The thread about the wonderful homemade model T ford intake got me to thinking. My parents have been gone for a half dozen years now, and even though they were very young at the time, the depression had a lifelong effect on them. Very few living people still have first hand memories of that age in history, and if they do, they are now in their upper 90s.
People had time, but no money. You can see hours and hours of labor in that wonderful intake manifold. Today, I’d be glad to give intake manifolds away, as they are just about unsellable.
Here is a very old ladle. Handmade, and it will not take long to recognize what model T part was used. Think of the time it took. I remember a post about repurposed T parts, and would love to see more. Remember the generator drill from a couple years ago?

That ladle is certainly an old timer isn't it?
Rich

Yesseree!! A real old timer!!
I have a wonderful metal lathe made of model t parts that is very ingenious. I offered it to the museum but they weren't interested. Also have a drill press made from T rods.

Not intending to drift, but Tim's comment about the Depression affecting folks for the rest of their lives aroused a dormant memory. When I was a teen, my Dad (R. V. Anderson II) and I once stopped at a diner for lunch. Sitting near us was an older fellow eating a burger. Atop the meat was a slice of onion that was about two and a half inches thick, practically the whole vegetable. Dad laughingly pointed that out to me, but as we ate our own meal Dad said: "Even though he didn't hear me, I shouldn't have laughed at that guy and his onion. No doubt he went through the Depression, probably dirt poor, when folks had to eat however they could, and he and his family probably had to get the most food for the money wherever they ate."

R.V. Anderson III

Cool! Here's another cool use of good Ford steel, it's Dan Treace showing his crowbar made from a Model T camshaft:

Tim, it was the same with my parents. They both grew up during the depression and it never really left them .

My dad used engine blocks and hogsheads to set boards on for shelves, eh Tim !!
Most of the HCCTs are repurposed T parts...



I repurposed some band lining for the brake on the 29 H-D



The old man hauled parts for years in a trailer made from a V8 Ford rear axle and part of the frame, it had working brakes too !

I have a bottle capper with a T steering wheel on it ! lol

Look carefully! No money for a fender but time to fix this one.



Yes I saved it. It had lain down over the bank for probably close to 100 years. Their first house was a dugout in the bank above the creek. In five years they did well enough to build a new Sears and Roebuck house. The dugout fell in but the fender from their first car survived.

I was raised living by dads depression rule of "use it up, wear it out, make it do"! After he retired, the motto was "wear out, don't rust out"! He lived up to it too! He was retired 30 years, and was able to go anywhere he wanted, and do anything he wanted. A life well lived, in part due to the depression upbringing in Vermont.

Great picture Stan!! Needs to be on a Clampitt vehicle somewhere for others to enjoy!!")

Stan, I would think it’s pretty difficult to whack that many rivets into curved sheet metal without denting it up somewhere. It looks so beautifully done. I see why you kept it.

I thought it was just the coolest thing. So carefully done. I should have taken more photos of the huge Sears house they built when they moved out of the dugout.

This is the kind of auction I love. We spent a week there going through the old buildings and digging in the closets and attic. Lots of old equipment, abut 5 acres of salvage and parts yard and one running tractor on the whole place. Huge crowd for a nasty cold spring day and lots of interest in the homestead antiques.

Here is the big house. Totally unchanged from 1916 when it was built except for being wired for electricity.

Yes, the Depression made a big impression. My aunts saved empty jars, plastic containers, aluminum foil, pieces of feed sacks — anything that might be used later. A great book on the Depression generation is Studs Terkel's Hard Times, in which people tell their stories of what it was like.

The person that made this blowtorch out of two headlamp buckets probably had more time than money.

Jim, that is how we used to be. People who were ingenious and could make about anything out of anything.

I once suggested to the powers that were that we should have a section at the museum that showed things that were made from Model T parts. People used to make all sorts of things from used parts. Almost every farm and many in town had a shop with a forge and tools. Not so any more.

At one time I had a pair of spurs made from the three pronged headlight bucket fitting. I sold them one winter along with nearly all of my branding iron and other western collectibles. They were very cool. A lot of branding irons were made from T parts, a lot of handles from wagon box cross irons and the iron itself from various parts, a favorite in later years were the two straps that go from the frame to the engine/transmission on the 26/7's. They are good iron, about the right size for small irons. Bigger irons used other T iron, especially springs. A hot spring is easy to straighten, bend, forge weld and will take grinding without any problems. They are good steel and will take the heat of a branding fire.

A lot of Ford steel ended up being used for knives, too. I once saw a knife made from a rod that had been blacksmith worked into a knife blade.

Back to the shop. Trying to keep them on the road so they don't end up as crowbars and branding irons.

