OP-ED 50 Survival Lessons From The Great Depression: The Horrifying Things Americans Did When Money, Jobs, & Hope Disappeared

West said:
For those that don't know what tickling fish up means...

I think because I've done it... you wade along in the shallow streams preferably and run your hands under rocks or ledges and slowly feel with your fingers for fish bellies and once you feel them you scoop them up and on to shore.

Catfish you just stick your hand into there mouths as deep as you can.

If the water is clear I like using my frog gigs and goggles. Or a homemade spear with barbs.
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Try that down here in the south and you're likely to wind up with missing digits and limbs. You won't be tickling fish, you'll be say "y'all come" to gators and snapping turtles (or alligator turtles that have more bite pressure than a pit bull). I've seen people do it and I still hear the theme song from jaws every single time.
 
Blacknarwhal said:
Hooo boy.

Some part of this list is already in progress. Ask anyone with at least one side hustle. Ask anyone who is living in their car already.

Some parts of this list can't be done today. "Go knock on every door for work!" Used to work great, but no one's taking applications directly. Only online. The days of impressing the boss with your shoe-leather-grit and can-do went out when Horatio Alger died.

Some parts of this list are probably illegal. Putting your children to work is a fast way to get an unpleasant knock on the door from Child Protective Services, who will cheerfully rake you over the coals to prove they should still have THEIR job.

Some parts are dangerous. "Fill up with starches!" Great! How long have we known that carbs are just another kind of sugar? Let's kill ourselves off with rampaging Type 2 diabetes because we're saving money!

And some parts are just "They" talking. Learn to eat trash! Tumbleweeds! This is just YOU VILL EAT ZE BUGS UND BE HAPPY with a new coat of "resilience."

I think there are still a few useful parts in here, so do with them what you can. But this list is mostly a patchwork coat that stopped being a coat a long time ago.
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Read the headline:

the-horrifying-things-americans-did
 
A large black walnut tree is a perennial source of high quality protein and fat. The hardest nut to crack, it also has the highest protein level of any nut. We have five within shouting distance of our house and see them as emergency food sources. We also raise a small flock of hair sheep for meat.
 
When I was little/young the soldiers from out at Ft. Campbell would still come hoe my Granddaddy's tobacco fields for cash pay. Somebody would hear from someone that a farmer had an acre of tobacco that needed hoeing. He was paying
$X per feet of row and would feed you lunch and make sure there was always something to drink at the end of the rows. Someone would have a truck and be willing to share a ride. Growing up it was usually my Dad that would spread the word.

Sure enough Granddaddy got the field hoe'd before end of day and those boys went back to base with the some play money in their pockets to have fun with on their next weekend leave. I wasn't allowed in the field. None of us girls/women were. Those boys could be a little rough on occasion ... not bad just rough around the edges with mouths to match, not appropriate for female company. We'd set up the saw horses and sheets of plywood kept for big outdoor meals and Memaw would fry chickens, make kettles of greens, creamed corn, and whatever else depending on how many were to be fed. Usually had fresh sliced tomatoes or friend green tomatoes. And cornbread or biscuits. And there was always something sweet to close the meal with. Usually my Memaw's famous blackberry cobbler made up in pans big enough they looked like they came from a school cafeteria.

This was the late 1960's and early 1970's y'all. Not really that many years ago. What happened to our people in a single generation? People used to know where their food came from and how to get it. It is just so sad.

My in-law's were born in the 20's and the Depression Era nearly killed them. Neither one grew up with a father in the house. One died and the other was a gambler and run off for many years. My father in law had food because his mother took in washing from the Italians and they paid her in a big pot of spaghetti once a week. And no, I'm not joking. Anything else came from where his brother never really went to school but worked as soon as he could run, delivery Cuban bread to people's backporch. He'd get paid in some coin that helped to keep a roof over their heads before he was even double digit. He'd get a loaf of bread every other day as part of his pay. Sometimes all my FIL would get to eat was a slice of Cuban bread and a cup of Cuban coffee so dark and thick that it stirred itself. And he was a very small child at the time. It is just the way it was.

