# the great depression



## timmie (Jan 14, 2012)

anyone have any stories or ways these people survived? i'm just curious. i love history.


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## bugoutbob (Nov 11, 2012)

People survived the great depression by having quiet rooms on campus and nightmares about their candidate losing ... or do you mean the one back in the 30's


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## AmishHeart (Jun 10, 2016)

Ha. That was a funny one.
I have some old depression cookbooks with stories I'll pull out. Not pertaining to depression time, but was thinking about war rationing time. My mom was telling me that alot of the Amish relatives and my grandma would try to find someone to trade meat rations for sugar rations. They needed all the sugar they could get for fruit canning, but didn't really need meat, since they raised their own.


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

I remember my Dad telling me that his mother started doing laundry and baking for the local grocery store. His older brothers (my Dad was the baby of the family by many years) would go and gather all the wild fruits and berries they could and then buy up some almost ready to spoil fruits from local orchards & farms while she did laundry for other people. Grandma would then bake up pies and desserts to sell on consignment. She would use the proceeds to buy cheaper foods like beans, pasta, starches, etc. instead of their more traditional menu while his older brothers would go hunt or fish for meat. They all essentially spent their entire day working to put food on the table while my grandfather took whatever work he could to keep them in a house and pay the bills.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

https://www.infowars.com/researcher-famine-killed-7-million-in-us-during-great-depression/

"According to the US statistics, the US lost not less than 8 million 553 thousand people from 1931 to 1940. Afterwards, population growth indices change twice instantly exactly between 1930-1931: the indices drop and stay on the same level for ten years. There can no explanation to this phenomenon found in the extensive text of the report by the US Department of Commerce "Statistical Abstract of the United States," the author wrote.

"Every sixth American farmer was affected by famine. People were forced to leave their homes and go to nowhere without any money and any property. They found themselves in the middle of nowhere enveloped in massive unemployment, famine and gangsterism."
The then state of affairs in the US society can be seen in Peter Jackson's movie King Kong. The movie starts with scenes of the Great Depression and tells the story of an actress who did not eat for three days and tried to steal an apple from a street vendor. There is food in the city, but many people had no money to buy it in unemployment-paralyzed New York. People starve in the streets against the background of stores selling a variety of foodstuffs.
At the same time, the US government tried to get rid of redundant foodstuffs, which vendors could not sell. Market rules were observed strictly: unsold goods should always be categorized as redundant and they could not be given away to the poor because it could cause damage to businesses. A variety of methods was used to destroy redundant food. They burnt crops, drowned them in the ocean or plowed 10 million hectares of harvesting fields. "About 6.5 million pigs were killed at that time," the researcher wrote.
The consequences of those policies were predictable, the author of the article wrote. "Here is what a child recollected about those years: "We changed our usual food for something for available. We used to eat bush leaves instead of cabbage. We ate frogs too. My mother and my older sister died during a year." (Jack Griffin)."
So-called public works introduced by President Roosevelt became a salvation for a huge number of jobless and landless Americans. However, the salvation was only a phantom, Boris Borisov wrote. The works conducted under the aegis of the Public Works Administration and the Civil Works Administration were about building channels, roads or bridges in remote, wild and dangerous territories. Up to 3.3 million people were involved in those works at a time, whereas the total number of people amounted to 8.5 million, not to count prisoners.

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For the rest of the article click on the link


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## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

I read an article once that said the great depression made Scotch tape very popular, because people needed to find ways to make easy repairs. For example they would repair shoes by making cardboard inserts and taping them in place.


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

My grandmother told me stories that she worked for a doctor and her paychecks were given to her mother to help care for the family. She was the 6th child in a family of 8 kids and 2 adults. At the time she was the oldest daughter not married so she had to help the family by working.

My grandfather was in the military stationed in Hawaii. I have this great photo of him in his lifeguard swimsuit holding a huge wooden surfboard. After he was discharged he asked to marry my grandmother. Repeatedly her mother said no because the family needed her paycheck. My grandfather said,"This is the last time I will ask. If you say no then you 'keep' her." My great grandmother finally agreed for fear of having her daughter be a spinster and another mouth to feed.


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

Sentry18 said:


> I read an article once that said the great depression made Scotch tape very popular, because people needed to find ways to make easy repairs. For example they would repair shoes by making cardboard inserts and taping them in place.


My dad told me he did this as a kid in the 50s when he wore a hole in his sneakers.

My grandparents made him get a job and buy his own stuff as young as 11.