In answer to a question, the photo was taken in May of 2015 and the house was exactly the same as when it was built except it might have been painted a time or two. Or maybe just the kitchen. No plumbing, the well is about 200 feet away, bucket and basin on the wash stand. No bathroom, no running water either in or out. The necessary was about 100 feet the other way from the well. The kitchen stove was the one they put in when the built the house, the heater in the living room was a wood and coal heater from the 40's.

The kitchen is straight in the door, to the right was the living room and behind that the largest bedroom. To the right of the kitchen in line with the porch was a small bedroom, there was another small bedroom behind the kitchen with a pantry in between. There was a ladder to the attic but it was never finished. The house is 28 x 28.

A cousin of the man who lived there bought it for his daughter and her husband who have done a lot of work on it and are living in it. The made a bathroom out of the pantry and plumbed it for running water, rewired it and it is a very nice house today.

People in eastern Montana are not ostentatious. They know how hard things were come by and they take care of them. Sara and her husband will probably live in this house and farm this land their entire life. They did tear down all the old buildings and build a new shop for Scott.

Wow Stan....that house is beautiful.

My dream is to find a property just like that, with all the "debris" still intact. Then, spend a couple decades going through every single bit of it while making the house nice.

I still have and use a nice pry bar made from a "T" drive shaft.

Popular Mechanics put out a magazine during the WWII that was full of tools and things that could be made from car parts, most of them T parts. Many school grounds had merry-go-rounds made from rear axles bolted to concrete with a handle to spin it. It was fun but probably to dangerous later.

My dad had a rake made of Model T magnets mounted on a board with a handle. He would use it to comb the floor of his furniture factory to find nails and screws which had been dropped. Every Saturday it was my job to sweep up all the sawdust and wood shavings to burn in the incinerator. I would get 10c an hour which I saved up to pay for summer camp. If I saved it, he would match me for camp, but if I spent it, no match.
Norm

Stan is that the dog house by the fence?

Yes

My parents had some issues when I was growing up so I was partially raised by my grandparents. He was born in 1910 and she in 1916. They were married in 1934 and immediately had my uncle and dad. So...they were young parents during the Depression.

He died when I was a pretty young but she lived into her 80's and I called her "Nanny" and loved her dearly...like a mother.

So, in spite of the fact that I'm a month away from my 50th birthday, I was raised by people who had the mentality that the Great Depression instilled in them. I often attribute my love of old cars and old things in general to being raised by folks who kept old things going by repairing them endlessly.

Speaking of the depression, does anyone have a collection of depression-era recipes?

I'm after one my dad often talks about his aunt making when he was a kid that he only ever knew as a 'boiled lunch.' Sounds like it was all fresh vegetables boiled together, then removed from the pot while the resulting stock was reduced and thickened into a sort of vegetable gravy that was then poured over the top. Between the ingredients costing nothing and there being zero waste, I assume this dish dates to depression times. Neither he nor I are talented enough chefs to really figure out where to even start trying to make this the right way, and even if this dish had a formal name we don't know it.

Does anyone know the dish I'm talking about?

My parents married in 1940, and accordingly, definitely had what someone in this thread called,...."the depression era mentality", which I guess to some degree, has been passed on to me.

This thread reminded me of one of my most memorable details of my parents way of doing things, which, to this day, I find to be in many ways, pretty much in line with todays modern "ecology-minded" way of thinking. Here's an example of what I mean:

Dad was a switchman on the Indiana Harbor Belt RR in Chicago. Accordingly, he aways carried (as did most railroaders in those days) a black metal "lunch bucket" which was always equipped with a bracket to hold the glass-lined thermos bottle for coffee. If you're over 50, you can probably envision those ever popular "lunch buckets", or as my English grandfather (Locomotive Engineer on the SooLine RR in Chicago) always referred to his as his "dinner pail". Also in those days, there was no such things as SaranWrap, or plastic sandwich bags or the like,....the universal method was to wrap sandwiches in "waxed paper". Again, if you're younger that 50, you'll probably have no idea of what waxed paper was.

Here's that "depression era mentality" I was talking about:

More often than not, the carefully wrapped sandwiches (always two sandwiches, because the "hours-of-service" law in those days was 16 hours) anyway, sandwiches were always carefully wrapped identically in the waxed paper, and carefully un-wrapped and neatly re-folded for and placed back in the lunch bucket for re-use on the next 16 hour trip. As a rule, the sandwich was neatly and carefully made in such a way that the waxed paper might now be creased, but otherwise, just as clean as new, and for that reason, was always saved for further use. If just a bit of butter, ketchup, etc, etc might remain on the waxed paper, it was just wiped off with one of the napkins Mom always included with the lunch, and accordingly, the used waxed paper was now clean and ready for re-use. I firmly believe that some of those neatly folded and re-used pieces of waxed paper made three, or four, of even more trips with my Dad in the old wooden IHB RR caboose!

