Growing up During the Great Depression

My grandmother was the same way. She had done some hoarding even though she had money because of the fear that one day she'd be "there" again. It wasn't even possible, but her fear was still there. It's not unusual for those that grew up in the Great Depression to feel this way. Reading about that time period is shocking in the way things were just unvailable and no one had money to buy things. You're doing the right thing by respecting her wishes.

People had a different sense of shame back then.
Accepting help / needing a hand out / not being self sufficient - people hated it.
My Mom was born 1935 - she had 2 dresses for school and that was it.
For awhile there was no food for the kids at home and they were sent to live in an orphanage for a few years - it was that or starve to death.
My grandfather lost his tailor business and he never really recovered from that.
My Mom was so skinny a teacher at her school would sneak her an extra milk at lunch.
When my Mom got married at 21 she had a 17 inch waist.
I wish I could get my Mom to write down her memories in a 'Mom Remembers' book but she said she'll never put it in writing, she grew up with a terrible sense of shame and she never wants people to know all of what she went though.
The stories they tell, they are often the highlights.
There were beatings, hunger, alcoholism, mental instability, a few cousins died of simple illnesses (there were no antibiotics before World War II).
A few stories come out, but much is kept hidden.

My father’s parents were adults during the depression and lost everything including one of their children. They did work hard to keep their own home and business, but my grandpa never trusted banks or government after that. He hid all his money in jars in their basement.

My mother’s parents were children during the depression and both were embarrassed that they only went to the third grade in school. My grandpa worked as a truck driver and my grandma was a SAHM. They did the best they could with what life dealt them.

What they all taught me was to be thankful for everything you have because it can all disappear in a day. They taught me to not be wasteful and to always work hard.

It's interesting that people that consider themselves poor now days are not nearly as poor as people were back then. Most people have at least one car, cable, cell phones and food to eat. Back then people had to live out of their cars or in tents, they would give up their children and let them be put to work so they would have a roof over their heads and at least one meal a day.

Your grandma should not feel embarrassed by her childhood, it is part of what made her who she is today.

Added: back then poor people were thought of as second class citizens so she may think people still feel that way.

People can feel very conflicted about being poor. There is a very strong element of shame associated with poverty. The sacrifices and choices people are forced to make while being poor are gut wrenching. Despite poverty and sacrifices being an accepted part of the Great Depression, your grandmother undoubtedly cannot be objective about her direct involvement and memories of that time. She is too close to the subject and for her it is not a history lesson. That time period contains real memories and real experiences which make up her life. Children in particular take things to heart and feel enormous guilt over events and circumstances well outside their control. Also your grandmother probably hasn't really worked through her emotions about her experiences so I would think you are getting her raw response to her experiences. Clearly she shouldn’t feel ashamed about being poor during the Great Depression but she does so I would respect her feelings which you are doing.
I can think of two people in my life who bear shame and discomfort over their experiences with historically important events or groups. I think these examples are a bit clearer cut than your grandmother’s shame over her poverty during the Great Depression. As such maybe you can more easily understand your grandmother’s point of view through these examples.
My grandmother’s father was involved with the KKK. It was a completely off limits topic and her shame was a tangible presence in the room the very few times the topic ever came up. I gathered his involvement was limited and perhaps more a product of the times and their lifestyle (rural country people) than being a grand whatever of the local chapter. I am certainly not trying to minimize his involvement but after pressing her in her later years when I was an adult she told more if not all of the story. She confessed looking back through the lens of time she just felt terrible shame at his ignorance and racism. Essentially she couldn’t understand how could he be involved with such an awful group. She felt his involvement tainted her and cast a poor light on the whole family. The other person is my very good friend’s mother who grew up as a small child in post World War II Germany. She never speaks of her childhood. She very clearly feels such deep shame over being German and being so close to the Nazi experience which is a very common response to children of that era. To look at both experiences you have to ask yourself why now grown adults feel shame over events surrounding them as children? Children have little to no influence or control over their lives let alone events of such magnitude. However, the sins of the fathers do indeed cast deep shadows. Although in your grandmother’s case the economic forces at play were hardly in most people’s control and as such shouldn’t be born as a burden of shame by the vast majority. They were difficult times and people did the best they could. However, those words are certainly platitudes to those who endured the poverty and its attendant shame.

My grandpa is 93, he still tells stories, has no qualms about the stories of survival during those times.
My grandma (rip), felt like yours, a little embarrassed about it, however it never stopped her from sharing recipes that she had invented to make great comfort food during those times of near famine. Hence the can of baking grease that was always lovingly covered and kept in a cool, dark place in order to whip out some savory broth for an otherwise skimpy soup back in the day.

