Depression Lessons

Dot Hinman, quoted in today's Ramblin' column, initiated the conversation at Cottage Grove Place in Cedar Rapids to discuss memories of living through The Great Depressions of the 1930s. As a result of the discussion, she thought it would be good to share the memories and ideas for making ends meet during tough economic times with others.

As you'd expect, I didn't have room for everything in my newspaper column. So, for those of you who want to read more, here is Dot's narrative of the discussion:

Residents of Cottage Grove Place recently talked about their memories of the 1930s, especially the things they or their parents did to make the most of scarce (or absent) resources. Their recollections follow.

In those times, each person helped others; those who had, shared, whether it was food from the garden, or clothing. Those who had extra clothes would send them to relatives who had less. As children, however, they weren't aware of being poor or deprived and thought of their childhoods as very happy.

Those on farms didn't realize the depth of depression since they had gardens, beef, hogs and chickens. They would exchange food for things they didn't have. They also helped many neighbors in town who lost jobs and couldn't buy food.

Everyone canned excess food to use during the winter, not only vegetables and fruit, but meat as well. Canning often was done on the cook stove but you had to be very careful to have right temperature. There was an arm off the stove to provide hot water. To can beef: you had to put meat in jars in a boiler and boil for three hours. One woman said when she got married she didn't know how to cook a roast; she only knew how to open jars.

The house got really warm from the stove being used for so many hours. This was a help in the late fall chill and several remembered using the heat of the oven after baking to heat the house. Some put a pan of water on the oven door to humidify the air.

There were lots of creative mixtures in cooking to take advantage of what they had: home canned plum sauce with canned pork was a special favorite of one family.

The root cellar in the basement, with rock walls and no heat, was a wonderful place to store canned goods and root vegetables like potatoes, carrots and rutabagas. A spring house was used to keep perishables cool before the advent of refrigerators or when ice wasn't available for an ice box.

The uncles of one woman would tell her that they had found her in the warming oven of the cook stove and teased her about it.

A grocery owner said that when folks didn't have money for needs he would “put it on folks' bills” but didn't collect most of those bills. Sometimes bills were paid “in kind” with eggs, chickens or vegetables.

Shoes were expensive and hard to come by. One woman had high top shoes that she hated; she cut off tops to make oxfords. Another got shoes stretched to make them last longer. Families passed along shoes from older kids to younger ones. One person remembered that she had two pair of shoes, a ‘Sunday pair' for church and another pair to wear during the week. When the weekday ones wore out, she would start wearing the Sunday pair during the week and got a new pair for Sundays.

Very few clothes were “store bought.” Sewing machines, often the treadle kind, were much used to make clothes for everyone, to alter clothes, put big hems in things so they could be “let down” as kids grew. Often flour/feed sacks were used for making dresses and dish towels. One person remembered having only one pair of jeans and two shirts. One woman remembered she had to take her school dress off as soon as she got home, and wear it for several days.

A woman remembered that her mother had a tin can, pounded nail holes in it, and put slivers of soap in it to use in kitchen and laundry. Everyone dried clothes outside and loved the way sheets smelled after drying in the sun.

Houses were much colder in the winter than they are now. Some families warmed an iron on the stove then wrapped it up and put it in a bed to warm it. Lots of quilts were needed to keep warm in unheated upstairs bedrooms. These were so heavy that it seemed hard for little ones to get out of bed. Frost accumulated on bedroom windows. A register in the floor let some heat come upstairs-kids stood next to it to get dressed in the morning. Others remembered standing next to stove in the morning to warm up. They didn't know there was anything unusual with this. Some families used corn to heat with when it was so cheap and coal was expensive.

People would come around to the back door, offering to work for food. Others came selling pencils, brooms, or shoelaces to earn money. One woman remembered a farmer coming around offering to sell corn for 10 cents a bushel. The Fuller Brush Man and the Watkins Man apparently became common visitors during this era.

One man's parents came from Sweden to Iowa. He remembers a toy with man on horse and a cannon to shoot the man off the horse. They had brought this with them and it was very special. His parents were excited about learning to speak and read English; they didn't speak Swedish around their children.

Many farmers lost their farms during the depression and neighbors helped them as they could. They moved to town so father could get a job, though usually very poorly paid, so the family could put food on table. Some said that they remembered rarely finishing a school year in the same school because the family had to move so often.

