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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

I heard similar from my grandparents (Grampa was born in 1866).  Everyone 
thought folks where we come from were living high on the hog during the 
Depression.  The difference between them and the city folks is that the 
families had always raised meat on the old homestead around the county.  In 
our case, Grampa hunted and Gramma kept a large garden and pickled, smoked, 
canned, dehydrated and stocked up.  She always had.  They didn't need the 
butter coupons because they had butter.  They didn't need the meat coupons 
because they had the meat.  They didn't need much in the way of cash because 
Gramma had always made everyones' clothes.  Grampa still did what he always 
had done to provide for the things that they couldn't provide for themselves 
(shoes for the kids, etc.) and that was find some work in the woods or on 
one of the ships.

They even had some of the government types come out because the county was 
"under utilizing" the programs set up to "save" them.

When I asked my mother about the Depression (born in 1928), she gave me a 
puzzled look.  I asked about doing without and all the stuff you read about 
in the history books.  She said that was stuff that happened in other 
places, big cities and "citified" people.  She said nothing changed for most 
folks in our part of the world.

Gramma taught all the kids how to cook, bake, knit, crochet, sew, etc. 
regardless of gender.  Grampa taught all of how to use an ax, a saw, how to 
build, etc. regardless of gender.  When one of the cousins asked why, Grampa 
said that someday you'll all need to know this.  Seems that someday is just 
about here.

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>

> My great grandmother died in 1969 at the age of 106.  My parents were both
> born in 1927 and when I quizzed them about the Great Depression, they told 
> tales
> similar to Gene's above.  My grandparents (born in the 1890's) said that
> being frugal with food, sewing one's own clothes, and very modest holidays 
> had
> nothing whatever to do with the Depression, they'd always lived that way. 
> The
> thing, they said, was that during the depression no one had any money 
> (compare
> this to the bruhaha now of days that all our troubles are that there is no
> credit).  So I asked my great-grandmother about that and she said, "That 
> had
> nothing to do with the Depression, child, no one in these hills ever had 
> any
> money!"
>
> The picture I got was that clicking forward in the generations it was the
> expectation that was the source of discontent rather than actual 
> deprivation.  In
> the post-War for Southern Independence era no one expected to be using 
> money
> in their day to day goings on.  You could go about your daily work weeks 
> on
> end and never have silver cross your palm. But when the expectation was 
> that
> anything you might need or want could be purchased and then the money 
> dried up,
> it was the expectation of that which produced the feeling of deprivation.
>
> Now we (collectively) have gotten ourselves into the unwise position that 
> not
> so much having money is they way we conduct business and everyday affairs,
> but rather it is having credit.  The current panic is over having no more 
> credit.
>   </HTML>
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