The Home - 6 Lessons Learned from the Great Depression

    In the late 1960s, I did a school report about the Great Depression. All four of my grandparents were alive, as was  one of my great-grandmothers, and both my parents. There was a lot of input. What they taught me about how to live stayed with me all my life. 

    Compared to today, the 60s had so much less to offer in terms of consumerism. Children had a couple of board games, maybe a doll or two,and maybe even a Wonder Horse on springs. TV was a variety show. It was family time and everyone gathered to share this entertainment. My mother and grandmothers did use some canned goods, frozen vegetables and sliced bread, but they still cooked and baked from scratch. I don't remember taking out a lot of garbage because we didn't continuously bring future garbage into the house. 

    Many things spanned the decades: separate shops for butcher, baker, shoes, pharmacy, hardware, and most household goods came from the five-and-dime or a department store. Fast food was practically unheard of and going out to dinner was a dress-up event and children were on their best behavior. Perhaps some of the main differences between how my grandparents and how my parents raised us was regarding store-bought clothing and how many cars our family had. And my mother didn't kill the chicken for dinner; she bought it from the butcher.

    Even so, homes in the 1920s were different. My grandparents made much of their clothing and linens. Embroidery and knitting were essential skills as were skills to fix appliances and tools. There were more clotheslines in the neighborhood than telephone lines.

    But even in the 1920s, people were generally not producing their own food, heat, shelter, and other basic necessities unless it was a hobby or a necessity. The fact that by the 1930s most people were already hardened consumers of daily necessities, unless they lived in very rural areas, gave the Great Depression the fuel it needed to bring the nation to its knees.

    Unemployment meant several families might live together in one room. People lived in caves or sewers. Many people ate weeds to stay alive. People did not have the knowledge, skills, means, or land to produce what they needed to live.

    Perhaps this is the greatest lesson I learned from my grandparents: that strength and resilience was in the producing and the people who suffered the most either didn't produce what they needed for daily life or lost the means to produce (e.g. Dust Bowl farmers).

    We got a mini-taste of this between 2019 and 2021 when our usual means of living was suddenly halted. It wasn't that we couldn't get what we needed; we could order much of it online. But people lost jobs and the rug got pulled out from under a lot of people's feet. There was uncertainty everywhere. On top of that our ability to socialize was drastically curtailed, and we learned not only did we need security of goods but the peace of mind that comes with loving human interaction and connection.

    Now in 2022, we're seeing food production and delivery being interrupted, farming-related supply costs rising dramatically, and power and fuel costs rising as well. Politics continue to divide friends and family, and we are seeing economics teeter similarly to the 1920s. 

    Since March 2019, many have made the move towards food security and family/community integrity. The homesteading movement took off. Prepping became not so much a fringe movement as a realistic readiness for interruptions in supply chain or at the very least severe weather events. People decided they did not want to be caught with their pants down again.

    So I thought I'd dust off the childhood report, the questions I had asked my family, and the notes and stories they had written for me and share the main lessons I learned about how to not just survive, but thrive during a Great Depression.

Lesson #1 - Have cash on hand

The first problem was, of course, cash money. The banks closed, and your money might as well be on Mars. Running up a tab at the local grocery until payday was a practice that went right out the window because payday no longer existed for many people. I remember one of my grandfathers telling me: CASH IS KING! People who had cash in hand could buy food, pay rent, hold off collectors with at least partial payment. 

Lesson #2 - Know your neighbors - part 1

My grandmothers used to talk to their neighbors over the back fences as they watched the children play or hung laundry on the line. It's a cliched image of the times, but that's how information was passed along. That's how you knew who was doing okay and who needed help. Gossip has its ugly side, for sure. But if one close friend knew of a need, that information got passed along. Shoes magically left on a doorstep. A basket of green beans and a chicken to stew might be delivered. Darning socks might be Betty's skill and altering a dress to fit a younger child might be Jean's. Max was a dentist and would accept cabbages for payment and John could fix a toaster or lawn mower or a radio. Community was communication not only for sharing resources and skills but for information about available jobs and housing. 

Lesson #3 - Know your neighbors - part 2

You also knew what neighbors you could trust and which ones were a bit sketchy. Safety in the neighborhood became self-regulating because if you were not cooperative and friendly, you'd soon find yourself having a harder time. It was in everyone's best interest to be civil and treat each other with manners. Being stand-offish could be fatal to your family's well-being. Community was not only communication, it was communion. Support wasn't just in resources but in human interaction, in relationship. Family was not just blood, but love and friendship.

Lesson #4 - Don't lose your home

If you can own your land or home outright, that's the best thing. If not, then having accessible funds to guarantee several months of rent would be next OR having somewhere to go such as a family home or a friend with a farm where you can live and participate. Even if you own a home, you might still be asked to pay property taxes. Have cash for that. Don't lose your home. 

