In every family, there seems to be one member who has a particular interest in the family’s history and the way things were in the past. If you guess that I’m that person in my generation, you would be correct. I love hearing stories from my mother about her childhood, and I even have done some research on our Irish ancestors. Even though I’m in my fifties, I also have a number of older friends who are in their eighties and even nineties. I love to hear their stories about their childhoods and the wisdom they gained over the years.
As I chatted with one of my friends, born in 1941, this week, I thought about the coming Fourth of July celebrations and the current debates in America. I was struck by how valuable his stories were and how they harkened back to some days in which Americans faced challenges with remarkable resiliency. I got his permission to share some of these stories with you, in the hopes that they will inspire you to look back to your own ancestors and the elders in your own communities for lessons on how to be prepared.
Waste Nothing
My friend’s parents lived through the Great Depression and raised ten children. According to him, while he grew up through the 1940’s, it still was the Great Depression, at least in his parents’ minds. He said he felt they never fully recovered from that experience. If you are interested in learning more lessons from the Great Depression, here is an article about hobo culture and a look at a diary from a lawyer living through the Great Depression.
Nothing was wasted in the house. George (I’ll call him) said that his mother saved everything. She had a drawer where bread tags were faithfully stored. The drawer was full! There must have been more than a thousand of them in there. When George asked his mother why she was saving them, she simply replied, “I’ll find a use for them.” (Here are 40 of them, if you’re curious.)
When George was a child, he remembers, his father was trying to sell an old cow that must have been about 15 years old. When he was only offered three dollars for the cow, his father slaughtered her instead. Without proper refrigeration, the family hung her from the center of the high rafters of their barn in October. The carcass was covered with a sheet to keep the pigeons off. The height prevented other animals from getting to the carcass.
When his mother needed meat for something, George, the youngest, was sent out with an older brother. An improvised ratcheting system for the rope made from a log allowed them to raise and lower the carcass. His brother would cut off some meat, and then back up the carcass would go. George said that, with the winters back then in US Climate Zone 4, the carcass was frozen solid all winter. When spring came and there was still some meat left, George said that his mother promptly canned it. George couldn’t help but smile when he remembered how tasty his mother’s canned beef was.
A Good Day’s Work
I thought my mother, who grew up on a dairy farm, had a great story about how all the children in her family started driving tractor the moment their feet could reach the pedals. Well, George has her beat! His father would attach some wooden blocks to the pedals so that the children could drive tractor even earlier.
As a result, at the age of seven, George was driving a tractor and plowing fields. All ten children began working on the farm at the age of seven. George said that they all did the same work, boy or girl, driving tractor, plowing, milking, throwing bales. George can recall plowing a twenty-acre field by himself at the age of 7 in one day with a set of discs that were only six feet wide.
Before George was even tall enough to harness the horses, he was driving a team of horses to plow fields. His older brother would harness the horses, and then off to the fields George would go. His father owned eight horses, George said. After plowing for several hours in the morning, you would need to take the pair in and give them a good drink of warm water. Then, you had lunch and harnessed up the next pair.
Now, I may be accused of promoting child labour here, but one has to wonder what valuable life lessons were learned from the hard work in those days.
Improvise
When he was just a young teenager, George got an old 1920 Ford Model A and set to work on getting it going. He used it to drive to other farms, where he was working on the weekends. When the bearing went on the entry point of the crankshaft, it was the mid-1950s, and babbit bearings were not available.
George told me he thought about the job of the crescent-shaped bearing, what texture and thickness it needed to be, and how it was in contact with engine oil. He looked around the farm for something that would do the trick, and ended up inserting a piece of oiled horse harness. George said it worked for years.
When his father needed to fix his Ford Model T, he was equally creative. The governors for the fan were too light. George said that his father melted some lead at his brother-in-law’s forge and poured it into an egg carton to shape them. The solution worked, and the Model T was back on the road.
Days of Ingenuity and Hard Work
I find the values of waste nothing, a hard day’s work and improvising are relevant to my own approach to preparedness. Have you heard stories from America’s past that inspire you in your preparations? Do you have a story from an ancestor, someone else, or yourself that you can share with us? Please tell us in the comments section.
About Rowan
Rowan O’Malley is a fourth-generation Irish American who loves all things green: plants (especially shamrocks), trees, herbs, and weeds! She challenges herself daily to live her best life and to be as fit, healthy, and prepared as possible.
3 Responses
I learned also from my grandparents surviving the Great Depression. My grandmother told me the following that I’ve lived by: “ If something breaks or wears out, clean it. If that doesn’t do the job identify what needs to be replaced or repaired. If you cannot repair or replace the damaged part then buy the best new one you can afford with no guilt but you’ll find most of the time that is not necessary.” Also, “Don’t waste food. That animal gave its life for your nourishment. It’s an insult to its life and to God to waste it for whatever reason.” And she taught me a kitchen sink soup recipe that I use weekly to clean out the fridge and use up what is there. I make better soups than my husband now, and he’s a cook! These lessons have created a lot of abundance in my life and made me so adept at DIY. I’d be so much worse off if it weren’t for her advice. I can get around any issue 95% of the time with that ingenuity she taught me.
Thank you for another great article!
The value of work at a young age cannot be overestimated. I grew up in suburbia, but wish now I had grown up on a farm. Nonetheless, my younger brother and I had a paper route (remember them?) and had to be up at 5am 6 days a week. It was a long and hard route. One would go west and the other east. That experience molded me. I am 65 and still get up at 4am.
As an adult, the son of a woman that was friends with my wife came to me one day. His dad had abandonded his mom, him, and 2 sisters. He was 16 and wanted to get a job. He asked my advice. I told him that one of the most formative jobs I had in my youth was a dishwasher. I learned that there are not enough dishes to last all night and there are not enough clean pots and pans either. I had to learn the rhythm of the business to anticipate the needs of the front staff and the back staff. I used that skill in every job I had thereafter.
Unfortunately, he said ‘Mr. X, I don’t want to work that hard’, and got a cubicle job doing customer support.
If you have kids, but no farm, get them a dog (or two!) and teach them to feed, water, and walk them. And clean up their dog dirt.
My parents grew up in the Depression too. My dad saved pieces of string in old coffee cans. I found a broken axe head he kept from his childhood. I don’t think this was a bad habit from those times, especially compared to our ‘throw-away’ culture.
Both of my parents were born in the early 1920’s, so were children during the long depression. Their stories made me understand preparedness all of my life.
The most impactful one was my Mother, age 8 & in charge of her 2 younger hungry sisters, digging for possible forgotten garden potatoes under the cold Illinois snow.
THAT is true hard times. I never forgot that.