My mother in law had it worse and better depending on how you look at it. It was her father than ran off. Usually the only thing she got to eat was a bowl of grits because a cousin would bring her home after school and that's what they had.

I look at the complaining people these days and wonder if they really understand what starvation is and I think not. But someday people will understand. I'm afraid they surely will.
 
Hannah Barron, queen of catfish noodling.


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Kathy in FL said:
View attachment 618554
Alligator Snapping Turtle. One of the primary reasons I've never tried fish noodling. LOL
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There's a way to grab them too.

It would be..."not with my hands".

They scare the hell outta me.

The ex was gonna get one out of the road...didn't have a clue.

I told her, you better not...of course I didn't know nuthin'.

Grabbed a 1/4" thick magazine an stuck it in front of that dinosaur, he took a big clean chunk out of it, quicker than she could see it happen.

Turns out I did know a little something.
 
Grandma and grandpa were so very important to us back in the 40's and 50's. At one time or another they all lived with us, contributing to the household.

Food was limited...lived in the cities. Breakfast...oatmeal, orange juice, and a banana split 4 ways for our cereal. Lunch...peanut butter and grape jelly on white bread, and usually an apple. Supper...1 pound of hamburger split 7 ways...my dad always getting 2 portions; mashed potatoes, and a can of green beans. If we were still hungry, we could have a peanut butter and white bread sandwich. a baked chicken or meat loaf on Sunday.

One thing I did when in my 30's and 40's...After the family farmers north of the cities were done plowing up and picking their potatoes and carrots, and onions...they would allow us to come into their fields and gather any left behind, or small sized, crop that we could find, and bring it home to our families. Sometimes that would mean 5 to 20 pounds of those veggies for our families. they never charged us.
 
hummer said:
Grandma and grandpa were so very important to us back in the 40's and 50's. At one time or another they all lived with us, contributing to the household.

Food was limited...lived in the cities. Breakfast...oatmeal, orange juice, and a banana split 4 ways for our cereal. Lunch...peanut butter and grape jelly on white bread, and usually an apple. Supper...1 pound of hamburger split 7 ways...my dad always getting 2 portions; mashed potatoes, and a can of green beans. If we were still hungry, we could have a peanut butter and white bread sandwich. a baked chicken or meat loaf on Sunday.

One thing I did when in my 30's and 40's...After the family farmers north of the cities were done plowing up and picking their potatoes and carrots, and onions...they would allow us to come into their fields and gather any left behind, or small sized, crop that we could find, and bring it home to our families. Sometimes that would mean 5 to 20 pounds of those veggies for our families. they never charged us.
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My Granddaddy always left the two outside rows of the crop fields for gleaning by the needy.
 
day late said:
Dad was born in 1930. The depression had already started. But he did tell stories about that time. On one occasion he was in a stream up to his knees. 'Tickling up' fish. It was that or no supper and maybe no breakfast.

And people wonder why I'm such a hard ass on keeping a full fridge.
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My Step Dad said he was given one shot for the 22. If he came home empty handed he was taken behind the barn and whipped.
 
I don't like the title.

What did they do that was "horrifying"? It all seemed desperate but well within the bounds of decent society.

"Horrifying" is what we are going to get when it all collapses.

Loved the actual article, though. This period in history fascinates me.
 
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CaryC said:
They did not all devolve into the savage calculus of dog-eat-dog, though some surely did. Instead, something older and tougher emerged from the wreckage - a kind of stubborn, ornery ingenuity that had lain dormant during the fat years. People remembered how to do things. They recalled skills their grandparents had brought from the old country: how to stretch a dollar until it screamed, how to mend what was torn, how to find nourishment in landscapes others called barren. They discovered that the human animal is infinitely adaptable, capable of surviving on pride and lard and sheer cussedness when the supermarkets close and the ATMs go dark.
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And, then they marched forth and defeated the two most powerful and ideological armies in the world.
 