I guess that's just one example of the "thriftiness" of my depression era parents, as they carefully preserved, and re-used many household items, and I'm not ashamed to admit, that a lot of that has rubbed off on my wife and I, as to this day, I have a hard time discarding a used paper plate that merely had a sandwich and a few potato chips on it for a few minutes until consumed, and the paper plate remaining as clean as new. So, why not re-use it, right? (Mom & Dad would be pleased.....) Again, I think this depression era,...."use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" mentality is right in line with todays "ecology minded" thinking!

For what it's worth,.....harold

Here is a speed reducer that someone made out of a Model T steering planetary gear assembly. They used a Model T piston rod for the handle. The input shaft is turned down to 1/2" so it can be chucked up. The output shaft is threaded.

That's ingenious !!
Looks a little out of balance with the drill hooked up...

Here is a better photo.

There were so many ways Depression era people made do with what they had. My Grandfather (1885 to 1975, R.I.P.) rode his bicycle the 1.5 miles to work at the Nash factory here in Kenosha, WI, even in the winter if the roads were ok. When his hours were cut at Nash, he would do painting and wallpapering. He didn't go out and buy a new pickup to haul his equipment as some today might do, he hauled a ladder and folding wallpaper table on the fender and running board of his Nash. After he retired, (this would be in the late '60's,) he and his Wife's weekly treat was to get a burger on Saturday night at McDonald's.

My Wife says I take after him a lot.

Keith

I have the remains of a speed reducer almost just like that one! (Except the connecting rod handle is missing)

If you have a couple extra steering wheels, you could make a reel like this to wind up your hose or rope or ???


You can clamp it on the fence or table.
Someone was quite creative.

In the Loxton Settlement museum on the River Murray in South Australia, there is a unique hand brace hanging among a collection of tools. Between the chuck for the usual Auger bit and the handle is a T steering box. That would have given the user a much steadier feed when boring timber.

My wife's aunt who recently turned 101, is certainly a depression era survivor. When visiting her in her home once we witnessed her putting things to go back into the frig onto a stool by the frig door. We thought she must have forgotten something and reminded her of the things left out. It was a deliberate act. Everything went in in one opening of the door, to save the frig having to run for any longer than needed. I guess this was an extension of the need to keep the icebox of earlier days closed as much as possible too.

Hard to argue against the logic of this.

Allan from down under

I remember my grandmother drying slightly used paper towels.

After a Sunday dinner when most everything was cleaned up, there was always that one paper towel that only got wet. Ma would drape the paper towel of the handle of the oven. The oven was most likely still giving off some heat so it dried quickly. I sure miss those days!

This is a great thread, I hope it keeps going. The stuff people made is really cool and ingenious, but it is even better to read about the people, our ancestors.

A belt drive take idler (for "something"):

Duplicator of some sort. Great use of old connecting rods!

In the northern Michigan town of Cross Village there is a very popular restaurant called Legs Inn. Built in 1921 by a former auto worker, the threshold of the main entrance is a section of a Model T running board from the period (diamond pattern and Ford logo.) It has held up for 97 years.

That running board is a one year only 1912!

My wife gets mad at me, but I often save used (not nasty!) napkins and paper towels to wipe up spills of oil or paint.
I know. I am a cheapskate.

My Grandfather also went through the Depression. He later turned into a pack rat and never threw anything away. He use to keep styrofoam carry out food containers stacked in his basement, every utility statement kept in boxes, every pay stub from Chrysler, old steel/bent nails in cans to re-purpose later, etc. When he became ill before he past away, I thought I was "slick" and would slowly go through the food containers and little by little place them in the garbage can to dispose of them. I later found out when I would leave, he went through the garbage and brought them back into the house. He wore worn out clothes with a rope for a belt and if you saw him, you would have been compelled to give him money, not knowing he never went anywhere/did anything but stay home and had hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden throughout his house/or buried in coffee cans in the back yard or at the bank in a safety deposit box only, no account. he paid cash for everything including two cars. The last was a 92 Buick Lesabre. He showed up at the dealership with his brief case of cash money to pay for it. The dealership said they could not accept cash. As my Grandpa started to exit the dealership W/O a brand new car, they had a change of heart and told they would "make an exception". I snuck one night, washed his grubby clothes he wore every day, thinking I did a good thing. The next morning I caught holy hell for washing his clothes and making them "thread bear". He would peel mold off of bread and eat the "good parts telling me the "Penicillin" was good for ya". After he past away, going through his and Grandmas closets and drawers, were dozens of brand new suits, ties, shoes still in boxes, skivvies, they never wore. He is the mostly the one who is responsible for making me who I am and "not to waste anything, fix what you have, with what you have and if it can't be fixed, find another purpose for it". His address was 16442 Fairmount Detroit, Mi 48205. If anyone feels adventurous, GUARANTEED there is still money hidden in the house or buried in the backyard.

