Elk County Forum

Stories of the Depression....
The times when folks were poor in material things.. but strong in family.

I have heard lots and lots stories of what the gardens gave in vegetables and fruits..and what the cows provided in milk, butter, cheese & cream. The chickens in fresh eggs and a Sunday fresh frying chicken.
The many meals made with fried bread in bacon grease... and milk gravy. ( I have made that myself ..and it is yummy)
And of sandwiches made out of lard and sugar.

Not too often have I ever heard of anyone being able to go "out to eat" in those days.
So I came upon this menu from a cafe in 1936.

Doesn't anyone have any stories that they remember family members telling about days gone by?

My mother and daddy were raised during the Depression Days.  I think that is why my daddy kept everything.  He threw nothing away because it might be worth something someday.  Just one story about my family... we loved to eat fried chicken.  My mother and both my grandmothers could fry chicken.  Yes, Ms. T, as good as yours.  Anyway, when we would have fried chicken at our family table (which was quite often because chicken is a cheap meat), my daddy always ate the neck and the back.  We would always ask daddy why he ate the neck and the back and he would tell us it was because those pieces were the best.  What daddy was actually doing was letting his four daughters have the meaty pieces.  Oh, how we loved our daddy.  Anyway, when I became an adult, daddy told me that he really didn't like chicken.  When he was a boy, they ate chicken all the time and he had to help catch, kill and clean those chickens.  He also said that sometimes the chicken wasn't cooked all the way through because his mother was in a hurry to get everyone fed.  anyway, daddy ate the neck and the back because he knew those pieces got cooked all the way through.  Ha.  And we girls thought he was sacrificing the best parts of the chicken for us.  Now that my daddy is waiting for me in heaven (and he will hopefully wait a long time) I think about eating those fried chicken dinners at our family table and wishing he was here to eat the neck and the back again.  Love you Daddy. :-* :-* :-*

My sister Sherri and I thought that our Mama actually liked the pieces of toast or the pancakes and waffles that got too brown/borderline burnt sometimes.
She would say,"Here.. you girls and daddy have these and I will have this one and this one. I like them the best."
We were just shocked! And would say to her,"Mama...those are burnt!".
She would say," Oh no there not..I really like them this way."
I believed her.

When  I became a mother myself... then I knew first hand.. how "good" the 'burnt' waffles and pancakes really were.
*smile*

I am the good mother I am today, because I had and still have, the most wonderful mother (and daddy) in the world to teach me and show me what real unconditional unselfish love is all about.
The circle of love started with my dear loving Grandma Workman who loved my mama...
and they both,in turn, taught and loved me.
I have taught and loved my boys and I see everyday what we as a family, are teaching Ashley.
The circle of the love of family will never be broken.

Thank you to my grandma & mama.
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We were raised in the days of depression.  I was born in December 1929 -- so I was a real depression baby.  My brother Jack was two years older and my sister Helen is 2 years younger.  Our Grandma Workman lived with us for 13 years,
so my Mama and Daddy had to really s-t-r-e-t-c-h every penny.  There were very few pennies to stretch, but I honestly did not know we were "Poor"  we had so much love and laughter that I guess poor was never a thought to us three kids, but I know that Daddy and Mama had to spend many many worrisome times, hoping things would be alright for the six of us.
 
The menu from the Oregon paper read like the menu at Longton Cafe when I was in high school.  I dated a boy (no, not Fred at that time) who after the movie, that cost a quarter, would take me to the cafe and buy us each a cheesburger for 25 cents.  Oh  My,  was that ever a treat and a coke for a nickel!!!   Then we would go to the back of the cafe and dance to the juke box.  Still I did not know we were "poor." 
I guess in fact we were not -- just very very rich in all the things that counted.
  Thank you, my sweet daughters for the nice things you remember about your Grandma W., your Daddy and I. 
Love reaches out to touch everyone that you will share it with.

The one story that sticks out in my mind is one that my grandmother told me.  She got married during the depression, and actually hid the marriage for a while so that she could continue to work as a school teacher.  She said at the time if the husband had a job, the wife was not allowed to work.

