This is so interesting. I'm printing it out for DH to read later today. He too was born in 1929. Reading books was, sometimes, the only entertainment he had when he was a kid, and he used to read about people complaining about cold water flats. (Apt's with just cold running water) He said that sounded like a luxury to him as they always had to get their water either from a river or a well, some distance away. I don't remember not having water or electricity when I was a kid, but do remember ration stamps. I was send to the store to get some sugar and lost the stamp on the way. Oh how I cried and looked and looked for that stamp in the street. Dottie

I found this post to be interesting too. My children are so out of touch with how lifestyles were for my parents and grandparents generations. The world has changed so much in a very short period of time.

I was born in 1935 in Indianapolis and then we moved to Anderson, after my sister was born there we moved when I was 4 years old to the family land. We had no electricity until the late 1940's and no bathroom at all. I married and moved away and still no bathroom in 1953. Then they moved to another part of their land and finally had a bathroom in 1957. I don't believe we even owned a vehicle during World War II. We didn't go anywhere and if Mother needed groceries she caught a bus out on the highway to go to town for the day. Can you believe we had a television before we ever had a bathroom!

Sue

I grew up in Buffallo NY. One of my uncles had a second home out in the "country" about 15 miles frOm the city. As kids, Dad took us out to "the farm" every weekend. The farm house had electricity, an oudoor well with a pump handle, a propane stove in the kitchen, no heat, and an outdoor outhousehack with a half-moon cut in the door, At least it had toilet paper. Dad and uncle used to joke about using newspaper and corncobs!

had to look up my one uncle who just passed away..he too had been born in march of 1929...i do believe they did make one trip to california, not sure when but were part of a farming family in kansas...went from being well off (as my mother said..she was born 1915) to almost nothing, during the great dust bowl.

the one family home is still standing (it was sold years ago)...my grandparents farm is gone...of the 5 children, 3 graduated from college, one brother is still living...none were farmers.

Thank you for sharing!

I was born in 1924, in NC. I was the 10th. of 9 living children (first daughter born to my parents (1907) only lived 3 days.) My DF owned an automobile business which was doing well. Our family car was a Pierce-Arrow!

And then Wham! Depression! DF lost the business, our home, and the new house that was being built across the street!

Long story short, we packed up and moved, by car pulling a homemade trailer, to Texas. Two oldest brothers had hitch-hiked there and said things were better and work was available. We rented a house and DF and the boys became instant "Handymen" doing whatever jobs they could find. Worked on cars, painted, did wallpapering, etc. They hunted rabbits, squirrels and ducks, and fished and caught frogs, We ate well, had electricity and a bathroom. Being the youngest, I really didn't understand what was going on.

After 2-3 years we packed up and went, again by car to DC, where the older brothers had gone ahead. They all worked at painting, etc., and we managed.

By the time I had finished grade school, DF had managed to buy a house in VA. That is the first time we didn't have a bathroom! It was an old, but good attractive house, but never had a BR. In one months time, DF and the boys had a BR added at the end of a hallway.

We were "hard up" as people like to say, but with everybody working and pulling together, we survived.

The Depression was a bad time, but that is where I and my siblings learned a lot of life lessons.

Times are not the best now, but by sticking together and being frugal, and willing to work at whatever is available, it is survivable.

Sue

How very interesting joyeful.
I agree with susan on that we have become out of touch with our parents and grandparents generation. My Mom was born in 1926. She tells of her older brother and her walking home from school and then he would go hunting to see what he could get for supper. Rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, anything was fair game. If he came home empty handed they had beans or potatoes. He got to be quite the marksman.

Ron

We had relatives who started an electrical business in our village of Lambeth, 6 miles or so from London, around 1940 and Dad bought a small table radio from them about then. What vistas it opened to us in the few years that we continued to live near Lambeth!

Our farm had 250 acres, part of it a bush with cattle pasturing near it and, when I was young, through it ... and one could see quite a long distance, up about 6 feet, as high as the cattle could reach. Then Dad fenced it, to keep the cattle out (and I think to receive rebate on tax) and within a few years there was heavy undergrowth in there.

Suffering from bronchitis nd incipient asthma, Dad would often be in bed for a while in the damp fall.

Grandpa had bought the 250 acre farm, with about 187 workable, due to a gravel pit there as well as the bush and a small apple orchard. I don't have any idea what Grandpa paid, but we moved west in 1946 and Dad sold the farm in 1947, after 30 years' ownership, for $15,000 (and animals and equipment in spring of 1945, just before the end of the war, for about $7,000.) ... and the family with about 6 kids that we knew in church who bought it had a hydro easement for towers later, and a few years ago sold about 50 acres for a freeway to be built, then sold the remaining 200 acres in 2007 ... for 2.4 million.

