pre grid 1930's living
 

Dad was born in 1929, the very beginning of the Depression. Some of his reminiscences follow:

Power: Rural electrification was not completed in his area (90 miles outside of NYC) until 1939.
Prior to that point, power was generated by an engine bolted to an cement block in the cellar. The engine was started with gas (crank engine), but run on kerosene, which cost $.05 at the time.

The engine powered sixteen 32 volt batteries. They did not need to use the generator every day. The following appliances were powered by the battery array:
Iron
Food mixer
Toaster
Wringer washer
Curling iron
Radio
Lights (floor, table and ceiling)
Bench grinder (out in the shop)

Heat:
A woodstove in the living room
A wood cookstove in the kitchen
Hot water heat – radiators in all the bedrooms

Food and food storage
Each winter, blocks of ice were cut from one of the nearby lakes and hauled to the ice house. Blocks were stacked – with layers of sawdust between for insulation.
There was no refrigerator, but an icebox, filled periodically with a block of ice from the ice house.

Food was dehydrated (solar), canned (water bath or oven –Grandma was afraid to use a pressure canner), smoked, fermented or pickled. Eggs were stored in glassine. These eggs were only used in baking.

Laundry
The wringer washer was in the cellar. Grandma used this for a family of 7. It was still in use as late as the mid 1960’s, because I remember Mom putting a pair of my brother’s rubber pants through the wringer and hearing a loud pop.

Grandma hung laundry on the outside line in the summer, in the cellar during the winter. My dad and uncle bought her an electric dryer sometime in the 70’s. As far as Dad knew, she never used it. It sat on the cement block where the generator once stood.

Water

A hand pump brought water to the kitchen sink. The well was in the cellar.
The outhouse was in use until 1939, when indoor plumbing was installed - one bathroom for 7.

Amusement
I don’t know that my dad and aunts and uncle had lots of time for amusement. One aunt bought herself a radio with money she earned. My dad and his other sister bought a bike with their pooled money.
There wasn’t a lot of free time though. The kids worked hard at farm chores. They sold sweet corn to tourists from New York City. 100 ears of corn for $1.00!!!!
When I was a girl, some of our leisure time was spent gathering food – corn, tomatoes, potatoes…Food was always best at Grandma’s – not because Mom wasn’t a good cook, but because the food was oh, so fresh!

I'm trying to pick Dad's brain and get as much info as I can. Any questions you want me to ask?

I'm amazed to think that he can remember all this stuff, but when he was 16 he began studying to be an electrical engineer - so I think power was always important to him.

Will try to redo later, lots of q's.

huh...we didnt get a power dam here until 1939...most folks and families didnt get electric here till 50's .


most folks didnt have a drilled well....no power....they had cisterns and several men made their living hauling water.theres pipes sticking out of ground along our roads where people still take jugs to fill for drinking water.if i get by one i will take pictures yall might find that interesting.one is built like a root cellar too.our old barn had a huge cistern for water critters at the barn.

My mother's family was holed up in Starlight, PA during the War. They didn't get electricity til the 50's. They were also approx 90 miles away from NYC. The only electric was for a milk cooler that a neighboring raw milk dairy had to have by law. Their former house is now the post office there.

Wormlady. I really enjoyed reading your story. Does your Dad remember how they dealt with personal hygiene? Like washing their hair, hair cuts, baths or showers, tooth brushing, and so on.

We had them where I grew up in New England. We got some on occasion. Good stuff.Fresh cold spring water. No reverse osmosis to strip the minerals out just to add them back in "for taste" like bottled water.

Stef, I asked Dad about personal hygiene tonight while we were porch sittin'. He remembers a lot less about that than the power system, but I suppose that is typical of 10 year old boys. :)

They would wash their faces and hands at the kitchen sink. They would brush their teeth with either salt or baking soda - because it was cheaper and because Grandma thought it did a better job.

I forgot to ask about the haircuts, but my grandma was a tightwad jedi master - I'm sure she cut all the kids' hair.