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## timmie (Jan 14, 2012)

momma said she picked strawberries for 2 cents a cup and she also picked cotton. she said they aye possum , **** , and whatever her brothers killed and brought home.


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## Starcreek (Feb 4, 2015)

My mother was about 8 when it hit hard. They were living on a farm in south Florida while her dad worked construction on the Gulf Coast. When construction work dried up, he gathered up his family and went to his dad's farm in north Georgia, where they stayed until the Depression was over.

They rented out their farm in Florida, but the people could not pay the rent, and abandoned the farm. Neighbors slowly dismantled the farmhouse to burn as firewood.

On Great-Grandpa's farm, they had fruit trees and chickens and a milk cow. They ate corn meal mush for breakfast most days, garden vegetables for lunch, and cornbread and milk for supper. Papaw got down in his back and couldn't work, so my mom and her little brother dropped out of school for a year and made a corn crop.

Mom was one year away from graduating and had not planned to go back to school, but a friend bought her books for her and told her to go back to school. She graduated as Valedictorian!

Great-Grandpa ended up losing his mind and trying to burn the house down. He died in the state mental hospital in Milledgeville some years later.

Until the day she died, my mom would always keep a pantry full of food and a freezer slap full of so much frozen food that sometimes she could not remember what she had. But she remembered being hungry, so she always kept extra food.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

the depression was also coupled to a bad drought, if the weather had been decent farmers would have been a lot better off. Barter was huge, My dad was in the trucking business, if he hauled grain for people most wanted to pay him in grain. luckily for him fuel was still hauled in drums so sometimes pay was fuel, he said things were really tough, but because his truck was in really good shape at the beginning he was able to weather things better than others who had let their equipment get down.


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## AmishHeart (Jun 10, 2016)

Boy, I'm remembering fried mush and tomato gravy. Our family still makes it. Hardly costs anything to make, and keeps the belly full.


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

I asked my grandparents and great grandparents about it when I was a kid and they said it didn't influence their lifestyle at all in the Ozarks. They were used to operating with very little money anyway.


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## Starcreek (Feb 4, 2015)

hashbrown said:


> I asked my grandparents and great grandparents about it when I was a kid and they said it didn't influence their lifestyle at all in the Ozarks. They were used to operating with very little money anyway.


I remember years ago a church I was going to in middle Tennessee had a guest speaker that was a very old black man, and he said, "I didn't know there was a depression. I just kept on plowing behind the same old mule."


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## Flight1630 (Jan 4, 2017)

AmishHeart said:


> Boy, I'm remembering fried mush and tomato gravy. Our family still makes it. Hardly costs anything to make, and keeps the belly full.


How do you make that? It sounds like something I want to try.


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## weedygarden (Apr 27, 2011)

Grimm said:


> My dad told me he did this as a kid in the 50s when he wore a hole in his sneakers.
> 
> My grandparents made him get a job and buy his own stuff as young as 11.


My grandfather used chewed chewing gum to hold the cardboard in his shoes. We each were given a piece of gum, and when it was used up, we gave it to him for his shoes.


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## sewingcreations15 (Aug 19, 2017)

This isn't a great depression story but one of a close friend I spoke to yesterday who was brought up during WWII in Australia and went through rationing. She saw terrible things since she lived in an area where U Boats bombed Australian military ships off shore where she lived and saw most of these men being brought ashore at the shipping docks with horrific whole body burns and other injuries.

After asking her she told me she wanted to tell me the story as people needed to know and prepare, and she had tears streaming down her cheeks at the memories she had of war. I will say this experience was deeply moving and upsetting to me as I cuddled her, she was born in 1935. She emphasised here that we in Australian didn't do it nearly as hard as those in the England.

She told me the things that were rationed were -
- Meat.
- Butter.
- Milk.
- Clothing, fabric, sheets and towels.
- Shoes and socks.
- Eggs on occasion.
- Confectionary such as boiled lollies and chocolates that went to the troops in care packages.

She told me that they got by by neighbour helping neighbour and no-one would think of robbing or being dishonest with their friends and neighbours. Communication was key as the ladies in all households would keep an eye out for when supplies would come in such as confectionary, clothing, varying foods etc. She said the competition was fierce for women to get their supplies and quite often they fought and snatched items off each other to make sure their family could survive. They saved their coupons, of which they got 112 per year, to buy things like socks which were 4 coupons, and things like a men's suit was 38 coupons. They had to self regulate the use of their coupons so they would have enough food and clothing for the year.

The following rationing applied here in Australia (children were also classed as adults on rationing too due to their increased food needs) -

- meat 900g per person per week.
- butter 250g per person per week.
- sugar 450g per person per week.
- tea 90g per person per week.