Truley cheap is when you use both sides of the paper!Bud.

This thread has been a hoot to read. I was born in 1935 so still remember some of the rough parts of life at that time. Even during WW2 we were dirt poor, but I remember that I usually had a nickel for a half pint bottle of milk to go with my peanut butter sandwich at school. I laughed at Harolds post about reusing the wax paper and his not throwing away a paper plate that is reusable. I have a paper plate down at my summer cabin that has quite a few miles on it but only because the wife doesn’t go down there with me all that much!! My wife and I recycle aluminum foil when feasible and keep it in a folder in the cupboard. Last Sunday while preparing dinner for the whole family, she used most of it up wrapping the potatoes to be baked in the oven, so we need to replenish the folder. We are comfortable middle class now, but the old ways die hard and I’m okay with that. My wife claims I’m a “packrat” and I do have a difficult time throwing things away that be repaired and reused. I work at keeping my instincts under control, but I’m pretty sure that my boys have already figured out how many dumpsters it’s going to take to haul my collection of treasures to the dump when I cross over the river!! That’s okay too because life has been a hoot and when I cross over the river, I’m not even going to look back!!

These are on Craigslist. They are auto ramps made from running boards.

A little over a year ago I bought a 26' T Roadster PU from the grandson of an old guy I bought T parts from when I restored our 14'. Every body on this forum would have loved going thru his buildings of stuff. The grandson inherited this T from the old guy. When they were cleaning out his freezer they noticed strange packages that sorta looked like meat packages, so they decided to open them instead of throwing them. What they found was about $240,000.00 dollars in cash. They came real close to chucking it all. The old guy lived like he was dirt poor.

Additional remembrances of The Ancient One:

Anyone remember white margarine in a sealed plastic bag with a color button inside that had to be broken and then kneaded to spread it throughout the package to make it look like butter??

How about outhouses that came equipped with Sears or Wards catalogs?? They were not there for reading material, although they served that purpose too.

It was tin foil, not aluminum foil, back in the day and it was saved in a ball to be turned in for the war effort. (Along with tooth paste tubes)

Not real happy with the mess we’ve made of things nowadays, but on the other hand, sure don”t miss “The good old days” either!!

My father 's father was a sharecropper in the depression . My grandfather and his soninlaw's built my dad's boy hood home on a foundation of Model t blocks . It still stands to day .

My grandmother would save literally ANY amount of food leftover at a meal. If there were three peas left in a serving bowl, they'd go into a small container and they'd reappear at the next meal. Then, while you were eating, she pressure you into eating them so they didn't go to waste. You'd end up eating them out of self-defense.

She washed and re-used aluminum foil.

After I got out of the military and was in college, I'd drive from Denton, TX to Johnson City, TX once every other week to take to the movies (she called it the "Picture Show") in Austin. She refused to buy the overpriced candy and popcorn so we'd wear our winter coats, even in the sweltering summer heat, and smuggle in sandwiches, etc. On one occasion, we were unwrapping our sandwiches during the previews and an elderly British couple behind us remarked, "are those roast beef sandwiches? If so, we've got soup." We then proceeded to divide it all up and had a grand old time.

Oh how I miss her. On those trips from Johnson City to Austin on Hwy 290, she'd talk about the days in the 1930's when she and my grandfather were living in the area and life during the Depression, working on a local ranch. They were acquainted with LBJ and didn't really care for him so much.

Her maiden name was Wills. The famous Bob Wills was her cousin and she'd also talk of the Wills family reunions of long ago and how practically everyone was musical to some degree and there was always a lot of singing and great accompanying instruments. I attended the very last of the Wills family reuinions in the 70's and it was still spectacular.

One of my mother's favorite expressions was, "A woman can throw out more with a spoon than a man can bring home with a shovel!"

One of my mother's favorite expressions was, "A woman can throw out more with a spoon than a man can bring home with a shovel!"

Every year for the last ten years or so on my December radio show I play a Texas song by Andy Wilkenson - the Tumbleweed Christmas Tree - about a Christmas spent in Notrees Texas when he was six. Too poor to buy a tree, they decorated a Tumbleweed.
I get more reaction to it than anything else I play all year. Google it and listen to it, then play it for your grandchildren. I can't do a link on my phone but you can also listen online at mtpr.org go to archieved shows, this one was The Folk Show for December 4. I also tell again about Snuggles, my 71 year old Teddy bear my mother made from an old coat and a felt hat.

https://sonichits.com/video/Andy_Wilkinson/The_Tumbleweed_Christmas_Tree

My Grandmother would put out breakfast in the morning,if all of it was not eaten it would be there for lunch. Because I didn't like re-heated Grits I made sure there were none left for lunch, sausage bacon or ham I would eat all of them for leftovers! YUUM YUUM!