They got indoor plumbing around the time they got connected to the grid, but he does remember his uncle carrying a tub - 'heavier than any man should carry' on his back up to the second floor. Dad vaguely remembers carrying water up to that.

Several years ago we visited a historical home of about the same period. A metal bucket that had several holes punched in it was suspended over the tub for 'showers'.

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the comforts I have but...... we have become soft. Thank you for posting this.

My parents were 8 and 10 when the Great Depression hit. Along with the Dust Bowl both of their families lost their farms and had to move seeking work.

Mostly the same area that had the horrible drought last year and again this year.

I have a photo of myself in a diaper, tied to a row of grape vines, playing in the sand. My family used me as a row marker when they were migratory picking.

I grew up hearing a lot of stories about the depression and about droughts.

My father lived through the depression and I was always captivated by his stories of hard times. I remember him telling me about personal hygiene during that period. Once spring broke they all bathed in a stream behind his house (about 200 yards). He always liked Ivory Soap because it floated. In late fall he had to hall the water up to the house few times a week so that his parents, sister, and him could bath. They heated the water on the wood stove. Because he was the youngest and a boy, he bathed last. I remember him telling me that the water was always cold and filthy. Bathing became less frequent during the winter but he never told me how often. I know that my Grandfather bath more than everyone else because he was working as a boiler man at a factory. Sponge baths were also used in between baths.

When I was a child we all bathed once a week. As the youngest I went last, and the water was cold and muddy.

I think that many Okies developed habits that they never got out of.

Depression
 

My Mother was a child of the Depression. She told me how they dehydrated things. They'd get up on the roof of the house w/screens. They raised chickens, gardened, canned everything they could. Her Dad was a handyman. So to get beef they would barter what they had or his handyman work. She told me during the Depression; they never went hungry. Also, said during this time; she made a quilt for someone for 50 cents. She would have liked HT.

Would you ask him if his mother put her baby chicks under the wood cookstove to keep them warm? I'd like to hear more details about his generator/ battery banks and how it all worked, pretty interesting stuff! And please thank him for telling these things!

Grandpa was a well driller by trade. He also built that house, so I think he drilled the well (not sure how - I'll ask Dad and see if he knows) and built the house over it.

Grandpa was born in 1895. He quit school after the fourth grade and went to work. He had an ox and a cart and he would haul gravel to various building sites - particularly bridge constructions. Can you imagine a 10 year old doing that today?

My auntwas disabled. She didn't go to school, but took care of all the family's mending/sewing and was a great help to Grandma in the kitchen. One day she told Grandpa, "I don't mind the fact that I'm crippled, but I don't want to be stupid." Grandpa went right out and hired a tutor, a woman who came to the house several times a week to tutor Aunt D.

elkhound, I googled 'drilling wells with oxen' and came up with this post.

Interestingly enough - this is the same are Dad grew up in, I'll have to ask him if he knows the well driller (or is related to him :) ).

The folks had a hand pump in the kitchen in order to get water up to the sink. They hauled water to the second floor. And every bedroom had a chamber pot under the bed.

Had a bunch of q's, could probably talk your dad's arm off! On the electric, was it set up like solar is now? Inverter and such? Was the engine vented? On water outside, was a wind mill used? They used to be all over for cattle but are gone now. Do not know how they worked. Did they keep animals, grow feed, how was it stored, what were rations, what was used for bedding?
My dad has been gone a long time now. He did not talk much about growing up. Lots of things I wish I could ask.

When I was in school I had to interview and do a report about someone that lived during the Great Depression. Knowing my Grandfather as a great storyteller and young man during the depression I used him. I can't remember everything he told me but I do remember him telling me about how they made food money. Since they lived in New Jersey next to railroad tracks that were used to haul coal to the factories in NY all the neighborhood kids would walk the tracks daily gathering coal that fell off of hopper cars and take it to the "rich section of town" to sell or trade for food.
He also remembered going to his aunts house in northern NJ during the summer with his parents to work on farms up there as laborers. He said they would work at different farms for a few weeks picking corn or vegetables in exchange for food. When their car broke and couldn't be repaired they traded it for an (his words here) old brokedown horse and rotten old wagon. I still remember him chuckling and saying "yup, life was simple back then".
I remember as I was growing up thinking to myself "wow, Pop can fix anything". I asked him once how he learned how to fix so much stuff. He told me that when you work so hard to get something you take great care of it because if it breaks and you can't fix it you may never be able to replace it.
Now that he's gone I sure do regret not having spent more time on his front porch listening to those old stories.

