Learning from History

I love to read about certain events in history and in the past few years I have been reading and watching dvd’s about the Great Depression. I’m curious about the causes of the Great Depression and mainly I want to know what it was like to live through that desperate time.

My father was born in 1917 and he used to tell me what it was like during that time.  My mom was born in 1930 and remembers some of it. The difference is that my father was raised in a single parent household and they were poor. Many times he and his siblings went to bed hungry. My mom grew up in the country on a farm that supplied their produce, meat and milk and her father supplemented the farm income by teaching school.

My mom never went to bed hungry and throughout the Depression they were able to survive off of the food they raised and sold. How did it affect them? My mom loves to spend money and when my dad was alive he saved as much as he could to the point that when he died we found buckets of money hidden around the house.

In my lifetime, I have never known what hopeless feels like.  I think if you look at the picture at the top of this post, you will see what hopeless looks like.  During the Great Depression there were people stumbling through the years without hope and living in desperation.

We know of grandparents or great grandparents that lived through the Depression and you see how it affected them for the rest of their lives. They continued to save cardboard, string, rubber bands and they also continued to respect money and save it. These individuals saw the hard times and they never wanted to go through it again.

If you are interested in knowing personal stories of those who lived through the Great Depression, I recommend the following books: Hard Times by Studs Terkel  and The Worst Hard Times by Timothy Egan.  Hard Times is an oral history of the Great Depression. It is filled with stories of people Mr. Terkel interviewed. One story tells of a man going out to pick dandelions as his family hadn’t had anything to eat in a couple of days.  The book The Worst Hard Times is about those who survived the Great American Dust Bowl.

Of course if you enjoy movies you should definitely watch The Grapes of Wrath starring Henry Fonda and another movie that I enjoyed was Bound for Glory based on the life of folk singer Woody Guthrie.

I have a couple of cookbooks filled with recipes from that time period. How about some “Dandelions in Ham Gravy” or “Bologna Gravy” for supper tonight? One child remembered her mother having to feed 11 people with the only meat being 4 or 5 hotdogs. The woman would cut up about two quarts each of yellow snap beans and potatoes. Then she would slice the hotdogs very thin and would cook everything together and then add a big pat of butter. Talk about being creative in cooking.

I’m sure many of you have heard about Great Depression Cooking with Clara. Clara takes us through several recipes of what they ate during the Depression. It is extremely interesting and she now has her own cookbook. You can view many of these episodes on You Tube at this link.   Here is my favorite episode:



I know that things have been better for families during the Great Recession due to unemployment pay and food stamps to name a few. These were not available during the Great Depression. Don’t get me wrong, I know of people who have been through some hard times in the past few years, but I truly believe it was worse back in the 1930’s.  There was more fear then and rightly so.

What stories will we tell our grandchildren when they ask us what it was like to live through the Great Recession? Or how has hard economic times affected your spending now and in the future? For me it has driven home that no job is secure and that it is up to each of us to prepare for any possible hard times in the future. No one is going to force you to save, but you must find the fortitude to cut back, live on less and save for that rainy day.

Three Books That Have Impacted my Life

Before we got married, back into my childhood, I dreamed of some day being a wife and mother.  I longed for the day when I would be married, have children and take care of my own home.  After we were married, our financial situation was such that it was impossible to consider being a stay at home wife.  It was put off to a future date and since it was just the two of us, it made sense for me to work.  Even with two paychecks, we were barely able to pay our bills.

It was hard to find any books on homemaking in the early 1980's.  We had just come through the 1970's when the Women's Movement was at its highpoint.  Women were working and I knew very few that were home full time.  In those early years I came across three books that I read from cover to cover multiple times.  They affirmed the pull at my heart to be home.  There was no internet and with few women that were at home, it was the norm to be working full time.  There were no Tightwad Gazette books, there was nothing out there to show how you could live on one income, scale back and do radical things to live on one income.  Even though the ingredients were available back then, no one had ever heard of making your own laundry soap.  Hanging clothes on the line - well - it took too long for working women.

Fast forward to 2010 and downsizing, living on less and whatever else you want to call it, is "in style" and it is pursued.  I didn't have that back in the 1980's.  Back then I dreamed of being a full time homemaker on the weekends. 

The books I read are More with Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre copyrighted 1976, Homemaker's Response to Inflation by Judy Hammersmark copyrighted 1980 and Free to Stay at Home by Marilee Horton copyrighted 1982. 

 First - More with Less.

I heard about this book in college when I was taking a Nutrition class.  I attended a small junior college in Kansas, in Mennonite country as I would come to know it.  Recognizing that there was overconsumption in our area of the world (being North America), this cookbook was written by a Mennonite in response to her church's call to reduce food consumption by 10%.  The author was a dietitian and she drew from her experience.  The recipes in this book are simple and healthy recipes that use basic ingredients and avoids processed food.  It is about building a simpler and more nutritious diet, on less.

I had never heard about incomplete proteins until I attended that nutrition class and this cookbook uses incomplete proteins in recipes to combine to make a complete protein.  Examples are eating milk products with grains - such as cheese with macaroni, milk with rice.  Combining legumes with grains - such as beans with rice.  The cookbook uses less meat proteins and more plant proteins.  It was a radical way of cooking back then, but when you read the book it is all about eating very healthy without a lot of meat consumption and obviously eating cheaper. 

Some of the recipes in this book include:  Soybean Hamburger Casserole which is really, really good.  I do substitute other beans for this casserole as my family doesn't really like soybeans.  It contains some meat, onion, celery, green pepper, beans, tomato sauce, beef bouillon and rice.  It really is delicious.  Back in the 1980's this would have been a really strange meal to serve a family, but it isn't strange now.  There are meat recipes for stews and meat loaves.  There are several great recipes for healthy breads and such. 