Mark Armstrong said:
Note on Tip #4.

Until child labor laws came along about a hundred years ago, it was commonplace for children, young children, to hold down regular jobs. They still do in countries like India.

Just the other day I came across a newspaper story from 1894 about a 16-year-old slate picker in Pottsville Pennsylvania who was "ground to a jelly" between the iron teeth of a breaker roll for crushing coal. I then did a little bit of research, and found that back in the late 1800s and early 1900s there were regular jobs in coal mines set aside for children. Slate pickers were typically 8 to 14 years old. Trapper boys, who worked ventilation doors might be even younger, as it was an entry-level position for children.

Attached is a picture of young cannery workers, elsewhere in this country, in 1911, holding down regular jobs cutting up fish to be canned. Picture courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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I have a Little Orphan Annie comic book in which she is complaining about the new child labor laws and wondering how she will survive.
 
Ragnarok said:
"Horrifying" is what we are going to get when it all collapses.

Loved the actual article, though. This period in history fascinates me.
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Yeah, but you are living in those "interesting times" of the Chinese curse. Whatever avenue of "collapse" we see, it will make the Depression look like a blessing.

Too many people have no skills, nor any resources, but a whole lot of "me, me, me!" and they don't give a shit about anyone else. They will rob you about as soon as they get really hungry. This is completely unlike the people of the Depression. I blame LBJ and his welfare crap to gain voters.

Then, add in the useless, entitled urbanites. And those with more melanin. How many fight videos do we see daily where they are fighting over food when it is still available? Just wait until it isn't.

Some folks think they're safe because they live a county or two away from an urban area. Don't worry, once the urban locusts have spent the first week or two cleaning out the decent people in the cities, they'll turn their attention to you in an ever-widening radius. They'll take whatever was missed by your local meth-heads, skin heads and white trash.

If you'll remember Granny Mole and countless other folks posting here, they did it right. Neighbor up before there is a problem, while you still have time to build and verify trust.
 
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I was born and raised on a farm in Ill. I was driving a tractor and hauling in wagons of corn and unloading them when I was 13 or so. That also included changing the chutes to totally fill the crib on both sides. I hated the ladder to the second floor. I started driving the tractor at 10 or 11. Child labor!
 
My parents grew up during the depression. I have absorbed their values and skills . I know how to cook, can, grow, sew, etc. In no particular order, these are fact that I remember my parents telling me about those years; Mom said they didn't know they were poor, because everyone was poor. Mom and her 2 sisters and the family dog, (who also went to school with them) slept in a tent in the backyard in the summer; the upstairs was too hot to bear. They had a cow. Granma raised lots of chickens, both she & mom taught in one room school houses, granpa was a blacksmith, he tore an abandoned home down and used the lumber to build a church and also used the drawstrings from the feed bags to make "springs" for my aunt's crib crib. City relatives in debt had to come live with them for a while. Mom got her hands on a fake fur coat, cut it up and made teddy bears for all the children in her Sunday School class.

My other grandmother, a wonderful cook, hosted hoboes. Dad said they would come eat a meal. If the food was scarce, they would move on; if not, they would stay a while, working around the farm. One who came every year showed him how to make a whistle from a willow branch. When the gypsies came, his mother would make the children hide in the barn. He and his father would visit neighbors who would invite them to eat, but they only had one place setting. Granma hosted a neighbor for a meal once and the family got to talking around the table about wild game. The visitor said the only meat he wouldn't eat was woodchuck. No one said a word, because that was the main course. Like I said, I hear she was a great cook. She also knew what they called "Indian medicine". Dad showed me the plant she used to make cough medicine. His father shot a big buck which was the talk of the town because deer were very scarce. (They were hunted to near extinction).

(AO: N Central PA, below Elmira NY)
 
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There are a large number of people that are functional idiots.