Whenn I was in the second grade (they called our class the depression class,we were always the smallest class.Miss Angell put us up totease our  techer, Miss Newman.  We called her Mrs. Cougher    (because she was dating Jake  Cougher, the sixth grade teacher0.  Well to make a long story short ,we found out she really was Mrs. COUGHER

   Depression thinking lasted long after the depression was over. My family was very lucky in that the depression didn't hit them too hard. Like most Kansas families they had multiple things going on. My Mom's father worked at the shops of the Rock Island RR in Horton, and had cattle, and had a rock quarry, a big garden and I think also chickens. In the summer they collected the seeds of grass (Blue Stem?) that was used to make a blue dye. Some buyer would come to town to make the arrangements then come back later to purchase the bags of seed. In the fall, Grandpa would pick out walnuts. His parents lived near by and also had lots of grapes that the Horton folks would buy. My father's Howard family were into horses, cattle and oil. Also had a garden, fruit trees and chickens. Of course there was the family milk cow.  Daddy and Uncle Teddy raised a coyote and a badger and any other orphaned creature that anybody brought them. I doubt that any of that put any food on the table. Daddy said he sexed chickens for a hatchery,and irrigated and sold tomatos during a drought. Everybody caught fish too. Even after they moved east, we had our own chickens for a few years and always had a big garden and lots of fruit trees.To me, apple sauce came from the basement, not from the store. I'm not sure today's generation gets it.

My Generation hasn't got a clue when it comes to the sacrifices our parents and grandparents made just to get by.  Both my parents were born in 1929 and so really did not know anything different growing up.  Mom told me that really the one thing she wanted during the depression was a set of Dionne Quintuplet Dolls. She did not get them, but Grandma made her a set of 5 Rag Dolls.  Mom said later that she hated those dolls with a passion, but realized that her mom was really doing the best she could on a limited budget.

I'd love to hear from some of you who lived through WWII and have stories about the rationing and how you got by with that.  Mom told me that sugar was rationed but honey was not and Grandma Gladys made it her business to try every honey based desert recipe that caught her eye. Mom laughed that they rarely had dessert before the war, but once sugar was rationed they always had some "horrible honey flavored dessert" that Grandma had seen in the paper.

Kevin, I think Carol still has the family ration book in its oilskin pouch. Nobody throws those away...like we might need them again some day. I remember just after the war, when soldiers were coming home. We still lived in Wimington at the time. When the "boy" next door came home to stay, everyone was so happy. I remember sitting on his lap playing with the medals on his uniform. He took his military training, joined the Wilmington Police and made his career on their bomb squad! He did live to retire and died just a few years ago.

Do some of you remember when "oleo'' first came out, it was white and in a squarish plastic pouch? The butter states lobbied to keep it from looking like butter. It had a little dot of food coloring in one corner. I remember one of my early jobs was to knead the color all through the softened oleo until it was completley yellow, and then reshape it into a block before we rechilled it. Which reminds me, do the state fairs out there still do a butter cow.? I always loved that thing. I could never figure why it was done, but I liked it. 

The oleo-margarine thing sort of depended on where you lived. In some of the big dairy states, like Wisconsin, when that product first appeared it was green, and sometimes blue. It's surprising what sort of legislation a large dairy lobby could get passed. Most of those laws only lasted a couple of years, and the makers were allowed to at least make it look like butter, although there was not much they could do to make it taste like butter.

I go back further than that.  Oleo used to be in a l# brick than you put in a large bowl and had an envelope of yellow powder that you sprinkled on it and then worked it in.  If you were in a hurry you just used it white.

   Very interesting.You are older than I thought!  ;D ;D ;D  Daddy was a rubber, plastics and elastomers chemist and used to have some interesting comments about "fake food." He couldn't find anything obviously dangerous in it, but he wondered what the really long term effects would be. He had real reservations about the eventual effects of antibiotics and steroids on food animals. Taking care of TB in cows is one thing, but now all this stuff is showing up in our water supply. Speaking of such, someone told me once that Armadillos could be carriers of Leprosy. Now that they have moved north to Kansas, is there any truth to that?

Diane, leprosy I don't know but have been told that their "hide" or whatever you call it, does harber a lot of parasites, germs, and anything else that cares to live there.  They are a nasty nasty animal and wish they would all go back south and keep going when they get there.  The comment about "age" will be overlooked THIS TIME  >:(

Iremember my Uncle Wilbur telling the story of standing in a long line of men waiting to get a job.   It was ditch digging and it paid !.00 for the day.  He and Aunt Evelyn's first child was just a baby and they were down to  feeding her Kayro syrup in water in a bottle.

As he was standing there he saw a man get up out of a ditch and leave the tool behind.  He ran, jumped in the ditch and said he worked as hard as he could, hoping at the end of
the day he would get paid something.  He got the  !.00 with no questions asked.