I know what you mean huntinfamily. I thought I'd better get busy and record Dad's memories while I can!

Correction: the well in the cellar was not drilled - it was hand dug. I'm not sure how far they had to go to get water. In 39 when they got electric, Grandpa drilled the well with either a gas or diesel engine.

I forwarded that link with the blog written by the guy who hired the well driller who uses ox to drill to my cousin. Turns out her brother and nephew both have worked with that guy. Small world!

Theme
 

One theme I'm seeing in these threads is, everyone wishes they would have gotten more info from older relatives. I thought we did that when Mom was alive. My Brothers sat her down and even recorded what she said many times. I thought we had everything taken care of as far as the the past. And, don't you know; things have come up that only she could have answered.

Boy, you guys sure make me feel old. Being born in '45, I remember the late '40s and early '50s in rural Minnesota. My dad bought an army surplus supply building (pre-fab), and built it over a sandpoint well he'd driven. Divided it into rooms. No insulation, kerosene lamps for illumination, chemical toilet (finally) replaced the outhouse. Baths on Saturday night in the kitchen in a galvanized tub, water heated on the woodstove.

He was born in 1898, so he saw it all. Lived in a sod house in N. Dakota, and became a traveling salesman at 10 years old, driving a team and wagon selling berry bushes and strawberry plants to other plains farmers. Wherever he was at his last call was where he'd have supper and spend the night. He saw the roaring 20s in Chicago, even met Al Capone! Sold Packards thoughout the depression, and became a machinist during WWII. Never did explain why they moved to the country after the war.

As an interesting side note, while building the supply building/house, he showed a lumber yard owner how he'd designed the windows to fill the holes he'd cut in the walls. You can buy windows with that design now from Anderson Windows. Dad always was a lousy businessman.

very interesting thread.

No real knowledge survived in my family from the era. All i could add was my grandmas family on one side lived along some railroad tracks. they fed anyone who came along who was willing to work for it. expand the garden, forage, etc etc. Wouldnt work for all scenarios of course... but it worked for them at the time and they were proud they had shared what they could. Some people stayed on a few years! Some just a night. Atleast one (as far as I know it was just one the way the story was told, bu no one said specifically it was) had to be chased off with a lot of drama, refusing to help for his share, and refusing to leave. Interesting to note the family did NOT have to deal with the slacker, they had a wide buffer zone of helpers. Which I find very thought provoking.

Can I butt in here for a minute? lol

When I was a kid we heated with a pot belly stove in the dining room. Every spring we'd order 300 baby chicks that were delivered by the mailman. We'd get them early and they had to be kept real warm until they feathered out. Here's how we did it...

We took several boards and set them up on the sides to make a small pen around the stove. The floor was linoleum so we covered it with newspapers for easier cleanup.

We set the water containers in there, sprinkled chick food around, then turned out the chicks into their own little indoor corral. They could move close or away from the heat of the stove to stay comfortable. At night they would usually be as far from it as possible, and by morning they would all be huddled right under the stove. Come morning when dad built the fire up they would move out again.

Every now and then we'd loose one and it was considered a major loss. We all knew we'd never get the eggs that hen would have laid, have the chicks she would have hatched, or at the very least we'd loose out on a future chicken dinner if the chick was a roo.

When they got their wing feathers, dad would put together an enclosed 4' x 8' box outside. We'd hang a couple lights in there for warmth, then move them all out to the box. During the day we'd let them run free, but shortly before sundown we'd all go out and catch them to put them back in the box for the night.

very interesting thread! my father was born in 1900 so i heard a lot of this from him and my husband was born in 22 and i got a lot of info from him also. when i was growing up we still had the outhouse in the yard but only for us kids when we were playing outside. the women in the family always cut everyones hair. i learned to do it while watching mom and after awhile i did all that. for the mattress they had goose feathers also the pillows. dad had a bathroom with tub sink and toilet in our house long before the water and sewer went through our town. i can't remember not having it. ~Georgia.