It was a very difficult time for all who struggled through at the time and they would prefer to leave the bad memories behind them and concentrate on the good ones (aren't we all like that??). If you think about a very difficult and stressful time in your own life, the feelings and tightness in your chest come back as if you were living it all over again. Probably not a good thing to put her through. :)

My grandmother never really talked about it much, but when she passed, I filled a dumpster full of the containers that butter, milk, sour cream, etc come in. In other words, she never threw ANYTHING away if there was a remote possibility of it being used again. I also found food ration tickets.

We've become a "disposable" society. Back then, you just didn't throw anything away if a use could be found for it -- material or personal.

Not exactly a positive thing that our landfills are overflowing, but it is a positive that people were resilient and survived and made something of themselves by overcoming obstacles and not giving up. It's a testament to the will and determination and sacrifice of our grandparents that very few people under 60 will ever have or understand.

One thing you could maybe do is to not focus on what she went through, but make a timeline of her life with the advances society has made over the years. Accentuate the positives that came out of the times. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but there's a funny/eye-opening email that has passed around that mentions things like if you were born after 1980, you've probably never used a rotary dial phone, much less seen one...same with the manual typewriters. (If you haven't seen the email, let me know and I can forward it to you.) Maybe you could make a game of it that everyone could participate in? She could tell her own stories of when some things were first invented like "What was the first tv show she watched? What was the first car she drove?", etc.

Perhaps you could make a list of anecdotes/words of wisdom/lessons learned that you may have gotten out of her stories? The one I remember most from my grandma is she told me her father told her "Never try to save money on mattresses or shoes because you spend half your life in one and the other half in the other." VERY wise words.

For yourself, keep the stories -- good and "bad". It may be good for a book later on, or just to refer back to when you can't go to the original source anymore.

I think her feelings are pretty typical from people that suffered during that time. They saw and did things they don't want to remember.
I did a paper on the Depression for my college history class where we were required to interview someone from WWII or the Great Depression. I chose my grandmothers and the Great Depression. I had NO IDEA how people suffered during that time. None at all. Interviewing them was a real eye-opener, and now that they are gone, I am so glad I have these interviews.
My grandmother's father was a railroad worker that lost his job during the Depression. They really struggled, and her family went hungry for days at a time. Because of this malnourishment, she suffered from Rickets and was always self-conscious that she was really bow-legged.
She wasn't ashamed that she and her family were poor. She was always ashamed that she had to do things that she would have never done otherwise, such as steal from other people's gardens or take eggs from neighbor's chicken coups. She was a fine, loving and generous Christian woman. However, I think this stealing bothered her until the day she died.
While things were really bad, my other grandmother wasn't as bad off, but her neighbors were. She told me that her neighbor during that time had 7 children under 10, and the father died right after the stock market crash. My grandmother cried as she told me how she watched these children starve- forced to boil their leather shoes with onion to have something to eat. She shared what little they had with them, but eventually, they had to move away as they were sharecroppers and couldn't pay the landlord. She said she always wondered about that family, and how things turned out for them. Even at her age, it still broke her heart to think about it.
I think it's an amazing gift to have grandparents from this era and to hear their stories. You should really think about recording her story for future generations. You don't have to share. However, the people that went through this epic time in history are passing away and are taking their stories with them.

Maybe it is where they fall in the picture. None of my family was embarrassed they were always proud of where they came from. My dad is 82 by the way as a frame of reference.

I guess it was how they looked back at it but the stories I heard were all funny. I don't think I ever heard a story about how they did without though I am quite sure money was tight. My grandparents were immigrants from Sicily. So maybe they had no point of reference to the good times.

I remember my grandma telling me that my uncle won a goat. He wanted to keep it as a pet and for milk. The goat ate the skirt off my grandma's kitchen sink and the goat became dinner for a while. :p

I don't think they saw themselves as "poor" so much as like everyone else. I guess I am saying it seems perspective drives perception. Not sure if my stories help but here's hoping. :)

My mother is 84, also grew up during the depression. Even though they were young at the time, there's something very shameful about being poor. My mother said she only had two dresses and wore each one every other day. They had 7 kids in their family and really struggled. She always felt "less than" the other kids. It hurts your self esteem to be that poor, you feel other people look down on you.

Respect her wishes, it still hurts her.

My great grandma (My grandma's mom) wrote a book about her life when she turned 100. She only printed enough copies for immediate family members and seemed kind of embarrassed about the whole thing (It was my grandma who was pushing her to write the book).

My grandpa is about 87. He also just wrote a book about his life growing up on the farm as poor as dirt. He loves giving it to people to read and loved hearing their feedback on it. I guess it all depends on the person.