It's probably my phone but that link only loaded part of the song, I think it's a teaser to order the CD. I have to get back to work, maybe I can find a YouTube link and post it if nobody else does it first.
If I don't get a couple carbs done today my kids will be posting a link to my funeral instead of my radio shows.
Not everyone is well off today. I took yesterday afternoon off and went to Butte, met a girl at Lisacs tires, put a new set of Hancooks on her little Ranger pickup I bought her a couple years ago.
Did the front brakes and one wheel bearing, alignment, checked the battery, alternator etc. She is trying to go to college, work and play basketball in hopes of getting a scholarship for the next three years to graduate as an elementary teacher. All that cost about one and a half Stromberg rebuilds. Better get to the shop and get some done.
This is a girl I'm friends with,not Sandi's daughter.

Love this stuff ! Thanks for the pictures. Gotta love ‘em all , but Kim’s drill and Jim’s hose reel ! Over the top! The museum display like Stan suggested sounds good , but I’ve never been able to get a straight answer on where the motor rebuilding stuff ended up from 14 years ago. I’ve had bad experiences with museums , in general, so not for me to donate any further.

She got up at 4:30 every morning the last couple summers and drove 20 miles out to a ranch to be there at sunup to move irrigation pipe. Then back to town to work as a lifeguard and mow lawns and haul garbage and grass clippings in the Ranger. Saving money for college.
Not all young people are worthless bums.
She also has one of my fancy archtop guitars and plays pretty well considering lessons were never in the budget.

Hi don We my be kinfolks , I too am related to the Wills . Lots of them around Burnet . One of Bob Will's buses was abandon on a ranch west of town in the back country hills .I ran across it ,when fighting a brush fire in my in my volunteer fireman days . It was faded but you could still read Bob Wills and the Texas Play boys on it . Perry Burnet Tx.

Here is the link to "The Tumbleweed Christmas Tree" on you tube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL11PhMOzvc

Snuggles Oversees The Christmas Folk Show
By CHÉRIE NEWMAN • DEC 4, 2017

STAN HOWE
With the help of Snuggles, a teddy bear made from his mother's old coat, Stan Howe prepares for his annual Christmas edition of The Folk Show.

"Once a year," says Howe, "around his birthday, I get him out, set him on the 78 turntable and we do my Christmas show for MTPR, remembering the long ago days when my mother turned an old black jacket she didn't like into a teddy bear that has been loved ever since."

1947

I may have seen that same bus on a flatbed on I-10 some years ago. It was definitely a Bob Wills tour bus, logo was faded.

I have a nail carrier box made from two coil boxes attached to a center board for a handle. I'll see if I can find it and post a picture. Probably take a few days, I'll have to use up the rest of the roll of film and then send it off to get it developed and wait for it come back in the mail. That's what they did in T days.

Hi Perry....we're probably cousins x-times removed.

The Wills came to Texas in the 1840's and spread out far and wide. Their impact was great, not only on music, but on the state in general. The Wills that I had the privilege of knowing were kind, gentle and generous to a fault.

Conroe had an old crusty Bob Wills bus that sat north of town on Hwy 75 until about 10 years ago. I'm not sure what happened to it. Maybe it's the same one.

That bear is amazing beyond words Stan.

It's amazing the ingenuity behind some of these projects. On the radio this morning there was a story, and I'm not making this up, that canned tuna sales are down. The reason...… millennials DO NOT know how to operate a can opener! I'm not kidding, Google it.

HI Don It sounds like the Wills I know . My great grandparents came to Burnet co/ Llano co On Colorado River in 1869 . They had 12 children , There first child was born in 1871 . She married Alexander Wills . William Perry and Sarah had 6 boys and 6 girls. We are close to all the cousins to this day . I have a video of the Goble family reunion on the Colorado river in the 1970s .There is at least a 100 people there . The Wills and Gobles play music. We were about to start playing at the Burnet bluebonnet Festival when the M C said This is the only band that you have to audition for . In order to marry in to the family .

When we lived in eastern North Dakota where ice fishing is popular, I saw an ice auger made out of a Model T starter and steering column and gears. I think the guys were arguing about whether to use 6 or 12 volts on it and whether the builder should have used 5-1 gears. Now we are in Montana and grasshopper poison spreaders made out of differential cases are fairly common.

