Depression Days: They Were Waste Not Want Not Days!
Posted on Wednesday, December 3, 2008
I grew up on the slogan “ waste not, want not. ” I heard those wordsoften, maybenotoutloud. Welivedit. Growinguponafarm westofGravette, weneverletanything go to waste. Squirrels didn’t standachanceonourland, aswe harvestedallthewalnuts. Weonly left them acorns.
Even feed, flour and sugar came in cloth bags, some so flowered or colorful we made dresses out of them. Even when I married it was fashionable to make curtains out of off-white feed-sack cloth.
Animals were only kept for their usefulness. Cows gave milk. We sold it— that was our cash flow—and we drank it (how else would you raise 12 babies ?) and cooked with it. If the cats were lucky, they got to drink some too. But mostly they were expected to survive on mice, as they kept the mouse population down in our barns. Dogs were the closest thing to pets—no one even had heard of house pets back then—but they were expected to be our protectors and watch out for us.
Hogs were butchered after we made them fat with slop made from garbage. Did you know pigs will even eat eggshells and potato peelings ? They also love corn cobs (after we eat the corn off them, of course, or feed the kernels to chickens ). When we butchered hogs, there wasn’t much waste. I remember one butchering when a Polish family lived with us. The father made the most delicious blood sausage. You can imagine where that came from.
Our little family had little need of trash cans or a garbage disposal. We had never heard of the word recycle, but we lived it. Today I even throw my scraps over the fence for possums and coons. Once, when I was throwing away egg shells, Jerry told me his mother would bake the egg shells and feed them to chickens. When chickens ate those shells they didn’t have to work so hard to produce the shell when laying eggs.
People that remember the Great Depression often still live life carefully. During World War II, I vaguely remember some of the sacrifices we had to make, especially on gas and sugar. People were so used to doing without, it didn’t seem like much of a reduction. My husband and I continued those habits. Not living extravagantly.
When I did budget counseling, I found people who didn’t know what it meant to live within their means, to do without. Even poor people wanted to live like the rich. When I would suggest they get rid of their second car or eat out less, they would balk. They didn’t want to do without. Many people who had half as much income as I had would spend twice as much. We were always taught to save for a rainy day, but few of these counselees had any savings. If their car broke down or their appliance quit, it often meant a new debt, which they couldn’t afford.
A current trend is to buy clothes at a thrift store, I’m told. Another indication of our extravagance is the volume of these shops and resale stores. I have a sister who bought her husband a nice suit at Helping Hands while she visited here.
Another sister loves to shop, and I love to go with her to see how much she pays for an outfit, knowing she will pass it on to me after a few years. I proudly wear one of her tops that she gave $ 45 for. I don’t like to shop. I just never see anything I’ll pay the high price for. And I feel so guilty when I spend money on myself (maybe that comes from my past, doing without ).
The apostle Paul wrote, “ I have learned, inwhatsoeverstateIam, therewith to be content ” (Phil. 4: 11 ). Iguessthat’sthesecret—be content with what you have.
Editor’s Note: Marie Putman, formerly of the Gravette area, is a longtime freelance columnist for The Rogers Hometown News.
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