My friend and her husband grew all of their own vegetables and cooked meals from scratch and she told me that trading was a way of life and people thrived by trading their excess of one thing for other things they needed in their homes.

I feel that there is lots of lessons we can all get from her harrowing story of those years with probably the most obvious is to be prepared and trading with and helping others too.


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## camo2460 (Feb 10, 2013)

Flight1630 said:


> How do you make that? It sounds like something I want to try.


We ate a lot of Fried Mush when I was a Kid. All you do is mix enough Corn Meal with Boiling Water until you have a thick Oat Meal like consistency, pour it out into a rectangular Baking Dish and let it cool, then cut it into Squares and fry it in a little Bacon Grease. I'm not familiar with Tomato Gravy so I can't help there, we used Maple Syrup or Honey.


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## AmishHeart (Jun 10, 2016)

Fried mush...just for you, Flight.
Make oatmeal. Then spread it an inch or so thick in a greased baking pan. Put it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, slice it in wedges about an inch by 3 inches. Cook it in a skillet in some fat till it's browned.
Tomato gravy....melt some fat or butter in a saucepan. Add a little flour and whisk it around. Slowly pour in tomato sauce. Cook till it thickens like gravy.
This is not my favorite breakfast.


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## RedBeard (May 8, 2017)

Caribou said:


> My grandfather told a story about one time he had poached a deer out of season. The game warden came by and tried to look into the boat but the dog wouldn't let the warden get aboard. The game warden threatened to kill the dog. Grandpa stood there with his rifle cradled in his arm and suggested that this would not be a really good plan on his part. The dog ate well that night.
> 
> With seven kids Grandpa did what was necessary to put food on the table.


I remember hearing stories of guys my dad knows who refuse to eat venison because during the depression that is all they ate.


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## youngridge (Apr 14, 2017)

PBS has a great series on it. 3 or 4 episodes about the worst hit counties down south.

It's one thing to be out of work, it's a whole different ball game when crops fail year after year.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

AmishHeart said:


> Fried mush...just for you, Flight.
> Make oatmeal. Then spread it an inch or so thick in a greased baking pan. Put it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, slice it in wedges about an inch by 3 inches. Cook it in a skillet in some fat till it's browned.
> Tomato gravy....melt some fat or butter in a saucepan. Add a little flour and whisk it around. Slowly pour in tomato sauce. Cook till it thickens like gravy.
> This is not my favorite breakfast.


Are you talking north American "oatmeal" made from vract: rolled oats or real steel cut oatmeal fit for a Scot


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

RedBeard said:


> I remember hearing stories of guys my dad knows who refuse to eat venison because during the depression that is all they ate.


My sister got like that when pork prices were down and beef prices were up, Dad said he really couldn't see butchering all that profit. (my sister whines too much)


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## AmishHeart (Jun 10, 2016)

Yep. Barn oats.
But I guess you could get fancy if you want to.


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## RedBeard (May 8, 2017)

Tirediron said:


> My sister got like that when pork prices were down and beef prices were up, Dad said he really couldn't see butchering all that profit. (my sister whines too much)


I figure i would rather eat one type of meat the rest of my life than be a vegetarian. With any luck ill never have to find out!


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## timmie (Jan 14, 2012)

i really enjoy reading all the posts you guys have made. momma is telling me more about her childhood. she said the depression didn't really effect them to much as they were already poor. her dad died when she was 8 years old; my grandmothers brother helped them as much he could . he was single and worked on the railroad.


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## phideaux (Nov 7, 2015)

My grandparents taught me to eat cornbread and buttermilk, when I was a kid,
still do.

The garden was what kept my grandparents going, as they were farmers, mostly cotton, and couldnt sell anything.

But they ate , and really didn't see a big change in the way they lived . They had neighbors that all worked together to help each other.

Still miss my grandparents.



Jim


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## power (May 7, 2011)

I can remember my grand mother telling about the government killing cattle to raise the price of cattle. They gathered all of their cattle together and killed them. Wouldn't let anyone even use the meat. If I remember right they were paid less the $6 per head. My grandmother said they even killed her milk cow.
I am not sure about the dates when this happened as I am getting older now and time doesn't mean much anymore.


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## timmie (Jan 14, 2012)

my paternal grandparents were farmers. their cash crop was cane syrup. i remember when syrup making time came ,my dad and his brothers would help with that while all the grandkids fed and watered the animals and did whatever my grand mother needed done. our treat at grandmother's house was a fresh cat head biscuit filled with homemade syrup.


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