We had a big old 2-storey white brick house 36' x 40' with 2 bay windows in living room and parlour, with solid black walnut front door (brass draft reducer between it and jamb used to buzz when there was a substantial east wind). Elliptical front stair, no two steps alike (a trademark of the builder) with chestnut, oak and maple, and black walnut newel post and banister. We used to chase one another up the back stair and slide down the front banister, that had a curve at the bottom before it entered the newel post that made it easy to slide off ... until Grandma got after us. She'd threaten to strap us ... and we'd laugh and say that she, with heavy curvature of spine, couldn't catch us. A large farm kitchen with wood-burning range in it, and a summer kitchen back of that, with a woodshed beyond that - that had a double door, and I think that they'd kept a buggy there in earlier times. There was a concrete platform with steps leading up to it by the roadside that made it easy to enter a buggy.

Dad gave each of us a bike at age 9 ... and a new one when we went to high school. I remember riding my original one along the gravel road beside our farm (road to school was paved) and thinking early on how great it would be if those pebbles were gold ... but it didn't take me long to think that if it were gold for me, it'd be gold for everyone else, too ...

... and soon it would take far more than a pocketful to buy a loaf of bread!

Family lore is that Grandpa helped a couple of young men get some training that their family couldn't afford and they'd gone to the West in 1910, one returning in '24 to tell what great opportunities there were in the West. Dad was some interested, but Mom's brother, in the dry area of s-w Saskatchewan, was having a hard time and she wanted no part of going out there!

When we moved to the Prairies in 1946, Dad sharcropped the farm of the man who'd come East in '24 for a while. Many in Saskatchewan had no power, but the newly-elected so-called socialist government there had made a promise to extend the lines to many more ... and followed through (the times were prosperous) and, though there was a power line 1.5 miles from our house, the landlord hadn't felt the need to run a line (till her retired out to the farm, a few years later!).

So we had a battery-operated radio and used Coleman pressure lanterns, fuelled by naphtha gas or kerosene, which hissed, as the heated kerosene/gas was shot out toward the mantle, under pressure. Some used Aladdin lamps, with a wick bringing kerosene up from a reservoir and a silk mantle above (very fragile, as were the mantles on the Coleman, as they were silk ash, after all) and those lamps worked silently.

We had a metal cistern, with less water than in the one in Ontario - much less rain. There had been a well on the farm, powered by a windmill, but the well didn't work, and we had to carry water for cooking and drinking from the city, neighbours' homes, etc. ... so my current situation of Uncle's well being too close to the barnyard, necessitating my hauling such water from the city is a familiar one.

So I never knew either a flush toilet or hot water on tap until I went to University at 18. Toilet paper? What's that? We used newspaper, or department store catalogues (and the slick pages were the last ones used).

After a year and a quarter, I went by overnight train to Saskatoon, arriving in early morning, asking near the station as to how to get to our college, then taking the street car (my first street-car ride? I think so) on the winding journey to its location, overlooking the South Saskatchewan River, and walking into the college, carrying my suitcase, in an early morning in September, 1947.

The threshold of a life that led to much broader horizons: it's been such an interesting life ... so far!

ole joyful

I love reading about these things. Thanks for sharing.

OJ has such an interesting story/history!

This reminds me of a lot of stories my mom and dad told me. She was born in 1918 and he was in 1915. You should write all of this down and print it to pass it on to the next generations. I wish my parents had or I had when they told them to me. You have an amazing memory! I wish mine was as good.
Clare

sue va...a couple of cyber pals and i all discovered our grandfathers (dad's family ohio) were all painters or paperhangers...i have no idea if that was what they did before or not...my dad was born in 1900.

Susanjf, that is very interesting. My DF was born in 1879, my DM in 1882. They were married in 1902.

Because my DF had the auto business, I guess that is how he and my brothers learned to work on cars. As for the painting and paper hanging, I guess they just did it! One of my brothers got so good at it he became well known after we moved to DC, and then into VA. He had his own business. One of the more notable places he refurbished is the home of Lady Astor (formerly Nancy Langhorne, a native Virginian.) We were all living in VA by then. The Astor home is just a few miles from here and is known as Mirador.

My DF got involved in the Real Estate business.

Everybody has a story. I have preserved parts of mine on my website.

Sue

I have to say that the little bit of info you shared about your mother saddened me. I can only imagine the heartache you and your family suffered.

I know in the late 60s my Dad was hospitalized and we were not allowed to visit. My mom put a good dose of makeup on my oldest sister in order for her to look old enough to visit. The rest of us stood in the parking lot craning our necks to catch a glimpse of Dad as he waved from the window.

Thankfully the health care system is more thoughtful about allowing children to visit ailing family menbers.

Thank you for sharing bits and pieces of your life. I have found it touching.

Kim

I enjoyed this post so much! The younger people of today need to hear these memories. I find most 20 somethings haven't a clue about the depression and how people lived through it. Now they feel deprived if they don't get their $6.00 Latte each morning.

Thanks Ole joyful,
I hope to read more!