During the hard times of the Depression, many folks headed West looking for jobs. Here is a picture of a couple from that era tending to a garden in a shacktown where many of the migrant workers from Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas lived. The name of the game was survival and you will note that it's all vegetables and no grass. However the lady of the house did plant a few flowers!
Tough times, tough people.
The Depression was one cause, and the Dust Bowl was another. My extended family stayed put (southern Oklahoma) but everyone had gardens. One neighbor sent his family to stay on a relative's farm while he continued to seek work of any kind. He literally lived on the vegetables in their backyard garden - he said he thought he got the most energy from okra. My Dad was steadily employed,and tried to help others in the family when he could.
About once a week a strange man would knock on our door, offering to do any work for food. Mother would send him around to the back porch while she prepared something...usually a fried egg sandwich and a cup of coffee. Later I'd go out to the sidewalk to look at the strange chalk markings. We never knew exactly what they meant except that there must have been a message for the next desperate man who came along.
Not too long ago I saw something that had all the markings that hobos used. They included ones for good food, mean woman, sick person and so on. These marks were left on posts walkways or what ever would hold a mark. Hasn't communication come along way....
Oh I LOVE this thread! TxWillie, thanks for posting such neat photos!
I saw on a recent garden design show a landscaper who's dream it is to turn American's front yards into usable gardens (veggies) rather than expansive lawns...citing that people work so hard to maintain these green carpets and then no one uses the space for any living. Some don't like the idea thinking a front garden looks to chaotic and cluttered but I think with the changing of times (population growth, water/drought problems) it's perfect! If only HOA's weren't becoming so prevalent (phooey) could be a problem.
But we should learn from the past. My grandparents would be shocked to see how people don't use their yards to garden.
Yuska, my Grandmother's home was two or three blocks away from main railroad tracks between Ft. Worth and El Paso. The word was out that at her house there was a kindly woman who would always feed a hungry man.
Here's another home in the neighborhood shown above that pictures the same use of the site for gardening.
Tir_Na_Nog it was not possible for all of the migrant workers to own a site to build a home (shack) on. Here's a picture of one that could be rented for $7/month.
Thanks for sharing TXWillie! What an awesome thread! By the way, I am from Lubbock. I hear that the cotton farmers are having a terrible time. My heart goes out to them. I know that they had a good crop last year, but I sure wish that they could get more than just one good year. They sure have had a lot of bad years, they deserve a few good years.
hey texwillie...great thread...i wonder who you are as i am a neighbor of lubbock and went to high school in lubbock....thanks for the great pics and info..
Neat photo collection of hard times. Are they a family photo collection?
You can bet when the lady of the house planted a few flowers, she was given the seeds or found the seeds on the roadside.... No extra for extravagances!
podster, these photos are from a Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) collection found in the National Archives. All images are public domain.
"The insightful and compassionate photographs of Dorothea Lange (1895 - 1965) have exerted a profound influence on the development of modern documentary photography. Lange's concern for people, her appreciation of the ordinary, and the striking empathy she showed for her subjects make her unique among photographers of her day."
My mother and father both went West looking for work during the Depression years, so these and many other photos were of great interest to me. Seeing the garden photos made me think that in this day and time of plush lawns, greenhouses, all kinds of nurseries to buy "instant" gardens, etc, that other Texas gardeners might also have an interest in these scenes.
This message was edited Sep 3, 2006 11:32 AM
This message was edited Sep 5, 2006 7:52 PM
Great thread Txwillie! My Mom and Dad have talked a lot about the depression and the way things were at that time. Everybody had vegetable gardens so they could eat. My grandparents were farmers as well as ran a dairy. When I was very young I remember a man with a walking stick coming up the lane at my Gmother's house. He had a very long gray beard, a hat, and raggedy clothes. Being from the city at that time I was scared. lol I had never seen anybody like that. My Gmother went out and told him to come to the back door. She fixed him egg sandwiches, something else, and coffee. He took it and walked back out to the road and sat down in the ditch and ate. I had many questions about that. I remember my Gmother telling me that he was a poor man and needed something to eat. I learned many of lifes lessons from my grandparents.
Lin
Both my wifes and my great greandparents headed out of OK to CA and both of them never made it - turned back and came back to fight the times in OK.... My gparents have some great stories of being given just a little bit of food to last them sometimes for days on the long walk back. For several resons they never took photos during that time (cost one the big one!) - just love them... thank you Mitch
I think my Mother still has a couple of old 78 records by Jimmie Rodgers. I can hear his voice in my head. ;) He was the greatest in the 20's and 30's.
This is an incredible thread.....keep the info coming. My brain is doing double takes.
I have the work slips from my great grandfather somewhere... I will try to find it and post this afternoon. Shocking you need a slip just to get to work...