Im trying to find a photo of my uncles manifold heater he made for his T. It had a headlight reflector on the front side with sheet metal box around the manifold and it went to a hole in the floor boards. The air was funneled in the reflector with a large hole cut to attach to the box.
I have inherited the "packrat" gene as well. Drives the wife crazy. She cleans out the cupboards of all containers with no lids and in the trash they go. Somehow they end up in my shop. She pitches cloths and they wind up in the shop as grease rags. I could go on but you get it.Funny you mention can openers. I cant tell you how many old houses I have worked on with tin can lids nailed over knot holes or rodent holes in boards.

Growing up, we had an outhouse about half the time I was at home. I dont miss frosty seats! Some times we had to pump our water. Cutting firewood was what we did with spare time. We fished and hunted and picked berries ,picked up potatoes after the picker,canned anything we got our hands on. Mom made most of our cloths or picked up cloths at yardsales. We never went hungry and had a roof over us. Music was played at every get together by family or friends. Everyone we knew played something. It was our passtime. We didnt have color TV,video games,or new toys, as a matter of fact going to the "dump" was exiting because of people with modern idea if you dont use it in a year, pitch it. We came home with some nice toys that way. I am not as old as some of you fellas, in fact Im 50 so I grew up much different than most my age. I would not trade those memories for anything in this world.I will call my cousin and see if he can send photos of that manifold heater. It is sitting in his man cave.

I wish you lived closer Dallas...we’re the same age, have similar tastes in Model T’s and seem to have been raised pretty much the same way.

Don, I agree. My grand dad died in 1977 when I was 9 but grandma lived with us or my aunt every other year from then until she passed. I loved the stories she would tell about her growing up. My grandparents played music also. Grand dad played guitar, fiddle and the hand saw. Grandma played pump organ.

This thread was started many years ago with a urinal in a shop being made from a Model T pan and something went sideways, the thread stopped and the poster also left.

Not T related but part of my second job (side business) is home inspections. Because of estate sales from elder people lots of houses have a crank type pencil sharpener on the basement stairwell and most don't know what it is. The house phone plugs are confused with internet with the wrong plug or some type of stereo system. I had a buyer with a masters degree who her mother had to write the check to me as she had never written one before and just opened the account to buy the house and pay the inspectors.

Sure glad I can use a can opener, one is built into my pocket knife.

And best of all, a tuna can is my radiator cap on my T at the moment. Found it on the road when I lost mine.
Please, do try the tuna. And feel free to discard the cans anywhere someone might find them useful later.

Tin cans filled with bent nails . The old grates from the once coal now oil furnace, (in case we had to go back), garden tools with broken handles. bits of iron and steel and wood. Yea I remember my Grandparents "odd" saving habits.

Good morning, this is a great thread!

My father was born in 1907 so he got to see a lot of changes in his life.
when we went to the dump we would bring more things home then we took! And when growing up for the longest time I thought my name was "Go" hey, go mow the lawn, go rake the leaves, go split wood!
Thanks again for sharing everyone, have a great day!

I still have some Model T parts found in my grandads barn 60 years ago.As for the need for a can opener i carry a P-38 on my key ring.Bud.

Old furnace grates ??



How bout a repurposed dental drill, my dad used it to polish parts. My uncle was a dentist ?



And the bottle capper...

Don and Dallas...
My mom's parents lived next door to us, they were both from the hills of Kentucky. Grandpa was born in 1897. Had 7 brothers and 3 sisters, most migrated north to Michigan. Grandpa stopped in Akron and worked at the rubber factory. He had rheumatic fever as a boy and his feet were turned out from it, basically walked on his inside ankle bones...for 30+ years in the factory. Sent money every week to his family still left in KY.
They always had a huge garden, canned everything. Dried cayenne peppers and green beans on strings in the upstairs window. I have a picture somewhere of me at about 8 years old with grandpa digging potatoes !
Maybe 10 apple trees and they used them, gramdma's homemade apple sauce, apple dumplings, apple butter, pie. Oh and cherry trees, sour, but makes some awesome pie.
Grapes, berries, pears...you name it, they grew it.
Any apples left at the end of the year, the JCs would pick up for cider.
I miss that cooking, green beans cooked all day with some sow belly...oh yeah !
Burned the trash in a 55 gallon drum...they had an outhouse till a few years before I was born. My uncles tipped one over at Halloween and someone was inside !!

It was a blessing growing up next to them (spoiled just a little), taught a lot of forgotten ways and values that just don't seem to exist much anymore.

That furnace grate is for return air, usually in the hall in oak floor. I've sanded and refinished a lot of em

What Charlie B. was referring to were the grates from the firebox of the furnace that held the coal up from the incoming air so it would burn hotter.
Not the fancy (or plain) grate on the floor for the warmed air to rise into the house.

