A few years ago, I had the privilege of hearing this story from a close friend who was nearing the end of her life.
When I was a child in the 1930s, things were different from the way kids have it today. During the Great Depression, families with children were hit harder than most. We lived in poverty and had very little to eat, let alone money to spare for entertainment. There were no buses or cars, so we had to walk to and from school. For my sister and me, that meant two miles each way. Attending school in the winter months was challenging, especially when a snowstorm began while we were at our one-room schoolhouse. Our father would walk to meet us, and when he found us, we would do our best to follow his footsteps through the snow, as we headed for home.
Racism was so prevalent that many schools were segregated. However, in the remote area where we lived, this wasn’t an issue. We learned about it by listening to news reports on Dad’s battery-operated radio, which was only turned on for the news to save the battery. During the Depression, our older brother quit school and took whatever jobs he could find to help support our family. During the summer months, my sister and I helped him collect scrap metal to sell when he wasn’t doing odd jobs for neighbours. Often his pay consisted of a chicken or some eggs or a sack of potatoes. Cash money was pretty scarce.
The primary form of entertainment for most children was their own imagination! We used whatever we found lying around to create our own toys and games. Girls made rag dolls, and kids played schoolyard games like tag and jump rope. Most of the boys had a ball and a stick to play baseball. During the winter we shared a wooden sled, taking turns sliding down a nearby hill, and occasionally we would all pile on it in a heap to coast down over the snow.
Mother and Dad couldn’t afford much for us in the way of clothing, so most of our clothes were castoffs from other kids who outgrew them, and during the summer we went barefoot. Most of the boys in our neighbourhood wore t-shirts with overalls, and the girls wore blouses and plain dresses, often handmade from flour sacks. However, we made do with what we had, saving our one pair of shoes and a few of our best hand-me-downs to wear to school.
Food was scarce for a lot of families, and many children suffered from malnutrition. We were so fortunate, though we didn’t really realize it at the time, that we lived on a small farm. During the Depression, casseroles and meals like creamed chipped beef on toast, chili, macaroni and cheese, and creamed chicken on biscuits were common at our house. Mother often made Jello for dessert, as it was cheap. We had a couple of old apple trees out back, and when they produced apples, we were so happy to see apple pie on the table. We’d spend hours picking wild strawberries when they were in season, and sometimes we’d get enough for Mother to make strawberry jam.
We didn’t have electricity back then, and on rainy days, our house, which could have used more insulation, was damp and quite cold at times. On those damp days and during the winter months, our parents kept a fire going in the old wood stove, night and day, to keep us warm. Sadly, though, there was no inside plumbing, so we made trips to the outhouse all year round.
Kids today have no idea how lucky they are not to have lived in the 30s. However, we survived, and as the years passed by, we gained a greater appreciation for what we have now.
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