Elkhound we have those water buildings here too. And we still have water haulers.

Dad and I porch sat for a while tonight and I took your questions down to him. I think it is fun for him to remember the 'good ol' days'.

Horse Fork Farm, you asked about keeping chickens under the woodstove to keep them warm. Dad does not recall ever having chickens in the house. Grandma was a neat-nik, I don't think the dogs even came in. They didn't hatch eggs, they bought the chicks and put them straight into the chicken coop. Love hearing Spinner's recollections.

The rest of the questions were asked by tab. Here are the questions and answers:
Was your electric set up like solar is now? No, says Dad, it was integral to the house. (tab, I hope you know what that means cuz I have no clue, lol).
Inverters? No such thing. It was DC to DC. (again, I hope you understand this!)
Engine vented? Yes, there was a pipe going to the outside.
Windmill for outside water? No, all hand pumped and carried - even for the animals and there was no pond or stream on the property.
What animals did you keep? Chickens, calves, rabbits, pigs. Three milk cows, except for the year they had 9 when Grandpa wanted to try selling milk. They butchered the calves. They ate wild meat too - venison, partridge, pheasant. And fish.
Grandma made butter and cheese.
What did you use for feed? The cows were in the pasture, and also got about a gallon of grain a day. The pigs had skim milk and all the scraps from the kitchen.
How was it stored? They bought the feed in 100 pound feed sacks. They stored the feed in barrels and Grandma and Aunt D. would make the sacks into clothing, aprons, etc.
What did you use for bedding? Dad doesn't recall any special bedding - hay? straw?

In addition to the questions, here is some more info I gleaned:
Grandma dehydrated food on the back porch in a screened box that Grandpa made. They primarily dehydrated corn. Remember, Grandma was afraid of pressure canners and primarily canned (water bath or oven) her food. But the corn would get moldy so instead she would dry it. I'm thankful they all survived!

As I mentioned, they had to carry water to the animals - from the house. The house was probably 75 feet from the barn. When Dad was 12 or 13, he as given the job of digging a ditch to lay a pipe to get water to the barn. The ditch was 42 inches deep (to avoid frost) and wide enough for him to stand in. He started with a pick ax as there was a lot of hard pan. "A pick per shovelful" he said. It was hard work and took him a long time, but he has always liked that type of work. And when he finished he no longer had to carry buckets of water from the house to the barn.

Dad and Grandpa would cut wood with a crosscut saw. Dad said even when he was 15 or 16 and on the basketball team and in pretty good physical shape, Grandpa could 'kill' him on that saw.

They would fell the logs and borrow the neighbor's horse to skid the logs out of the woods. Grandpa grew up with horses, but never owned any of his own. But I guess he was kind of a 'horse whisperer'.

He worked with a horse named 'Prince' for the first time and it still amazes Dad to this day how Grandpa could get that horse to do what he wanted..

Horses don't back up easily, according to Dad, but Grandpa would tell Prince "Come here together'" and gently cluck his tongue and that horse would back up so that Grandpa could put the tongs (not sure if that is the right term?) on the log. Grandpa showed the horse once, what he wanted him to do and after that - the horse did it.

Come here together - what in the world does that mean??

I'm not sure if Grandpa was such a great horse whisperer or if that was really one smart horse.

I am so enjoying all your stories. Many of you, like me, love to hear those stories and I think gain hope, that if our relatives could survive hard times (much harder than we have now) than we can too.

Please keep the stories coming and if you have any more questions for Dad, I'll be pleased to ask them and he'll be pleased to answer.

Our neighbors still put baby chicks in a box behind/under the wood cookstove. They also put a gallon jug of hot water in there at night before they go to bed to help keep them warm, with a lid on it of course.