Lesson #5 - Have what you need to produce what you need

This one underlines everything else. You can have cash and you can have community and you can have a home, but you can still starve to death if there's nothing to buy or share. You can freeze to death if you have no way to heat your home. During the Great Depression, stores ran out of food, not because there were shortages, but because no one had money to buy food and subsequently, shop owners had no money to resupply and stock the shelves.

According to my grandparents, the people most okay during the Depression had what they needed to produce (and trade). These came under the categories of food, tools, clothing, coal or wood (for heat), and medicine.

FOOD -

GARDEN: Start gardening this year. Have a plan for cut-and-come-again greens planted in succession as well as some roots and tubers for starch. You will need greens, but they are low calorie foods. Grow berries/fruit. Nut trees, seed plants, and tubers and roots provide protein, calories, and essential fats. Remember, if the unthinkable happens in December and you don't have at least a small winter garden of spinach, kale, carrots, and turnips, how will you fare until the first seedlings of spring start to grow? 

PANTRY: Have salts and fats on hand at the very least. You can't live without them. Living on wheat flour is possible, but you won't stay very healthy and you will lose bone, hair, and teeth. You can live without sugar and dairy but having some in the pantry along with tea or coffee will be a real pick me up if true disaster hits your family.

MEAT: If you can have chickens for eggs, you should. Two people need 6-7 pullets to get about 3 eggs a day on average in one year. If that turns out to be your only protein, then plan on it. If you can raise meat animals, you should. 

WATER: A good sized tub and a small plastic tarp set up to collect rainwater could save your life. 

HEALTH -

PRESCRIPTONS: Medicine, glasses, prosthetics, whatever it is you need, have back-ups.

OVER-THE-COUNTER & FIRST AID: General readiness for cuts and scrapes, disinfectant creams and rubbing alcohol is always a good idea. Cold and headache medicines, antacids, and allergy pills should be in good supply.

SOAP: If need be, all shampoos and other cleansers could be narrowed down to basic lye or glycerin soap.  But soap kills germs. Have it.

MEDICAL & DENTAL CARE: Stay current on check-ups and spend the money now on necessary care, such as fillings. Medical and dental care was the number one most neglected item of cost during the Great Depression. Prioritize it while you can.

CLOTHING & LINENS -

THINK SEASONAL: Have an extra pair of shoes, warm socks, a good coat, work gloves, and all the clothes you'll need. This is not just about stocking up on extras but should the time come when heat or air conditioning is not as reliable as you are used to, you will need clothing to match the weather, not just the thermostat. This also applies to bedding and good warm quilts or comforters. Wet sheets hung in a window can cool a house down in summer.

TOOLS - 

What tools you choose to have will depend on how your home is set up. If you have a wood stove, you'll need an axe and a way to clean your chimney once a year. If you have a leaky roof, you'll need some extra shingles or tarps or a large can of wet tar. Wet tar can be applied even if it's raining. One of my grandfathers was quite the tinkerer and he helped many a'neighbor fix "this and that" until it became apparent that his skills saved the homes and health of many. This category also includes kitchen items such as canning supplies and jars and household tools like sewing and mending supplies, leather patches for shoes and fabric. If you can think of a repair you might need, then those are the tools, glues, ropes, and hardware you should have on hand.

HEAT - You may want to invest in a wood or coal stove. It doesn't have to be big. Many a grateful Great Depression-era grandparent can recall huddling around a small but warm heat stove in the worst of it. 

Lesson #6 - Learn how to live without dependence on things you have to buy

    This was perhaps the most difficult lesson for me to understand as a child. While Laura Ingalls Wilder's books inspired generations and gave us some basic tidbits about living without towns and stores, we really didn't know the depth of knowledge available to live, survive, and thrive without. 

    Some of this knowledge is simply how to use some of the items listed above, how to cut wood, or burn coal, or can fruit or jam. But my grandparents were adamant that there was an older knowledge they remembered from their own grandparents in Europe about how to actually live off the land. A knowledge of edible and medicinal plants and fungi. A knowledge of trapping large and small animals and butchering and cooking them. A knowledge of preserving food without electricity such as drying and fermenting and salting. At one point, my grandmother mentioned how to suture a wound using a sewing needle and either fine sinew or linen thread. 

    My family's lessons (and I tip my hat also to the many preparedness and homesteading bloggers and You Tubers) have narrowed down the categories needed to prepare for a time when we may not be able to rely on outside sources for what we need to live. The lesson my family taught me is that being a person, family, or community that cannot produce what it needs to live on is risky business. I hope these simple lessons from those who lived through it can help you as you develop your own plans for a life more within your control for the happiness and health of your family and your friends and neighbors.