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

CaryC said:
24. Keep the books loose. Storekeepers extended credit to regulars, scratching debts on ledgers they might never collect. It was a gamble on community, on the hope that better days would come.

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My great grand parents did that and lost the family grocery store to the debt run up "dead beats" who never paid up.

Lock the chicken coop. My family's was raided. It was blamed on hobos. My bet is on neighbors.

Also watch the paper work especially between relatives. My great grandmother's house was willed to my grandmother. That house was stolen from her because a will was not properly probated. The family "assumed" it had been. It wasn't discovered until the children of the thieves tried to sell it. According to an elder the NJ lawyer who was supposed to have handled the probate got a slap on the wrist and continued to practice. Trust but verify. YMMV
 
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Grandmother lived with us when I was growing up. Goodman Missouri during the depression was no picnic. Then Grandfather Herman was killed in a tractor accident in the late 1930's. She kept the farm together and raised my Mother and Two Uncles. Being the only Grandchild and my Mother worked we spent lots of time together. An education I got they don't teach in any school.
I would be home from school Mom would get home from work Gram fixed dinner and every night we would sit down she would say we are eating dinner for 75 cents a plate or a dollar a plate.

She told me " there aren't tough times, only tough people"
 
I am so glad I was raised by my grandparents and given the hard knock life treatment just like they were in their day . I cannot remember a time as a child when I was ever not working on the farm , helping with the victory garden or killing and butchering animals of all kinds , I can recall making butter and cheese with my great grandmother and was down at the dairy at 5am helping the milkman deliver his wares then head off to school and when that was done I worked 4pm till 10pm 6 days a week, and 8am to 10 pm Saturday and Sunday, I was doing 50 hours a week when I was 12 years old.

My grandparents were just like everyone else around us of that age group they had two halves of nothing but made do with what little we had , when my grandad passed away when I was 12 I became the man of the house , working my butt of and putting every penny on the table , when every other kid was sleeping I was down at the nearby river fishing for salmon and trout , luckily I am one of those people who only need a few hours sleep a day to survive, I always kept my room at my grandma's house and returned every Friday with my rent money and a big box of shopping, did the garden and everything else until she passed in 97 , kids today wouldn't last a day of what most here thought as normal life

Luckily I got a good apprenticeship when they were hard to come by and that did me well in life , but I can still remember my great grandfather berate his sons who were in their late 50s and WW2 veterans for buying milk and butter from a shop and not having the gumption to make it themselves and own a cow like he did .
 
Will H said:
Luckily I got a good apprenticeship when they were hard to come by and that did me well in life , but I can still remember my great grandfather berate his sons who were in their late 50s and WW2 veterans for buying milk and butter from a shop and not having the gumption to make it themselves and own a cow like he did .
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I remember Dad called me out at the breakfast table for helping myself to a large serving of blueberry jam (I'd made) on my toast. Then he looked at the shocked faces from the rest of the family, looked a little embarrassed and laughed at himself. The memories were still there.

Hunting was a thing. Receiving produce from country relatives was a thing, so was sending teenage males from the city to help on relative's farms during summer break and traveling distances by bicycle. There were stories of relatives loosing parts of feet in rural saw mills. No OSHA back then. Nothing useable was tossed. As a kid I remember we were still using a flat two pronged fork at Grandmom's. It was sharp as heck and looked like part of a museum display from the 1700's. Also there were via-ducts between lakes up in NY state, used to move small boats from one lake to another. They were made of wood and raised on trestles like rail road bridges in places.
 
It wasn't just the saw blades, gears, belts and chain drives were dangerous. Tools like the old rivet guns could mess up a steel worker. Steam boilers and faulty valves were an issue. Horses and mules were still very much in use and not always safe and reliable.

Edged hand tools like routers, draw knives and adzes can do serious damage even in experienced hands.
 
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Power takeoffs, corn pickers, corn shellers, various animals. Knew a lot of men minus a hand, arm or leg plus even more who died. Power takeoffs and corn pickers probably claimed the most. Great-grandfather died when a hog ran between his legs throwing him backwards and his head hitting frozen ground. Dh's great aunt died when she caught her long dress on fire while using kerosene to start the fire in a cookstove.

Coal was king during the Depression years, and many died or were injured in coalmining accidents. Steam engines ran factories, trains, farm equipment all powered by coal. Homes were heated with coal, and food was cooked with coal.
 
anna43 said:
Power takeoffs, corn pickers, corn shellers, various animals. Knew a lot of men minus a hand, arm or leg plus even more who died. Power takeoffs and corn pickers probably claimed the most. Great-grandfather died when a hog ran between his legs throwing him backwards and his head hitting frozen ground. Dh's great aunt died when she caught her long dress on fire while using kerosene to start the fire in a cookstove.

Coal was king during the Depression years, and many died or were injured in coalmining accidents. Steam engines ran factories, trains, farm equipment all powered by coal. Homes were heated with coal, and food was cooked with coal.
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The UK was decades behind America in a lot of things coal fires being one of them , most people still heated their homes with coal right up until the late 1980s , I still had a coal fire until the late 90s I am so glad that I have a gas heater these days which makes life a lot easier, even simple refrigeration in the kitchen only became a thing in the mid 70s for most people and ration books for food were used up until 1953 , I was shocked at how little people got a week to live on even 8 years after the end of WW2 America was the land of luxury in comparison to normal life in Britain for the vast majority of the population
 
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Old Gray Mare said:
I remember Dad called me out at the breakfast table for helping myself to a large serving of blueberry jam (I'd made) on my toast. Then he looked at the shocked faces from the rest of the family, looked a little embarrassed and laughed at himself. The memories were still there.

Hunting was a thing. Receiving produce from country relatives was a thing, so was sending teenage males from the city to help on relative's farms during summer break and traveling distances by bicycle. There were stories of relatives loosing parts of feet in rural saw mills. No OSHA back then. Nothing useable was tossed. As a kid I remember we were still using a flat two pronged fork at Grandmom's. It was sharp as heck and looked like part of a museum display from the 1700's. Also there were via-ducts between lakes up in NY state, used to move small boats from one lake to another. They were made of wood and raised on trestles like rail road bridges in places.
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Old Gray Mare said:
I remember Dad called me out at the breakfast table for helping myself to a large serving of blueberry jam (I'd made) on my toast. Then he looked at the shocked faces from the rest of the family, looked a little embarrassed and laughed at himself. The memories were still there.

Hunting was a thing. Receiving produce from country relatives was a thing, so was sending teenage males from the city to help on relative's farms during summer break and traveling distances by bicycle. There were stories of relatives loosing parts of feet in rural saw mills. No OSHA back then. Nothing useable was tossed. As a kid I remember we were still using a flat two pronged fork at Grandmom's. It was sharp as heck and looked like part of a museum display from the 1700's. Also there were via-ducts between lakes up in NY state, used to move small boats from one lake to another. They were made of wood and raised on trestles like rail road bridges in places.
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I was lucky to be raised on a farm my grandad worked at and other family members were gamekeepers so I always had a gun in one hand and a fishing rod in the other , summer holidays for me were following a combine harvester and shooting anything that moved then having to gut and clean it .

My grandad grew up cutting corn with a scythe and he still cut the grass with it until someone gave him a push moar , I learned both and still give my neighbours a laugh when I take out the push moar and cut my grass , I actually find it quicker than using a electric moar if it is kept short by the time you muck about with the cables , one thing I do not miss is my old grandfather seeing a horse crap in the nearby fields send me with a bucket and spade to collect it for his roses and the trailer full of manure that arrived and had to be dug into the vegetable garden
 
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