For those lamenting the lost opportunity to talk with elderly relatives, contact your local nursing homes! In my area there are plenty of residents who would love the chance to talk "rural and agricultural history" with others. Some have family who visit regularly, but who aren't particularly interested in the specific details of homesteading. Others don't get any visitors at all and love the opportunity to chat about their lives.

When we were homeschooling 2nd grade for my dd, she was really into the Pathways readers (stories with an Amish/Mennonite lifestyle focus). So I would take her to the local nursing home and she would practice by reading the Pathways stories aloud to the residents. Many of them had been raised in similar non-electric circumstances and we got to hear many interesting reminiscences about the "good old days" from them. It seemed that they were willing to be especially detailed to explain things to a little 8yo girl!

It was a wonderful experience for dd and I and the residents seemed to really enjoy it also. So do consider this. It was a fascinating experience.

My great aunt had a premature baby in the 30's. The doctor did not think the baby would make it. But the midwife put Ulyss in a wooden box and set the box on the open oven door of the wood cookstove. That tiny baby lived into his 70'S.

Thanks for that info. I understand the integral and dc, at least in a general way. I have to do some research now. All of this is good info and interesting.
Funny how we view work, I would really hate to dig a ditch like that.
On our farm there are many stone walls, some mighty big boulders. I wonder often how those rocks were moved, horse, mule some with tractors? It helps me to keep perspective, if that makes sense. We really do have it easy and yet it doesn't stop the complaining.

I grew up in a house with running water....on the back porch. It was gravity flow from a spring up the hill. No bathroom, we had an outhouse, woodstove and lantern light. I left home at 12 and lived in a chicken coop with a rain barrel until I got the cabin built the fall before we got married in November. We had a pump out back on the well pipe....James

I heard few stories for my grandmother. Her brother Tommy was small and wasnt ment to make it but did. Great grandma put him in a small box lined with great grandpas flannel with goose featheres between the box and flannel. Tommy is still alive. Greatgrand never wasted anything. Fish heads and such went directly to the garden.my mother and grandmother always said great grand can grow anything anywhere even children. I got that gift. I'm greatful! Great grand always cooked from scratch. A lot from the garden. Fresh as you could get it. I was very young when great grand passed away. I remember a small fisty woman who yelle a lot in a odd language ( Hungarian) and smiled and told me you to little eat eat. And always had Candy to eat. She buried everything cuz " you never trust the bank".
My husband bough me the whole set of the "great depression cookery" he even went to the womans house to buy the remainder of the set for me. Lol. I devoured them like wonderful dark chocolate. It educated me a lot. With great grand and The books set my mind. I have always had a green thumb and never Excepted the word can't. To me everything can have a second life. My husbands old shirts are being made into baby blankets and underwear for the little ones. We are buying " scraps of cloth " aka old t shirts and pants for 50 cents a garbage bag to make the kids new clothes. Money is to tight to do anything else. Make due or do with out use it up or go without.
Some may call me argumentative but I just can't accept a cant or no answer. If there is a will there is a way.

myheaven, thanks for sharing. When you said, "Greatgrand never wasted anything" that reminded me of my grandma too.

Backe behind their garage was a pit - the garbage pit. It looked really deep to me, but I imagine it was about 4 feet deep. They put stuff in their that couldn't be reused and every once in a while they threw a match in there. No garbage pick-up fees, no runs to the dump. There was precious little garbage in there compared to what we throw away today...

And regarding food - if we ate everything up - Grandma worried that she didn't make enough. If we didn't eat everything - she worried that there was something wrong with it.

And you know what? I'm the same way.

James - I bet you could tell us some stories!

My father was a child of the depression & he said that he and his siblings (who lived in town) would shovel snow for a nickle. In the summer they hauled water out to guys working construction (one he talked about a lot was one of the Mississippi river dams). He said he remembered visiting a relative and they still had a dirt floor. He also said they had one stove for heat & cooking and in the winter everyone slept in the room with the stove to keep warm.

