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Originally Posted by momto3taters almost reminds me of what my grandma told me about when she was a kid during the depression. They had a farm, and went to town twice a year. She told me they didn't know there was a depression cause they were so poor it didn't matter in the first place. |
Hi,
Yea, isn't that something? My grandma and grandpa, both came over here, one at the age of 9 (gram) and the other 11 (grandpa), sent over by themselves, by their respective familys as all they'd heard about America was that you could make money and they weren't doing so good where they came from... and they saved up, all the relatives and sent them each over here (they met long after they got here), and were told to work and send money home, and sooner or later they'd have PLENTY of money and then they could come back home. Well... that never happened, they got jobs in factorys, remember, no child labor laws back then, made practically nothing, and found places to stay, a room in someone's house.
Neither one spoke English when they got here, but both knew how to work hard. They both learned English, on their own, nobody teaching them and no schools of course, they had to work lots of hours, and hardly ever had even a nickel to send back home.
They not only learned to speak English, after awhile they could read and write in it also. Kinda cool when you think of all the people that couldn't care less about schooling today. They both did, they wanted to fit in with their new country. When they met, they courted, lol, fell in love and got married, had many children, and my teeny grandmother was shorter than me, UNDER 4feet, 9inches! And she had all her kids right at home, except one. She lost 3, one set of twins in birth as they were just too small and another boy when he was about 2 weeks old.
They went through the depression and I doubt, knew it - as I've talked to my Aunt and she always says that they never knew that they were poor, they were like everyone else! They didn't have any games or things like that so they made up their own. (not so bad, that.)
They had a home w/no hot water, so they did have to heat it and no heat upstairs as they heated the downstairs w/a stove!
My grandparents never drove, either one of them, so never had a car, when you wanted to go somewhere, or HAD to, you walked. That included the local grocery, or Dr.'s no matter how sick you were. And for the kids, there weren't buses for school, they walked about a mile and a half each way, in all kinds of weather, and no matter what, you did NOT miss school and all of them, loved it.
They, the girls, there ended up to be only one boy, and he died young, had each two dresses, which they alternated every other day. My grandmother made them all and never used or had a pattern, or a sewing machine.
To keep warm in the winter, upstairs while sleeping, first all the kids each slept w/another sister, the brother didn't, so they all took hot bricks from the stove wrapped in cloths to bed to help them not freeze during the night.
Grandma washed all her clothes by hand (I usually do too), and hung them out to dry, for the entire family and baked her own bread... nobody could afford a "store bought" loaf! Soo... I loved to hear her tell of "The Old Country" where she'd come from, Poland and my Grandpa's "Old Country", Lythuania, and neither one ever got back home to see their relatives. Ever.
And my 85 year old Aunt can tell some great storys about growing up in that time, with the sisters and things they used to do, I love to hear things she can tell me too. She insists that they really didn't know how poor they were. I believe her as my Mom used to say the same thing.
My grandfather never did get a good job, what he did all day, every day, was walk from home to the larger houses and ask if there was any kind of work that he could do for pay - sometimes the pay would be in a chicken, sometimes a little bit of money. But he took whatever he was given. And supported his family the best he could -- if there really wasn't any money, Gram would take whichever children were still too young to go to school with her and go off and work for awhile in someone else's fields, the older kids watched the babys. They had an amazingly hard life, but never ever, did I ONCE hear them complain.
Kat