You see em, they look normal. They sound normal and can carry on an intelligible conversation about their video game or favorite form of entertainment.

But when it comes to legitimate skill and banking and roof over head living, drooling idiot comes to mind.

Survival of the fittest comes to mind
 
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I once read years ago about taking grass, mushing it up in a blender with hot water, then diluting the mush with boiling water (previously acidified to a ph of 3 using a few drops of hydrochloric acid). After boiling it down 50% for three hours, filter out the solids using coffee filter paper. Then take the filtered water and neutralize the acid solution using a little bit of ammonia water until the protein fraction falls out of solution. Again filter it with clean water and dry it completely out, which will remove the ammonium hydroxide. 95% pure protein extract. Trivial amounts of HCl and NH4OH are needed.

I found it. Mainly for leaf extraction, with the article also naming grasses. I hope I'm not breaking any rule by attaching a publicly available pdf of it:
 

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Young black mulberry tree leaves (20% protein by dry weight) can be crock-potted and eaten. I have eaten them after 12 hours of boiling in a crockpot. Still a a bit chewy, but entirely edible. Maybe a 24 hour boil for them to make potato and mulberry leaf soup?
 
marsofold said:
Young black mulberry tree leaves (20% protein by dry weight) can be crock-potted and eaten. I have eaten them after 12 hours of boiling in a crockpot. Still a a bit chewy, but entirely edible. Maybe a 24 hour boil for them to make potato and mulberry leaf soup?
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I know where there is black mulberry and wild black walnut trees are. Also vary eatable oak tree acorns, wild persimmon trees and other nut trees.

Eating the mulberry leaves is vary interesting, thanks for the info..

Good stuff!
 
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My parents grew up during the Depression
. My father in a town in NY, my mother on a tobacco and cotton farm in NC. Dad told me he went to bed hungry a lot. My father was an orphan. My mother never went hungry. The tobacco, cotton was the money crops. They grew a garden and had chickens. My grandfather plowed all of it with Nell his mule. The depression didn't affect my mother anywhere near as much as my father. Lesson learned from that. Big garden spot and I know how to grow all I need. The deer are a protein source. I now live on that land. Just have to pay the yearly rent to the county. And that pisses me off.
 
Mindset, skill set, tool set.....
I took the mindset to be key in this article, and the follow up comments.

Never surrender.

Our plight will be one of a kind, as America goes. All the invaders, who are savage third worlders use to little and all too capable and willing to kill on sight. Then one looks at the latest generations of home grown blacks, as exemplified in a couple of threads here....then one considers the drug issues, legal and illegal...and lack thereof...

Enjoy the good old times, which are all around us right now....they will be fond memories all too soon
 
My great-grandparents raised my mother. Mammaw was born in 1908. They were so poor, the Depression was just another day to them. She told us about picking cotton as a child, and stuffing newspaper into the walls to keep the wind out and try to stay warm.

They always had a HUGE garden, and she canned. She was a wonderful cook, and an amazing seamstress. She could look at a dress in a store window, go home and make the pattern out of newspaper, and sew an exact replica. She never made it past the 6th grade, but was highly intelligent.

She would cry when the adult kids would clean out the fridge and throw away old food. She said she went hungry so much, she couldn't stand to throw it out.

I remember all of her stories, and have tried to take the lessons to heart. They were tough because they had to be. I'm afraid a lot of the younger generation has never had to flex those type of muscles.
 
tnphil said:
That's why it is imperative to form support networks with friends and neighbors.

When the crap goes down this time, we'll have groups of ferals roaming to steal, and they won't hesitate to kill. No one can stay awake 24/7 nor can one or two people fend off a group of bad actors. Trying to hide all your stuff isn't going to work either-the ferals will have nothing better to do than scour the countryside for anything that they might want, and they absolutely won't hesitate to tear your place apart looking.
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or make you watch you kin be raped or killed to make you disclose where your 'stuff' is.

you dont need to have 'stuff'

they just need to think you do.

as for teamwork...

just yesterday my buddy and his adult son with GF

came over to help cut split a truckload of logs

they got here at 10 am and left at 130pm.