My mother grew up in the 50's but her family was also not well off. Her father often traded his service as a carpenter for things they needed. She remembers being a kid & hauling bucket after bucket of water out to the garden. They also hung laundry to dry in the basement during the winter. Her dad hunted to put some extra meat on the table.

Growing up with parents who lived in difficult times taught me to hold on to everything... Which drives my husband (whose parents are younger than my mother & whose parents themselves were as old as my dad) CRAZY. But he is often thankful to find that I saved this or that when a moment of need rolls around.

OH, someone asked about entertaining themselves. They played dominoes, cards, dad still played baseball as a young man, they read books & fished, went on walks every evening after supper, etc. AND most families had a community organization they were involved with. Be it church or Masons or the Odd Fellows.

We have a friend who was born in 1919. His Mom was a school teacher and his father was a farm hand who worked on her family’s farm. When her Father died she inherited the farm – which in those days meant he inherited the farm. His father and a neighbor were friends and together their big ideas ran both farms deep into debt just in time for the Great Depression. They of course lost both farms.

Both families moved to a plot of land in northern Alberta that was owned by the neighbor – he had title but had not paid for years but it was so far in the bush that he was not worried that anyone would bother them. Our friend, his Mother and Father and four siblings survived for over 2 years living in tents and then very rough cabins, hunting, fishing and trapping. My friend said they didn’t starve and they didn’t freeze but everything else was miserable but they worked hard and did not complain and were actually quite happy kids. Then his father ran away with the teenage daughter of the neighbor. They never saw him again.

He was 14 at that time and had to be the man of his family. They stayed almost another year but one day the neighbor decided that his Mom and sister owed him sex in exchange for living on his land. He wanted to kill the neighbor but his Mother would not let him. They left with nowhere to go and ended up in a small city. They slept in their truck or “flop houses” for 5 months while he and his Mother worked at anything they could get and his sister minded the kids. They lived hand to mouth in poverty until his sister married and Mom and the three younger kids moved into her husband’s house. By this time the war was starting and he joined up. Learned to be a cook and then spent the rest of his life working in construction camps.

He said his Mother was a pillar of strength while all the troubles were going on but grew very bitter and angry as she grew older because she could not forget that the misery they endured did not need to have happened. She inherited a farm that had no debt along with a sizeable amount of cash. If her husband had not blown it all and this had still been the situation when the Depression hit they could have weathered it on the farm but there was no money left and huge debts so the debt ruined everything for them.

I find this info very interesting. My elders died when I was young, so I never really got the chance to talk with them like this.

I wonder what they fed the rabbits?
Did they actually have toilet paper?
How did grandma make cheese? Certainly not with store bought rennet and fancy frozen cultures.

Good questions, lonelyfarmgirl. I'll have to check with Dad about the t.p. I'm pretty sure they didn't use Ch*rm*n! :)

Grandma only made cottage cheese, I don't believe you need rennet or fancy cultures for that.

I'm thinking they fed the rabbits commercial feed, supplemented but greens from the garden.

But I'll get back to you on that after we porch sit tonight.

My mom was near the bottom of a heap of 7 kids growing up in central WI. Grandma was a nurse and used to take in babies that were without a home. So there were times when the house could get pretty crazy. Mom said they had a big garden and never bought any vegs. They usually canned enough for ~ 2 qts/day. Over 700 qts. Till the day she passed, I never saw her eat a yellow wax bean. She said she'd had enough for two lifetimes, growing up.

I remember Grandma had an old wringer washer in the basement. With a steady supply of babies in the house, the going punishment for misbehaving was... you guessed it, dirty diaper detail.

Grandma liked to talk about living in N WI & the U.P. when young. Grt Gramps worked for the railroad and they moved alot. Most of the houses had newspaper (at best) in the walls for insulation. I think maybe he did a little bootlegging too.

She would talk about how the kids would sit on the suitcases in the back seat when they were moving and she'd always laugh when she said "it's a good thing those cops were never smart enough to look in the suitcases."

This is such a great thread. I just read everyones comments again and am sitting here with a notebook writing some of this stuff down. Please please please folks, keep this thread going. The wealth of info we can glean from our older generation is invaluable.