Can you share a story that a grandparent or elder has told you about their experience during the Great Depression?

Heavens,
How could I ever burden you with that stuff?
I did have an old man sit down once and tell me all about it.
He stored heaps of pickled fruit in his cupboards just in case the depression came again!
His whole life was based on the fact that it might come back.

My Grandfather and Grandmother on my mother's side took in my father (as a boy) after his parents both died of TB. Although times were tough, they enjoyed their lives, and eventually put my mother through college (Columbia) my Father through college (Hobart) and my uncle through college (Yale). They must have been some tough ole birds!

That there were rations and that everybody shared in their gardens because that was a way of sharing. Imagine today - we are not expected to give up anything and I think that hurts us as a way of thinking. Not everyone agrees with me.

My father was a butcher during the depression and I can remember my mother telling me that they had to give away more meat than they sold because people didn't have the money to pay for it. If they didn't give it away it would just have gone bad so they gave it to people in the neighbourhood who needed it most.

My neighbor told me that his family had what they needed. They lived on a farm. People who lived in cities had more problems getting along.

My dad having to quit high school to help make money. He never graduated from high school.

My grand aunt values food so much.....that when everybody is done eating she makes us eat up everything that we serve ourselves or offers to finish it up herself

I've heard my mother many times speak of Franklin D. Roosevelt and how he was for "the working man" during the Great Depression. Once she starts talking about it, there is no turning back. She speaks of how he helped the economy to recover. She is democratic and Lord help the person who says anything bad about democrats.

My in-laws went through the depression and spoke about this extremely difficult time in history. After their experience, they were ultra conservative and saved all of their money.

I did not get to meet either of my grandparents but I sure can tell you what some of my pals did.
They whacked the copper coils of running trains,took the iron covers of drains,smuggled rice, sold items in black market, movie tickets etc,so on and so on. What was the worst part was some of them got thrown in the prison and had ablack mark against their name. They became hardened criminals later in life. All for the sake of depression!

My mother was just shy of 14 when the Depression came along in 1929. My grandfather, who had worked 20 years for the Palmolive company lost all of his retirement, and went into business for himself as a purveyor of school supplies, notions, patent medicines, etc., to small grocery stores throughout the Texas Panhandle.
In 1932 - probably the worst year of the Depression - Mother said there simply wasn't any money. It was near Christmas, and my Grandmother, a talented seamstress, scrounged up twenty-five cents and bought several yards of fabric .... and everyone received a nice pair of pillowcases.
Also, the courthouse square had been plowed and planted with turnips, beans, etc., which anyone could harvest. A friend of Mother's was going to go there and pick some vegetables for her family, and invited her to go along. Grandmother said absolutely not!.... because that garden was for the poor people!

sure, having 12 children and my grandmother being dutch and my grandpa irish and native american they knew how to work - she had a garden and a store and he hunted worked as a logger - when the depression came she gave away a portion of their ration cause she said she had enough with the garden and her frugalness so that the towns people who came in the store got these rations they did not need and they did not go hungry while my grand pa once said it was so bad that he with the boys hunted 2 deer and walked through town with one deer while he sent the boys home with one deer and while walking though town the towns people who were slightly greedy and not as self sufficent ( and hard working due to not knowing things) followed him so he got the mayor cut the deer in half and left half for the towns people who consequently argued (not fought) over that half of deer meat. He did this cause his wife my g -ma told him to give one to them but he told her how they would act and they did act as he said (greedy) and said they should be hard working and learn to hunt deer and etc. This was Idaho - up north.

While my other g parents had a butcher shop and more they also gave away more than they sold so none would be wasted and the poor people ( AND others) would have food. This was the east coast.