Several people mentioned that their parents got married in the middle of the depression. Some moved in with their parents because they couldn't afford a separate house. There was a strong support system in the rural areas; neighbors and relatives were considered “family.” Several reported they married in little country churches, built by community members.

Roads were awful in those years, very frightening to a child. People walked more; either they didn't have car or couldn't afford to use it for errands.

Despite bad roads and distances people still enjoyed getting together; they would have potlucks and after supper sing together or play games. Adults as well as children enjoyed games such as chess and checkers as evening's entertainment.

At Christmas children would give one of their own possessions to siblings or make something; they had no money for presents. One remembered a Christmas when her brother & sister both needed boots, Santa Claus came early after it snowed heavily in early December, and he left boots for both of them. An orange and a candy cane were wonderful Christmas treats.

Everyone remembered being told to turn off lights when leaving a room. In the summer they opened all the windows at night when it was cool and then closed windows and pulled down shades early on hot mornings to keep the house cool. Lined curtains helped to keep rooms warm at night in the winter.

Mothers took waxed paper out of cereal boxes and used it for other things. Bread wrappers were used to wrap sandwiches in for school lunches. Everyone saved jars, cans, and boxes for other uses, like storing nails and nuts and bolts. Orange crates became bookcases, dressing tables, and toy storage.

A string ball and a rubber band ball were common sights in kitchens. Children would knot together little pieces of string to use later and save rubber bands by wrapping them around a ball. If something was needed, the first thought would be to see if there were anything in the house that could be “repurposed” to do the job rather than go to a store to buy something. Someone remembered the phrase, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

Remember oilcloth? It was used for a washable table cover, or shelf covers. One person had an old cookbook with oilcloth covers and simple moneysaving recipes (chocolate cake with hot water, flour and cocoa and a casserole using two hotdogs) put together as fundraiser for little church.

Mothers found lots of ways to save money. Bacon grease was saved in little can next to stove and used to cook with. Leftover vegetables were saved all week to make soup on Saturday. Homemade soap was made from bacon grease and lye from fireplace ashes.

Several remembered making homemade shampoo from eggs (which were plentiful), and they used vinegar or lemon juice to rinse. Saving butter wrappers to use to grease cookie sheets and cake  pans was a common practice. Cleaning products were concocted from readily available ingredients. A spoon of fresh coffee was added to used grounds and they were reused. Tea bags were also reused before discarding. Coffee grounds finally ended up in the “worm bed” to encourage fishing worms.

Some farm families didn't have electricity and remembered when they got it for the first time. They used candles (they had to be so careful) and oil lamps (they had to trim wicks, and wash globes, tasks delegated to older children).

Mention of hot summers brought out many memories of sleepless nights and many ways of keeping cool (or trying to). Mattresses or pads were dragged out on porches, wet sheets were hung to cool the air. Windows were opened at night to let cool breezes in and closed up first thing in the morning. Shades were pulled down to keep the hot sun out.

Quilts made from leftover parts of worn out clothes. Scraps were used for doll dresses.

Mothers sewed everything needed for kids. Socks were darned, and redarned, rather than throwing them out when holes appeared.

Toys were made out of materials on hand: carved from wood, dolls from socks or corn husks; paperdolls and their clothes were cut out from catalogs.

Making taffy and having a taffy pull was a fun way to spend an evening and also was an entertainment that could be enjoyed by girls and boys together.

In the fall applesauce was made from windfall apples so none were wasted. Tomatoes were used to make catsup and chili sauce, and cucumbers went into pickles and pickle relish. Home-made root beer was a great treat. It was bottled and aged, and kept cool by lowering it into the well or keeping it in the root cellar or spring house.

Men and boys fished for food, and shot rabbits and squirrels (“four footed chickens”).

A trip to town might bring a treat if there was enough money: a penny candy, or a candy bar cut in pieces to share.

A vacation, if a family could take one, usually meant going camping and sleeping in the car and/or a tent, catching fish for dinners, roasting marshmallows for a real treat, and telling stories around a campfire.

One person's sister was a nurse in Chicago; all the nurses who had families who lived outside the Chicago area were asked to go home and live with their families, leaving the jobs for those who lived in Chicago.

As the group talked, more and more memories came back, and many were surprised at how many of these resourceful ways of living had been left back in the l930s as families became more prosperous.