10 face cords in a big pile for stacking later

I was running the splitter and had to stop when 3/4 done.

my shoulder seized from repetative motive

all I was doing was running the splitter and it near wiped me out :shk:

today feels like I should have a bath in absorbine jr

but we got it done.

I have another 30 cords to do, but no hurry

Thats about 3 yrs worth of wood cut/split/piled for another 3 yrs.

I use about 14 face cords per winter.
 
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my Grannie was a teenager during the Great Depression. She told us many stories of growing up but never called it that. Maybe because they were dirt poor anyway? She quit school in 8th grade and went to work in the cotton mill. Her daddy was sick, she was the oldest child. She supported them until her brothers could work and she married at 30.
It's hard to think about how little they had, even growing up hearing it, and looking at how much we have now.
But I agree, if/when things get bad, a lot of people are going to be in a world of hurt. Heck even those of us who "know" will have one heck of an adjustment.
I grew up eating squirrel and rabbit and my Grannie and Paw thought possum and coon and cooter stew were delicacies. If I was hungry I guess I might too. People now hear you ate squirrel and are grossed out. My sister and I thought the brain was the delicacy and used to wait anxiously for paw to pull it out of the stew pot.
 
joannita said:
My parents grew up during the depression. I have absorbed their values and skills . I know how to cook, can, grow, sew, etc. In no particular order, these are fact that I remember my parents telling me about those years; Mom said they didn't know they were poor, because everyone was poor. Mom and her 2 sisters and the family dog, (who also went to school with them) slept in a tent in the backyard in the summer; the upstairs was too hot to bear. They had a cow. Granma raised lots of chickens, both she & mom taught in one room school houses, granpa was a blacksmith, he tore an abandoned home down and used the lumber to build a church and also used the drawstrings from the feed bags to make "springs" for my aunt's crib crib. City relatives in debt had to come live with them for a while. Mom got her hands on a fake fur coat, cut it up and made teddy bears for all the children in her Sunday School class.

My other grandmother, a wonderful cook, hosted hoboes. Dad said they would come eat a meal. If the food was scarce, they would move on; if not, they would stay a while, working around the farm. One who came every year showed him how to make a whistle from a willow branch. When the gypsies came, his mother would make the children hide in the barn. He and his father would visit neighbors who would invite them to eat, but they only had one place setting. Granma hosted a neighbor for a meal once and the family got to talking around the table about wild game. The visitor said the only meat he wouldn't eat was woodchuck. No one said a word, because that was the main course. Like I said, I hear she was a great cook. She also knew what they called "Indian medicine". Dad showed me the plant she used to make cough medicine. His father shot a big buck which was the talk of the town because deer were very scarce. (They were hunted to near extinction).

(AO: N Central PA, below Elmira NY)
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Someone else with family memories of the gypsies. Our stories were from Nebr.
 
ginnie6 said:
my Grannie was a teenager during the Great Depression. She told us many stories of growing up but never called it that. Maybe because they were dirt poor anyway? She quit school in 8th grade and went to work in the cotton mill. Her daddy was sick, she was the oldest child. She supported them until her brothers could work and she married at 30.
It's hard to think about how little they had, even growing up hearing it, and looking at how much we have now.
But I agree, if/when things get bad, a lot of people are going to be in a world of hurt. Heck even those of us who "know" will have one heck of an adjustment.
I grew up eating squirrel and rabbit and my Grannie and Paw thought possum and coon and cooter stew were delicacies. If I was hungry I guess I might too. People now hear you ate squirrel and are grossed out. My sister and I thought the brain was the delicacy and used to wait anxiously for paw to pull it out of the stew pot.
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Cooter stew, turtle meat based. Sounds like it could be a leisurely meal that one could even serve in a shell.

:D
 
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