What a great thread. It's interesting to read all these stories, really puts things in perspective as to what poor means. Thanks to all who have shared.

I like Terri's ideas of incorporting info of first car, tv show, movie, etc. That would be fun especially for any kids that attend.

But you should write down any stories she's told you so that some day you do share them with younger generations of your family.

It's not just the poor that feel or are shameful about The Great Depression. My grandparents had money till the day they died and came from families that had money even during those times.... Grandma still never wanted to talk about that era of life. If she shared things it was about the inventive recipes you'd have to come up with. I LOVED potato chip cookies. She still made them till the day she passed, may she rest in peace.

I think it was such a hard time for people that things that went on they saw as shameful. Not to mention it's extremely tacky to talk about money etiquette wise. I've noticed the older a person is the more they think that. Maybe it's because if you talk about TGD it always comes down to money.

Regardless that is wonderful that you are respecting her wishes and her modesty. I'd still write it all down though. If we forget the past we are doomed to repeat it as they always say anyways. I'd just put those chapters away for you in the future.

My grandmother, who is no longer with us, grew up in the great depression too. She never really talked about the way life was when she was growing up, at least to me. I do know that she never really grew out of the Great Depression mindset. She was a border line hoarder of things that she thought she would need "just in case." When we cleaned out her home after she had passed, she had so much paper goods and soaps that she left behind. Also, she did not like to throw food away. When we would visit her when I was little she always INSISTED that we take apples from her bowl, but they were always past the ripe stage. My mom made us take them and we would toss them in the outside trash (she didn't want my grandma eating the nasty fruit either).

It sounds like you are being very respectful, and I would suggest sharing with your grandma what you plan on saying ahead of time, so she can give you her blessing.

My parents never discussed what they went through as they were young adults if they had lived this year dad would have been 102 and mom 101. I was a late baby and luck to be here as mom had medical problems.

They were very frugle and always kept things "just in case". I learned very early that you used up what you had and wore it out and then got something new to replace it. Clothing was minimum a pair of shoes for school, the worn ones for play and a dress pair.

Meals were made at home as there were no drive thru or fast food places to get a quick bite to eat. There was a diner up the street from us that served the truckdrivers going east to New York City and west to Chicago and such. Many a night heard the singing tires of the trucks going by on the way to the city to deliver their loads. I do recall the chickens in the backyard and the veggie garden along with flower gardens. Clothes were made by treadle sewing machine or by hand and repaired until it could not be repaired any more and then taken apart for something else. Entertainment was visiting family on a Friday or Saturday night and church Sunday morning. If you had a radio you were doing good. My first TV was in 1950s and that was a big deal. The phone (rotary) was a party line of 2 to 6 families so that the expense could be shared among several families - no private lines. Dad worked at a factory shift work that rotated days/afternoons/midnights. Mom was stay at home but had worked for a while before I was born.

AC was another thing that was not heard of. People had fans throughout their homes to move the air. Laundry was done in the wringer type washing machine and hung on the clothes lines to dry. You came home from school and did your chores and started dinner for the family no after school care. Responsibility started at an early age and you worked long and hard with little pay. My first job after school was $64 a week and I thought I had won the million dollar lottery. Wages did not increase until the mid 80s to what they are now.

There are a few things I miss the tightness of family and the celebrations. A sense of being free and wandering around the block no fences to each other's house and back. An innocense that has been replaced with fear and worry.

I had a great great aunt that used to talk about Staten Island at the turn of the last century 1890s and what it was like. I wish I could have recorded what she thought about it before it become what it is today.

We are all a part of our country in our own unqiue ways and we each have something to say/share so please do write it down for the future.

The other S.

PS I recall the manual typewriter could do 90 plus words a minute on it. Shorthand was 120 now about 60 if I am lucky. Carbon paper for copies and stencil sheets for duplicating and the ether correction fluid that would get you high as a kite if you smelled too much of it. IBM Selectric trypewriters with the ball and calculators that were manual and the cash register with the keys you had to push to ring up your sale and the handle that you had to push to make it work.

I would respect here wishes as this is obviously an embarrassing subject for her. But please make sure you write down her stories she has told you for your family history. Once she is gone you won't be able to get those memories and one day your kids may want to hear about great grandma and the depression.

Would she respond better to some of the stories if they were prefaced by - "even tho' it was during the Great Depression...." - would think that might take the onus off of her as there were many folks on that trail!

My gr-grands lived during that time (both are now gone) - raising a family and all on a rented farm! Let's just say they STARTED the green thing of recycling way back before it became the IN thing to do! LOL!!