Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Sep 21, 2008, at 7:23 AM, Don Bowen wrote:

> The fabled stock market crash of Oct 1929 is always thought of as the
> beginning but the real problems happened when many banks started  
> failing in
> the early 30s.  The steep downturn was in 1932 when many people  
> thought the
> very existence of the USA was in jeopardy. . . . Recovery was well  
> underway by the late 30s but it was a very anemic recovery.

I was born in 1936 and by the time my brain started remembering things  
it remembered the tough times of the late thirties and forties. Stuff  
like one very modest toy for Christmas, Mother-sewn clothes, and  
"Clean up your plate!" When I was ten my parents bought a small home  
on an acre of good dirt at the edge of Beloit, Wisconsin. That acre  
plus effort provided almost all of our food save flour and seasonings.  
In addition to chickens, rabbits, a hog and a steer, summer food came  
out of the garden and winter food came out of canning jars and  
basement storage.

I phoned Mother yesterday. She recounted how she went to a lady they  
knew who had some money and how they worked out a purchase mortgage  
that was doable. Dad made very modest wages but they paid off that  
debt, a certain amount each pay check. Ten years later they sold that  
house and bought our farm. My memory of it is that we did better on  
that one good acre than we did on the 172-acre farm.

The house they bought was next door to where Mother grew up. Grandpa  
built the house. He lost his job and lost the house and died before I  
was born.