My dad was born in 1920 and orphaned in 1931. That was not an easy life. But it sure did give him a work ethic, and an understanding of what was important, and the good sense to think before ever complaining. That was a horrible time in our history, but it turned out a group of Americans that could deal with pretty much anything. I have always thought that the people hardened by the depression were the only reason we were able to win WWII.

On a different, but related, note: there is a wonderful recent book about the dust bowl in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. It is fascinating and extremely well-written. I was just blown away by it, and ended it with a tiny tear in my eye. The title is The Worst Hard Time and it was written by Timothy Egan, ISBN 0618773479.

That's a good point about WWII.  I remember seeing Bob Dole interviewed once.  The interviewer was talking about his bravery.  But Dole said that growing up in the Depression he never had anything to wear that wasn't a hand me down and sometimes no shoes.  He laughed and said, at the time he enlisted, 3 meals a day, brand new cloths and shoes just sounded like such a great deal.

That would be my Dad to a tee. He got all of that, which was a rarity for him, plus all the heavy equipment that he could drive, since he was a Seabee.

;D

 Frawg, you were "blown away by it?" A book on the dust bowl? B-O-O-O!!!!!

     Grandma Hunter used to tell me that during the depression she would be visited on a regular basis by hoboes.   She said they would do some chore and she would feed them.   She was not sure why they came so frequently.
     The railroad track ran below our hill.   I used to explore the bridges and found a bunch of markings on the underside of the bridge that was just South of our road.   I copied them down and asked around until I found out that the hobo population had its own set of codes.   They would mark them on the rails, and it would say something like-nice lady who will feed you, or bad dog, etc.   
     The tracks were torn out in the mid-70's so the markings had to have been placed there 35-40 years earlier.   I wish I had saved what I had copied down, or better yet taken a picture.

Be careful, Diane, or I'll have the wind drop me in Delaware!  Heh, heh.

( I must say, though, that the pun was unintentional, regardless how obvious. Shame on me.  ;) )

Marty - Hobos had all sorts of interesting codes and habits. There is a wonderful old-time singer named Utah Phillips that has some truly amazing hobo songs from the thirties. They are lonesome, and cold, and really put you in the mood of back then.

Marty,

I wish you would have saved those markings also.  Hobo markings are very rare now.  I learned that the hobo's would mark the codes on the fences or on something, so a hobo could tell where to get a meal.  Kind of neat.

I have always had a fascination with Hobo's and Gypsy's..
After reading about "Hobo's marks" I started snooping and came across this site.

http://www.slackaction.com/signroll.htm (http://www.slackaction.com/signroll.htm)

It is simple.. but if you run your curser over the mark, it will tell you what that mark means.
That was a neat way for the hobo's to communicate back then.
Check it out...

Teresa, that was interesting - always heard that they left marks for the next hobo, but had no idea "what" marks - I only remember one hobo coming to our house, but do remember the gypsies

I could not resist posting a Utah Phillips hobo song:

http://www.genuinekansas.com/stuff/utahphillips-hewillbealittlebitlate.mp3 (http://www.genuinekansas.com/stuff/utahphillips-hewillbealittlebitlate.mp3)

It takes a few seconds to start.

Flo, remember when the gypsies would camp out on the west side of the school grounds? 

don't remember that, I guess, but do remember the day they robbed my grandpa of over $300.00 but that's a long story how that came about. Also remember one night a caravan of them were in Severy and were run out of town and a bunch of us kids decided to follow them.  They were going towards Howard and when we tried to pass they would move to the left, each car just a smidgon, till they had the highway blocked.  We followed them to Howard and turned around and went back home.  Would imagine Howard told them to keep on going also, don't know. That was a crazy thing to do, now that I think about it, but kids don't think about dangers, I guess. 

I might have been in that group!  I was with Bob & Carol, don't remember who else, but we had been down around the school yard and then as you say followed them to Howard.  You're right, it was crazy.  We didn't talk to them, do anything but follow them. 

Bobby and Carol were in the group, cause think we were in Bobby's car, so yep, you were probably in with us.

You know.. isn't that just neat how things that you remember doing end up being with people here ?

I love memories.. :)

  Speaking of long ago.  Our ideas of "essentials" v.s." luxuries" have drastically changed over the years. If you had to give up ALL modern conveniences except one, what would you keep?  I asked that question of a mixed age group recently and  I got some really surprising answers. So what would you keep?

Electricity?  I have had that the longest.
plumbing?  I hate having to go out for the necessaries.
Central heat?  beats carrying wood and ashes.
Central air?  this is an essential right now.
Car?   can't walk or ride a pony

Do I have to make a choice?