I remember those grates in my parents and grandparents houses...you did not step on them barefoot.

My Grandpa also made a bottle capper, looks like the same as the one Dave posted. I bet there was an article how to make one in some old Popular Mechanics magazine.

Not T but my cousin gave me a gag Xmas present about 20 years ago of an item they found in in what had been used as a small henhouse as the nest boxes were still in it. It is an old 2 holer seat made out of rough sawn cedar. The place they bought at Joyce Wa. Is about 100years old. I am not sure, but it might be a single board. It is sti'll stored in my attic. There was a garage there that was sided and roofed out of hand split cedar boards. You would think the roof would leak as the garage was very old, but it was dry inside. People used what was available. Somewhere I have a long curved double ended wrench made out of a rasp. I bought it just for the oddity of it.

A breakfast recipe from my father in law, who grew up in Depression era Oklahoma:

Heat frying pan and cook (brown) sausage patties. Try to use a fairly "fatty" sausage, although I've used Jimmy Dean with success.

Meantime, bake a bunch of biscuits (Pillsbury Grands are good).

When the sausage is done, remove it from the pan and place on paper towels to drain. Now, here is the important part.....pour off exactly HALF the sausage grease into a container to be used for soap or other purposes. Replace the poured off grease with half and half whipping cream, stirring while it heats.

Remove biscuits from oven, place sausage patties next to (or on) biscuits, pour "gravy" over biscuits/sausage and eat.

I flat out GUARANTEE this breakfast will hold the heartiest man until lunch......probably until dinner. Oh, remember to take your Lipitor!

I saw this for sale on T-Bay a while back.

You were blessed to live next to them Dave.

I'm sure my grandparents had many of the same faults that most people have, but they always seemed to follow that old song's advice..."accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative".

My grandparents were young teenagers during the depression and the were very frugal and used and fixed everything until it couldn't be repaired.My grandpa was a welder for the state of Fla, so everything was welded up. He drove a beat up 31 model A coupe until I was 6 in 1968.My dad is frugal in the same ways but it is 79 now.

My Grandparents were born in the teens and my Dad and Mom were born in 32 and 33. My moms parents had died when she was a young girl, so I was only able to know my Dads parents. When he was born, they were living in a shipping crate on a ranch where Granddad worked. Food and work was scarce. People had to become resourceful or die. I remember Grandma talking passionately, about one time when Grandpa brought home some butter and how wonderful it was. Their car was a model t with star fenders, that Grandpa had built. Grandma could make a meal out of almost nothing. She wouldn't waste anything. Always cooked the bacon first,then the eggs,in the grease, and then mix flour in with the bacon grease to make gravy to put on the toast. This kind of cooking probably didn't help our arteries much. Times were tough, I think about my Dad and Granddad when I am having a ruff day at work, and are so grateful that I don't have to put in the kinda of time they did! I grew up in Las Vegas, Nv, and always looked forward to going to the dump with Dad. We called it the East Las Vegas exchange and like mentioned earlier, we usually came home with just as much stuff. One day Dad was complaining about how much junk we had and Mom gave her explanation on the situation. Your a pack rat, I'm a pack rat, and we had six little pack rats.

I am thoroughly enjoying this thread..
Us older guys ,I’m 70, grew up in simpler times for sure ...
My Grandparents,Swedish immigrants ,,were a big part of my life growing up..I loved to hear the stories they told ..We never went hungry and always sat at the kitchen table as a family and discussed our day ...I think all these stories show why we enjoy our T’s and the simple life we grew up in ...
Don’t get me wrong iPhones and all out gadgets are cool but I like where I came from ...

Hi all, a quick show of hands, how many mowed the lawn with a push mower? It taught me the value of keeping the blades sharp. And most important, it is much easier to mow going down hill on a slope. Lol part of my early common sense development.

I remember how happy I was when Dad finally bought the grass catcher attachment. No more raking!

Michael, are you talking a gas powered push mower or a manual reel type ? We had close to an acre, mowed with a push mower for years. I mow there and my 2 acres now with a Simplicity and a 54" deck !
I remember clipping weeds around the trees with hand shears.

Used both reel and push mowers. Cut my finger good after checking dads blade sharpening skills on the reel type. Dad never had a rider until us boys were gone. Our weedeater was a corn knife. Cleaned fence rows with pruners and a corn knife.

Dave, yes a human powered reel push mower. And oh yes, the hand shears, I forgot about them. Wow an acre! You had me beat...
And Dallas, yes I did the same thing, but only once, that was one of the many fatherly skills. Boy could they put an edge on something!
I remember being taught how to sharpen my first pocket knife with honing oil and a stone.

