On the paternal side of my family, because they lived in the country, my aunts and uncles did not work in cotton mills. Several went to college to become teachers and one a doctor. In retrospect, I marvel at the way my grandfather managed his farm and took care of so many including all the blacks and whites living on the farm. When money was scarce, all of us lived well and had plenty while so many stood in soup lines in the large cities.
We did not have running water, telephones, or electricity. But did have a radio and a newspaper and kept up on what was happening in other places.
Most everything we had was created and made from the land. My mother used a can of lye and the grease from the hogs, which would then be boiled in a huge black pot outside, to make the soap to wash clothes and clean with. It was called “lye soap.” The laundry was done with spring water and wash pots. The clothes were always boiled and then scrubbed on a washboard, rinsed and hung out on lines to dry.
In the wintertime when the crops were “laid by” and the cold weather set in, much time was spent quilting and sewing. My mother took newspapers and cut out her own patterns to make our clothes. She used an old pedal sewing machine. She crocheted, made lace and did tatting. I thought my mother and father could do anything. In the evenings, they helped with school homework and I still have the little kerosene lamp I used to study by from my first day in school. And thanks to the aunts working in the local mills, we were furnished with shoes and winter coats.
At Christmastime, we went to the woods and chopped a tree. We decorated it by stringing popcorn (grown on the farm) and gluing strips of colored paper together to make chains to string on the tree. There was no electricity and no lights. Most of our toys were handmade. We usually received one toy at Christmas, plus a lot of fruit like oranges, brazil nuts and raisins, which was such a special treat for us.
In the fall, after the cotton was picked and taken to a cotton gin in wagons and ginned into large bales, it was lined up on the front yard until it was taken to the market and sold. I have such great memories of the fun I had playing on those bales of cotton. It was also the only time of the year we had any money. There was frugality in spending because the items we did not create from the land and needed to exist required cash at the stores in town, like hardware and tools, plus some food items we could not grow like soda, baking powder, salt, cocoa, sugar, sewing thread, matches, etc.
The economics of life back then during the Great Depression were a lot of work and frugal management of everything we had. My mother used to say when hogs were slaughtered we used everything but the “oink” and the last thing that went over the fence was its little curly tail.
The experiences I had as a child growing up a farm were happy time, but I knew very little about farming. In later years (around the late sixties), I moved to a farm with the notion of trying to learn how to be self-sustaining. This was after studying economics and the freedom philosophy. I think of the crashing we are experiencing today, which was right around the corner then. It seems to me a long time coming, yet there is much talk on the news comparing current conditions to the Great Depression. With food prices soaring, homes being lost, scarcity of fuel, loss of jobs . . . all the signs are pervasive for tough times down the pike.
Back in those days we had a lifestyle that allowed us to survive and live through it until the economy improved. But how many live on a farm today? And who has the means to have a garden and know how to preserve and can food? Who has a mule, horse, wagon or a buggy to use when gas for vehicles is no longer available, as evidenced today with “no gas” signs at the local stations? Will printing more paper money and the government bailing out our companies to the tune of billions going to stop the direction we are headed? Not likely.
As my three-year-old grandson said when he couldn’t make his lincoln logs fit, “this is serious.”
I stopped buying expensive cuts of meat several weeks ago and have used so much hamburger meat I say, “how now thou ground cow.” I’m grateful to still have plenty to eat.
As a result of the growing concerns about the economy, I decided to write this story of survival during the last depression. My family survived quite well with plenty of the essentials for living, but these are different times, and will be more difficult to devise ways to get through it, if the predictions come to pass.
In the past six months, since starting my blog site, www. octogenariansblog.com, I have written almost 100 articles, many about the politics in the economy. They are frequently based upon my life and experiences living through an era of depression. I had no idea when I began, we were so close to another one. I have no magic bullets or a crystal ball, but the signs of the times and our history of past events give a clear warning to stop wasting and tighten our belts for a bumpy road ahead.
I can only hope the crisis we face is temporary and a full blown depression is avoided by some miracle.
Let Freedom Ring!
JUST ME,
AC
One Comment
Good post, i like fresh spring water, the colder the better.