It is interesting how everything old becomes new again and things that were done years ago often become popular again because of something in the present moment that causes us to pause and think, “Wait a minute, this has happened before. What did people do last time?” With the economy still at a low point, I have noticed that there is a lot of interest in what people did during the Great Depression to make ends meet. Many families have at least one family member who lived during the Great Depression and these people have valuable stories to tell. The stories are valuable not only for insights that they may provide as to the practical things like how to stretch your food dollars as far as they can go, but also about strength and families and things like the value of community and working together.
Unfortunately, at present, I am not acquainted with anyone who lived during the Great Depression. If I were to meet someone, I would want to listen to their stories for days because the conditions that they lived in were not good but from what I know, the lives that they managed to lead even in those tough times were full of plenty of good things like back yard gardens, home baked bread, and close family and community connections. The information that we can learn from friends and family members who lived through the Great Depression is wonderful of its own accord, but some of it can also be put to use in our every day lives if we think about ways to adjust the recipes and strategies to the way that we currently live. Many of the things that people did to put food on the table or keep their families clothed were very time consuming, and may not translate well for a family that has both parents working outside of the home for forty hours a week. Even so, the stories of life during the Depression can serve as a source of inspiration and perspective.
If you are lucky enough to have family members that lived through the Great Depression, you may want to write a family history book or create a scrapbook to honor their experience. By collaborating and conversing with them over the course of the project, you will be able to gain a lot of information about Depression Era life and perhaps more importantly about your family and the ways that they pulled together during difficult times. Your work will become a treasured family artifact that can provide future generations with genealogical information as well as the types of daily life details that really help us to keep the memories of our ancestors alive.