I don’t really know what it was like in Australia then.

does this apply to australia too? cuz i have a report on australia due in a while…

Hi Lynn,

So great to read your comment! Let me just encourage you to start learning to can and sew NOW. You may need those skills before you realize it, and unfortunately you don’t know if your mom will be there to teach you whenever you decide you are ready. Plus, these are skills you want to have BEFORE you NEED them. So get her to teach you now, lol!!

Wow! I’ve really enjoyed reading this post and all of the comments! Thank you! My grandparents were a young couple in the depression, but unfortunately they are no longer around to talk to about it. I didn’t see them very much when I was a kid except to stay with them a few times a year, and I guess it never dawned on my to ask them about it. My mom was born right after the war, but she grew up poor in the country so it seems like a lot of the frugal ways continued. She has talked about using a catalog for TP and such. They always had good food, though because they had room to grow food. My mom knows how to do many of the “old” things like sew, can, ect., but I wasn’t very interested in learning as a girl or teen and so I didn’t learn. I grew up middle class, but my mom was still pretty frugal. I guess though she didn’t think I would have to know these things. I turn to her a lot now days when I don’t know how to do something. I’ve already said to my husband when I get ready to learn how to can, I really want my mom there to guide me! I’m just glad she learned all of this stuff.

Lynn

My mama, who died 4 years ago at age 93, had very bad feet with toes crossing over others and the big toe going under them. She talked about putting cardboard in the bottoms of shoes when they got holes in them. Also told me that the reason her feet were such a mess was because she often had to wear them even though she had outgrown them and it was too cold to go to school without them. She lived on a farm and had enough food, but otherwise things were really tough. I can remember her making me a pair of shorts from a feed bag her sister had given her.

At 71, I slowing down a lot and can’t always do as much, I still have chickens and a garden. I’ve had to adapt. I had raised bed garden boxes built 15 inches high so I can sit on the edges to weed and plant.

I really have enjoyed your articles on Addie, especially about the spider webs and the skin under the egg shell. I remember my grandmother putting kerosene on wounds to sterilize them.

My mother grew up during the depression and told me that if you take the pages from a catalogue or newspaper and crumple it up in a ball, then open it up flat, and recrumble it again you can make it quite soft and it’s not as bad as you would think… just saying! It’s all in the process!
She also would cook us a ‘depression’ dinner for us (growing up in the late 50′s and 60′s) of the Navy beans and ham hocks. My Dad loved to butter his piece of ‘Wonder’ bread and spoon a generous helping of the beans and tiny bits of ham over it… and my favorite of the dinner was the side of fried sliced potatoes!
Not good for one on a diet…. LOL