our generation. It most certainly had an impression on me. Early on in my life I understood saving for a rainy day (thankyou dad) and also providing some likes and not just needs to my children (thankyou mom). The good thing about dad always being frugal is that now during his very old age he could support himself financially although he requires much care from sibling and me.</p>

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<p>My mom and her sisters had only one or two “good” dresses each that they could wear to work. They would spot-clean them themselves with lighter fluid as a dry cleaner was out of the questions. Meanwhile, my dad (my folks hadn’t met yet) was hunting squirrels to help feed his parents and siblings.</p>

<p>Though they went on to earn plenty of money and live very comfortably, my parents retained many of their frugal ways. My mom saved slivers of soap the rest of her life (I threw lots of these away after she died). Neither of them could stand to waste food.</p>

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<p>My grandparents were incredibly fortunate to own a small coffee-shop type restaurant through the Depression. I grew up with my grandmother’s tales of how they supported the hungry men and older boys who came looking for work, in return for a meal. It still give me chills- and inspired my own eye toward community service. She would never throw out “good food.” </p>

<p>Funny thing- a group of my college friends was talking about how we turn back to these family tales in today’s tough times. So many of us grow some vegetables, hang the laundry out, cook an elaborate meal and get our our fancy tableware, rather than spend what we used to at restaurants. In some of our local govt offices, we still have the original WPA art/murals on the walls. A reminder.</p>

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<p>ALH-</p>

<p>Huey long did do a lot of good in Louisiana, it can be argued that in many cases his heart had been in the right place (there are also darker sides to the story as well), he did try to help those less fortunate and so forth. Very few public people are all bad or all dark…</p>

<p>During the 1930’s, when Long became Senator, something changed. Some thing he got a messianic complex and with the mess of the depression, really thought like he was the only one who could ‘save’ the country, and he talked openly of his contempt for congress and such (despite being part of it), and it was pretty clear he was aiming for the white house, and has some pretty strong support. One of the problems with Long as far as I can tell was he could justify doing things based on what he saw as the positive outcome, and he didn’t seem in many cases to care how it happened. In troubled times that is dangerous, because people are desperate enough to listen to almost anything (and without getting into modern politics, for obvious reasons, there is a lot of that going around right now all over the place…). He was pretty open about his intentions, and very few historians doubt that he saw himself in effect becoming the de facto dictator of the US, and he had pretty significant a following in this country. </p>

<p>There have been some very good books written about the depression era and specifically about people like Long, Coughlan and the like and the kind of threats they represented. To get an idea of how scary things were, Jonathan Alter in his book about FDR’s 100 days documents not only how Congress was willing to give him extraordinary powers, basically giving him almost total control, but there is a copy of a speech that FDR may have been planning to give to the American Legion, the language of which is something to the tune that he (the president) might have to turn to the Legion to in effect take charge if he declared a military emergency…he obviously never gave the speech, but it says what even so called rational people were willing to do.</p>

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<p>When he was 7, Father in Law’s family lost the farm in the Ozarks and headed west ala “The Grapes of Wrath” where he picked fruit 12 hours a day. He watched the John Ford movie with us when he was 70 and said,“Yup…that was us.”
My Dad’s father was a dentist and used to do dental work in exchange for sacks of potatoes, eggs, or sacks of nuts. He also was the only dentist in town who had African American patients. Despite having a cross burnt in his front yard by the KKK.</p>

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<p>My mom-(born in 1933) tells the story of when there were only jars of tomatoes on the kitchen shelf, so her dad (a handyman with an amputated leg resulting from a tractor accident) went to all of his clients who owed him money and had to beg a bit to collect his due. That was they day she knew they were poor.
When they moved to southern California- they lived in the maid’s quarters of a relatives house. No more days without food–but they were still poor.
During the 70’s rage of having denim overalls my mother refused to buy me a pair. That was what she (the poor little girls) had to wear as play clothes during the 30’s…and no daughter of her’s was going to wear them on her dime! (I was also NEVER allowed to wear jeans to school—ever----poor farm girls wore jeans to school! Come on mom!)</p>

<p>My paternal grandmother died about 10 years ago at 92. When she died she had about $2500 left in her bank account. She had always made her way in this life, but my dad said she was so proud to never have gone on public assistance. Interpretations for medicare as public assistance aside, it is interesting to look back at that generation and get inside their heads.
Times were different- but thinking was different too. Work hard ALWAYS and be willing to do anything…and help each other out. They were the best of times they were the worst of times.
We even chatted about war coupons the other day…about how much sugar they were allowed to buy. We really do have little to complain about today.</p>

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<p>This is such a fascinating thread. My father-in-law will be 97 this month, born in 1914. He has crystal-clear memories of all his younger days and can tell such great stories. He lived on a farm in Kansas from birth to the 30s. His father had a stroke so when my F-I-L was only about 12, he had to go to work in the coal mine to help his family. He started driving a car when he was only 10, and had to sit on a box to see! During Prohibition he drove illegal booze into Kansas City. Just amazing stories and that was before the Depression. </p>

<p>In the 30s he and his father moved to California, where at first they lived at a racetrack in one of the horse stalls until they saved enough for their own place. He worked in a cannery in Salinas (as in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row) and was an amateur boxer (winning prize money), also caddied in Carmel for movie stars at Pebble Beach Golf Course. He would run from Salinas to Carmel and back as exercise. </p>

<p>He really is an amazing man: bought a farm in Orange County, raised chickens, strawberries, and bees, remodeled his whole house himself, had the first private swimming pool in Orange County, started a salvage business, and owned and ran a restaurant. He has outlived two wives, lives alone, and still does his own cooking and cleaning and has a garden. He also likes to go to the casino weekly!</p>