My Dad passed last November at the age of 92. He had a great long term memory but didn't know his children sitting beside him talking to him.
About 1934, Dad was 6 yrs old. That was during the Depression, and there was a bad drought at the time to boot. Apparently the wells were hand-dug and not very deep. There probly weren't any ponds and the creeks were dry.
Anyway, one of Dad's most vivid memories was the cows that had no water or grass. Some guys cut down trees so they could eat the leaves. Eventually the cows were shot and buried in a pit. 86 years later, Dad said he could still hear those cows bawling for water and food. The Govt paid a small amount for each animal. Folks today don't know what bad times are! Yet.

Puts it into perspective

I remember some of my grandparents stories about the depression era. Tough times for sure. Most folks today couldn't survive it.

My dad said, him and my grandpa, used to go and empty septic tanks, with a bucket and put it in barrels on a sled pulled by a horse. My dad held the barrels. While they went to go dump them. He told me all kinds of ways they had to make money and food. Those are real heroes!!! Not! What we have today!

My dad and granddad did the same task for the better off folks. They called themselves "Honey dippers" and also during the depression. I remember the stories vividly. I think it was so bad they felt obligated to tell them stories as they felt if it could happen once....

My dad was born in 1909 and started farming on his own in 1932. Broke horses to harness, to do his farming.

I asked him once about having good broke horses, and he said he never had 'good broke horses'.

What? I said, I thought you were a 'horse breaker'. He said he was, when he got them broke good, he sold them and started over.

I asked why he didn't keep the good broke teams, and he said "Ya can't make money that way."

Any time I mentioned 'upgrading' to 'more efficient' equipment, he said that takes money we didn't have, and the stuff we had took more work, but we had plenty of that.

He and Mom put 720 acres together with HARD WORK, and being frugal with what they had.

Dad passed away in 1990, and he is still getting smarter.


Charlie

Charlie I really like that story of your dad. That really showed some true wisdom right there

... that’s tough Gary

Gary, same around here. GGF picked up grasshoppers to feed the chickens so they could eat. Granny my grandmother kept wet towels on the babies faces so they didn’t get dust pneumonia. She was in charge at the age of 11 because her mom had died.

I was lucky enough to sit my mother (Born 1917) down and record a bunch of her old timey stuff. One little story she told about during the Depression was about my father hauling down $15 a week at a forge he worked in about 1937. My mother was a penny pincher that was in charge of the family finances. She said she had it figured out to the penny, and if my dad would just bring home $2 more a week they'd be living on Easy Street! He wasn't able to get those "high" type of wages until after WW2 had begun.

Thanks, Pete.

Dad was a trapper too. at one time. He said he had 50 or so skunks all skinned and on boards hanging up in the top of the grainery, and when he came back from a RARE trip to town, someone had stolen the whole works.

One time Mother stopped and picked up a 'dead' badger and put in the trunk of the car. She was so proud until Dad opened the trunk and the badger had 'revived'.

Knowing Dad's 'way with words', I'm sure it got pretty 'colorful' about then. He did however get it dispatched, skun, boarded, and sold.


Charlie

My dad came home one day with a story about WPA workers. It seems not all of them worked hard.

A rattlesnake came crawling by a WPA worker who was leaning on a shovel. The worker said to the snake "You so and so, if I had another shovel I would kill you."

my grandfather told me they used to shoot rabbits and sold those to folks in town for food. Sometimes he'd trade rabbits for .22 shells. Grandma would ration him shells.
He drank a lot in his later years. Always had a good story for me though.

My grandpa grew cotton and my grandma raised the labor force. My dad's childhood consisted of a lot of cotton pickin' and sawmill workin'.

My grandfather was in Nebraska when the dust bowl hit and the family lost the farm. He said the ground cracked from being dry so bad that he was afraid the horses would break a leg in the crevasses.

He briefly worked on a WPA project building roads. He got a dollar a day and an extra dollar a day because he had a mule that he worked on the project. He was in his early 20's and heard through his church that there was work in NJ. He road his motorcycle to NJ. Said the motorcycle was too big for him and he fell off at every stop street. Fortunately there weren't may stop streets between Nebraska and NJ. He sent a letter home to let the family know there was work available and my great grandfather and the rest of the family followed.

When he got here he rented some farm land and worked it with a team of horses. He said that most of the farmers had a tractor. Farming with horses was a thing of the past but he didn't have the money for tractor.

He got married, built a house, bought a farm, had 5 sons, was a deacon in our church, taught me how to sharpen a saw, and took me hunting every deer season since I was 10. A few times, when I was little, he and I walked to church service through the woods instead of driving. It was an adventure and felt like 100 miles of wilderness. I now know that there are about 3 miles of woods between his farm and our church.

He passed away 18 years ago.

My parents married in 1926. It was custom for Dad to drop Mom off at the grocery store (Depression). One day she walked to the car and my father said what are those yellow things. He had never seen bananas. He asked how much did they cost? Mom replied.05. He said take them back and get your money back.
A nickel was a nickel!

My mom used to say they could only go to school one day a week with five siblings sharing one pair of shoes.

They were for sure tougher than us. When I'd come back to the house with a single shot 22 and a squirrel or rabbit, Granny told me to skin it and she'd cook it for me. I'd offer to share, she said she lived on those critters and beans all through her childhood, she wasn't eating them anymore lol. I was probably 10 or so. She was born in 1919. I've got her lantern she carried with her Dad coon hunting, and his traps and one of his guns. She's been gone 5 years, I miss her every day

Great stories. My Dad caught a skunk and his Mother skinned it for him. That's love!
Back in those days when a man earned $1 a day, a great mink would bring $30.

Sears and Roebuck used to buy furs. Just wrap them up and send them in. They would grade them and send you a fair price. Imagine that!