If you look at this book in today's economy, it contains recipes and guidelines that fall in line with everything that is being preached on frugal cooking.  This book is still available on Amazon and has been re-printed over and over.  I have considered buying a new copy as my copy is worn and it is an old paperback where the printing appears to be getting smaller and smaller or is that just me getting older and older?  I have decided that I like my old copy with my written comments from years ago in it, so I will just have to get a magnifying glass.

Book Two:  Homemaker's Response to Inflation

I bought this book at a Christian bookstore in the women's section and frankly, it was the only one of it's kind in that section.  The rest were Bible study books as I recall.  The introduction starts out as "Let's face it.  We live in difficult times."  Some things don't change and the advice the author gives in saving money when the economy is not doing well, is true to this day.  This book has a couple of recipes for her homemade soup made from scraps and her bread recipe.  It is not a cookbook but a book about staying home and being proud to be a homemaker.  It is a small book but is full of a lot of advice such as "Homemakers Take a Bow," "Our Hurry-Scurry, Throwaway Society," "By Bread Alone," and "God's Gift of Natural Health."  The author writes about cooking, shopping and how to stretch your dollars.  She even gives tips for home maintenance and health care. 

I remember reading this book in one sitting and gleaning the advice that this woman gave.  She had worked before and was now home and had learned to live on less and enjoy her life more.  This book is a small paperback book that can fit in your purse. 

She also wrote another book "Occupation, Nestbuilder" which she describes how she used to work at a job she liked, but quit to be home. It is a great book also.

If you need books to affirm being a stay at home wife/mom, get these two books.

The third book, "Free to Stay at Home" was purchased around the time I was pregnant with our oldest son.  It was written as a women's alternative to working full time and transitioning to being home full time. 

Again, this book is still available on Amazon as a used book.  There is a comment that she makes in the book that really hit home then and now "If your working means putting food before your children, I would agree that is what you must do.  But, if you are yearning for a color tv or an extra car or even just to get away from the zoo (home), I pray you will seek God's will."

The book starts out with her working full time and then going to church to hear a sermon on Titus 2 in the Bible.  She felt that after hearing that sermon she really needed to quit her job to stay home and care for her children.  Yes, this is a book written by a Christian author, but I am a Christian so I would naturally gravitate towards such an author.  There are some elements in this book of "preaching" but the basic premise is the same:  staying home is good for the nuclear family.  Whether you agree with that statement or not, it doesn't matter to me.  What does matter is that at that point in my life, someone had finally written a book advocating being a stay at home wife and mother.  I read it when I so desperately wanted to be home full time and even though we needed me to work to put food on the table, I knew that some day I could be free to stay at home. 

These books can be purchased at Amazon and other book sites for a small sum.

Again, back when I was first married there were few books on the subject of homemaking or frugal living.  We have moved several times over the years and these books have always moved with us.  I have pulled them out again and again and over the next few weeks I will be re-reading them as a way of remembering those early years of our marriage and to also re-affirm what I am doing today.  I am feeling a bit of nostalgia as on Monday, November 29th we will be celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary.

A Book Review - The Simple Dollar

"The Simple Dollar -How one man wiped out his debts and achieved the life of his dreams" by Trent Hamm was published last month.  I follow Trent on his site The Simple Dollar.  He is from the Des Moines area and I am drawn to his story about being head over heels in debt and how he got out of it and changed his view on money and living life. His book was just published in early June.

My favorite part of the book is at the beginning when he realized that he didn't have enough money to pay his bills. He and his wife had a baby boy at the time and he walked into the nursery and sat in a chair and started to cry. Trent was at rock bottom and he found the strength to do whatever it took to get out of debt. He even went as far as selling many possessions on e-bay to pay down debt.

I highly recommend this book as it not only tells his story it gives great advice and I'm not necessarily talking about how to stretch a dollar, but how to view money and your life. It is a well written book. Reading it over the past few days when I was facing my own budget issues, has made me feel so much better about myself and also about how I feel about money and my goals in life.

We all make mistakes and we have the opportunity to learn from them. Go to the library and get Trent's book or at the very least go online and look at his website.  If you haven't heard about him, I know you will be encouraged after you read his story and see how much he has accomplished in just a few years.

I have a Kindle!!

Back in April my DH received a Kindle for his birthday.  He loves it. Recently my MIL called to tell me that she and my FIL wanted to buy me a Kindle.  I was so surprised.  They insisted.  I now own a Kindle. 

In my quest to reduce my spending, a Kindle could really get me sidetracked if I'm not careful.  My MIL told me not to worry as there are many free books you can download and there are books for only 99 cents. 

I have had on my wish list all of Jane Austen's books for a very long time.  Now I have them all on my Kindle and they were free.  I am in heaven.  When we go on vacation I will have a lot to read and if I want more, I can wirelessly download a book from anywhere.

The average price of Kindle books is $9.99 and fortunately with the Kindle you are allowed to preview these books. A lot of the previews are almost one chapter in length which gives me plenty to read in order to make a decision as to whether I want the book or not.  Many books that I thought I would want to read, I have taken off my list after reading the previews. 

But wait there is more.... My MIL told me to order the Kindle and a cover for it and then she would reimburse me.  I ordered the Kindle prior to the price reduction, but when the price was reduced a few weeks after I purchased the Kindle I was given a refund of the difference - $70.00!  I called my MIL to tell her that I would be sending her a check for the refund and she told me to keep it.  I took the $70.00 and applied it to a bill.  That wouldn't have happened before. 

I'm enjoying my gift and I am so lucky to have a MIL and a FIL that love me so much that they wanted to surprise me and give me such an extravagant gift.