I cleaned many fence rows with 40 ton excavator and a 35 ton bull dozer! Bud.

Ya Bud but I bet you had an open cab and no radio.

When I came home from my time in the military, I worked on Mr. Strader's farm during the cotton harvest.

The worst job, by far, was shredding the cotton stalks. The was due to the fact that he put me on a John Deere Model A tractor tractor with a shredder attachment. It kicked up the mother of all dirt clouds. And, in south Texas in August, when you're sitting out in the open on an uncovered tractor with that amount of shredded cotton stalks, dirt and God knows what else swirling around you for 12+ hours a day, well....let's just say it wasn't a vacation.

Mr. Strader could've afforded a much newer, closed-cab tractor for the job but he wouldn't even consider it because the JD Model A was still running fine.

Bump, I like this thread, these stories are great lets hear more

Good morning! I found this TT truck the other day. Believe it or not on my own place! I had forgotten all about it. I found it 20+ years ago on a farm at the top of Trinity grade above Napa Valley. At the time the farm had been sold and was being cleared for a new vineyard. It was part of a pile of scrap scheduled to be hauled off. The $50 asking price was to hard to pass up, so I brought it home!

Check out the close up of the ignition switch. Also the steering column and front brake conversion.

Having front brakes added made perfect sense. A trip to town from this orchard, was all downhill! About 4 miles to the valley floor with an elevation change of 2000'. The last 1.8 miles was Oakville grade averaging 18%. Just imagine the old truck loaded with fruit boxes slowly heading downhill in low gear. You could the whine of the gears for a mile!

Switch

Steering conversion, look how they adapted the spark lever to the later column

Here's a photo before I cleared the brush away.

Minion made from a T gas tank...It is now at The SHED BBQ in Ocean Springs, Ms.


I guess I don't know how to get the picture, darn.

Not from the depression, but I'm sure it won't take long to spot the T part on my Granddad's homemade drill press.

I know I've told this story before but it is relative to this thread too.
My dads cousin's name was Ted Bross. He was a nice guy and every one liked him. He was a Ford salesman and sold cars to a lot of people for a long time. I bought my first pickup from him in 1978. That is probably when he told me this story.
We were talking family history. I knew from the stories that his dad was a blacksmith in Flint Hill Missouri. That is where Ted grew up and being fascinated with that part of it ( a blacksmith in the family) I wanted to hear all I could.
Ted described how when his parents passed away the family needed to clean out the house. "You wouldn't believe the amount of stuff in the house. They never threw anything away. There was a small box in the attic marked pieces of string too short to keep."
I think he was serious.

A long those lines . When we cleaned out my grandfather's house after his passing . We found a tall stack of cigar boxes full to the brim of cigar butts. I guess he plan to smoke them in his pipe ,if things got worse .

Even in Michigan people used to grow their tobacco,and dry the leafs in the attic.30 + years is much too long to dry before using!!!! Bud in Wheeler,Mi.

No one mentioned bread bags yet so: My mom was born in 34, I watched her wash many bread bags and pieces of tin foil when I was a kid. If I was going to be outside in the pushed over trees down in the pasture and it was wet? The bread bags went over my socks, then into the boots.
Two bags per foot if it was really wet down there! Ya darn right my 5 buckle over shoes leaked a little.
I had forgotten about going to the dump! Usually mom wouldn't let me bring it home tho.

I was given this by a fellow my May-ur friend and I met this summer. I bought my 4th 90 year old Chevrolet engine there too.
I suppose the column tube was the handle but it's funny the gear housing wasn't cut off the output bearing.

Duey, I have worn the bread sacks. Still have 5 buckles for work and the barn in mud season.

My grandfather always had the 5 buckle boots, and the short slip on galoshes...and bread bags !
My nephews and I were sorting through the model trains, in mom's basement and found a bag full of onion bags she had saved. My wife said she used them for flower bulbs...there were a hundred if there was one !! And every box from every purchase she had made for 20 years.
We also found a box full of Hassler shocks !!

Hasslers? Huh. Onion bags are good for mushroom hunting.
Back when your food came in glass jars, my mom would save any size or shape for jelly jars. Sealed with wax so lids were not so important. Now its unsafe to use wax?

How did Tim miss the Hasslers?

Mesmerized !!

He wouldn’t show me any of the good stuff, Dallas.

Those onion bags are nice for drying walnuts too.Bud.

Oh! Wax on the top of the jelly jars! Worked just fine. Hell, I just realized I couldn't handle sugar even back then when I was a kid. Strange what memories this forum will... :-)
Drool, model trains...
Ooh. No. If your gonna eat a funny feeling icky shroom that tastes like dirt/earth? Just eat some dirt. No.

(Message edited by duey_c on December 18, 2018)