  Yes, you can keep only one. It's hard isn't it?  A hint. We have a big Amish community in Dover Del. and nearby Lancaster Co. Pa. Now really think about it. There is no right or wrong answer of course. 

I would have to choose electricity, because without it there wouldn't be most of the others.

I'm back for my weekly visit - My 1934 birth date puts me in the depression baby generation.  I heard many of stories related to here. 

Re: The oleo vs butter issue.  Much of the locally churned butter was of a lighter color that resulting from the mixing of the yellow dye into the basic oleo.  The story was that I was told is that the yellow color came from corn or grain fed cows.  Our Elk County milk cows were almost always grass fed.  On those cows that were in the herds of the commercial dairies were lucky enough to get a little corn or sorghum.  Even at that the butter from the local dairy (Curtis) was a lighter color than the Oleo from Winn's grocery store. :)

Re Post #13 & #14 on the belief that Armadillos were carrier's of Leporsy

QuoteSpeaking of such, someone told me once that Armadillos could be carriers of Leprosy. Now that they have moved north to Kansas, is there any truth to that?

I heard the same story but in my day there were only a rare occurrence of armadillos in Elk County.   The belief probably resulted from the fact the Armadillo is the few species besides Humans that contract leprosy.  See this Wikipedia link.  The usual caveats apply

I got rushed in closing this post so I had to come back and do a few touch ups sorry :-[

The yellow in butter as well as in egg yolks comes from the green grass, etc. that is consumed.

When the color it yourself oleo came out the color was almost orange and not very appetizing.  It was rumored that the dairy industry didn't want it to look like butter because they were afraid of the competition.

I, like some here, am not old enough to have lived during the depression, but was forunate enough to be reared by two wonderful people who did live through it.  And like Teresa was taught to cook.  Also was taught to eat what was put on the table.  No, we didn't have pizza for breakfast.

I'm amazed everyday at work how many women just a few yers younger than my 54 years do not have a clue how to cook.

I even wonder why they eat granola bars everyday for lunch then take a handful of vitamins and the like instead of eating their balanced meals.

I guess there is so much I don't  understand in this busy world.  Dumb me, I didn't even know you could buy frozen mashed potatoes until a girl at work said she had to go to the store and get some for supper.  Is that sad or what?

See why I don't post very often!!!!!!!!! ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)

Whoops!! Make that 55 years.

Nope, that's dumb them. It seems like people just don't learn the most basic things any more. My mom was sick a lot when I was young. My sister and I did everything most of the time when I was between the ages of 8 and 12. Then my sister eloped and got married and I did almost all of myself between the ages of 12 and 16, at which time I was of more use working for wages to help pay the bills. So I can cook, clean, sew, wash, iron, and all the rest of it.

I can remember when I was in my 20s and 30s in California, my co-workers would get divorced and the men didn't know how to do any of that. I now occasionally talk to people of both sexes who are out on their own and don't know how to do anything to care from themselves or their homes. They get by on fast food, take their clothes to laundries, and live like pigs.

I don't get it either.

 Relating back to my#31 and 33, I'd have to choose running water. I think I could manage like the Amish do. The way things are going we might do well to take lessons from them...no electric of any kind ...they do amazing things with wind and water power, even have kerosene refrigerators.

I too choose running water.

When my oldest daughter was in high school one of her friends was at our house when I was peeling potatoes for supper.  She wanted to know what I was doing.  When I told her she just looked baffled, she said she thought potatoes came from a box.  She'd never had "real" mashed potatoes.

I know I'm spoiled with modern convenience, and I like it that way! ;D  If I had to choose only one though, I would choose indoor plumbing.  I'd sorely miss all the others, but having fresh clean water at the tap and a working toilet are just about essential to my health & happiness.

Running water..and lots of it.

I can squat outside ..I can light candles or an oil lamp.. I can chop wood to keep warm..and I can cook on wood...and I can do without the other stuff..
but not I repeat.. not running water...and lots of it..
( I have to be clean)  :)

I had to haul water by hand to use for several months and had no modern conveniences at all in a  house I that I lived in, in the country ...other than electricity. No indoor bathroom and a kitchen that only had a hand pump at the sink that was fixed up to come from the well on the back porch.

None of that bothered me.. other than hauling kettles of water in ..heating them on the gas stove..and pouring them into a tub we would drag into the kitchen every evening  to take baths.
I had the boys and 2 adults to take baths every night this way.
No thanks.!
I want my running water!
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I'm right there with you guys.  I can take on anything, once I've had my morning shower.