MTFCA Forum

One of my favorite sites is Shorpy.com as it has different old time photos every day and has been discussed here before. This week one was titled "Water Boys: 1939" and showed two kids pumping water out of a communal well. The remains of a 12 year old Model T are in the background, but also shown is how tough it must have been back then and something most of today's kids never experience. The pumper is wearing a seed sack and both look pretty rough. Conversely, other photos on Shorpy show itinerant workers on construction projects and they are often dressed in suit and ties. It was a different world!

It is little wonder why children of the depression often appeared so miserly with their money and "made do" with things when they clearly did not have to later in life. That kind of upbringing and experience can carry with you for life at best, or scar you for life at worst. I think it is amazing that as a generation they coped as well as they did in adulthood.

I remember growing up surrounded by many such people as a kid, and remember asking my mom why they were so "stingy". My mom always responded, "well, they grew up in the depression", like that would explain it all to a 7 year old. As I grew older, I gradually realized the plight of these folks, but it is photographs such as this that paint the picture that I could never have imagined, despite the academic knowledge of it.

Scott_Conger wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 22, 2020 2:03 pm

It is little wonder why children of the depression often appeared so miserly with their money and "made do" with things when they clearly did not have to later in life. That kind of upbringing and experience can carry with you for life at best, or scar you for life at worst. I think it is amazing that as a generation they coped as well as they did in adulthood.

I remember growing up surrounded by many such people as a kid, and remember asking my mom why they were so "stingy". My mom always responded, "well, they grew up in the depression", like that would explain it all to a 7 year old. As I grew older, I gradually realized the plight of these folks, but it is photographs such as this that paint the picture that I could never have imagined, despite the academic knowledge of it.

I agree Scott.

My parents had problems throughout most of my childhood so I spent much of it being raised by my grandmother who was a teenager when the Great Depression started and was a young mother when it ended. Being raised by someone so thoroughly molded by the Depression had a big impact on me and it often makes me feel somewhat apart...separated, if you will, from others my age.

She died in 1999. I spent a lot of time with her in her last years talking about her younger years. She said they were desperately poor, but her mother insisted that they were always clean.

She would make dinner and if there were literally 5 peas left over, she'd put them in a little container and insist that you eat them at the next meal.

She washed and re-used aluminum foil.

She simply would not linger on the telephone. It was for conducting business only....as briefly as you could accomplish it.

She kept a home-garden until her last year.

She bargained for everything...even at department stores like Sears.

She made many of her own clothes.

She repaired her own shoes.

My grandfather taught her to maintain her own automobile. He died when I was a child, but she knew how to change oil, do a brake job and diagnose most engine and transmission problems and she was never taken advantage of by repair shops.

Her father had a Model T during the depression and her and my grandfather started out with one when they got married. That may be part of the reason why I love these old cars.

Here she is in 1934. She was a stunningly pretty lady....part of the Wills clan that Bob Wills came from. Sorry for going on like this. I know it's off topic. But I think immediately of her when I see a Great Depression photo. She knew when to gently comfort you when you genuinely needed it and when to tell you to buck up and quit acting like a baby. And I miss her dearly....sometimes to the extent that it physically hurts.

What a nice Tribute.

And the part about reusing aluminum foil really hit home! Both sets of my grandparents did that.

A wonderful, and incredible, story.
Thank you.

I love that site and can get lost for hours just clicking through the pictures.

I'd like to build one of these next.