So many of our families were touched by stories and actual experiences from the Depression years. Food was scarce and medical care was mostly folk medicine. No childhood immunizations, no penicillin. This photo shows a migrant grandmother holding a sick baby.
Two of the federal programs that staved off total starvation for many families were the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The young men who signed up entered a quasi-military environment, strictly disciplined. They were housed in tents or barracks near the work sites and were fed simple fare, but plenty of it. The work was very hard and the hours long. Pay was $25 per month, of which $20 was automatically sent home to their families.
My paternal grandfather was a foreman of a CCC crew doing stonework at Lake Murray. The bridges and picnic shelters they built are as sturdy and beautiful as ever, and remain in continuous use today.
Another project carried out in quite a few location was the building of National Guard armories. These structures were as sturdy as fortresses. The one at Ardmore, OK was built of limestone quarried in the Arbuckles, and today houses the Southwest Historical Museum and Military Museum. Be sure to visit when you're in the area. Yuska
It's so easy to forget how easy we have it. Can you imagine someone who's 15 or 16 now having to survive? Or realizing you have to work to survive? Or understanding because you can't afford to give them the latest cell phone?
My mother sold eggs during the Depression. It taught her thrift my grandchildren may never know. She doesn't understand why I like to work so hard in the garden, and I suppose it's because she HAD to -- I just want to.
If we don't learn from the past, we're doomed to repeat it.
TX willie-
Thank yo for this thread. I really have enjoyed the discussion and the pictures. They are very thought provoking, and stand to teach great lessons.
After having drought, record days over 100, and summer-long water restrictions for the past three years, I'm beginning to view my gardening and plant choices, much differently.
Some families are still doing fine, but hubby told me the read in the paper, that this year there was a 38% increase in foreclosures. Up from only 3% last year. That is horrible news. I've been worrying about keeping my grass, while many people are having to worry about keeping their houses!
I'm sick of the grass, too, lol...I'm really beginning to think the first picture is more how I want MY garden to look next year. I really would love to be able to eat my own organic food, right from the garden, on a large scale. So far, I've only grown fruits for the novelty, but would like to plan ahead, in case I ever need to grow them for necessity.
I've always had a deep appreciation for even just the prairie women, who were so much more "Martha" even in their day, and were so self-sufficient, and multi-talented.
We might pick up making soap as a fun hobby or project, or sewing, or gardening, or learning homeopathic alternatives, but those people had to know, and do, it all.
Thank you, again, for the thread.
-T
Someone's grandfather who had to go West looking for work!
Hunting and fishing weren't just sports...but a means of adding to the family diet. There was an occasional deer, but mostly squirrel and rabbit. We kids had to get over the squeamishness of pushing a worm onto a hook. And wild food helped...Grandmother took me foraging with her for wild greens in early spring, and in the fall for persimmons and mayhaws. The red ones were more plentiful than the black. Small fruits tasting a bit like apple. We also looked for wild grapes, currants and sand plums for jelly. Later during the scarcity of the WWII years, we kids spent our weekends harvesting native pecans to earn money to shop for Christmas gifts. We were delighted to get 23 cents a pound.
I remember Mother and Grandmother killing chickens by stepping on the heads and yanking and how the bodies flopped wildly around. The smell of the wet feathers after scalding and the singeing of pin feathers over a flame.
But the most vivd memory of all is that cool October day when we butchered a hog. Grandad shot it with a rifle while Dad cracked its skull with a sledge hammer. I can still hear that animal's scream. The butchering took all day, and the smoking of the hams of course took much longer. Almost nothing went to waste. All the fat - a lot of it - was collected and rendered into lard. Grandmother and I (I was about seven) sat on the back steps and carefully carved off the fat lining the intestines - a task I would not care to repeat. Now of course we know what a dietary hazard that snowy white lard is - but then it made the flakiest and tastiest pie crusts and biscuits I have ever eaten, baked in a wood stove.
We made butter; we had a floor model churn with which we plunged the wooden dasher up and down. We also had a table model with a crank to turn the paddle.
Grandmother worked long hours in her vegetable garden every day, and canned by water bath on her wood stove in a farm house with no a/c. There was no other choice. We were blessed never to have been touched by botulism, and the food was as genuine as it can be. By comparison, prepackaged convenience foods have always tasted phony to me.
This message was edited Sep 8, 2006 10:06 AM
Here is the work slip -
Wouldn't it be great if someone knew where A.W. Meadows
family is now, and they got to see this?
This is such a wonderful thread. Thank you.
They are right here... he is my great great grandfather. Here is him with his family during this era.
Mitch I really enjoyed looking at your pics. That's the way it was!
Oh, my goodness ! How wonderful is that ! Family history
tied with local history, and with national history - what a story
to keep passing down in your own family.
The picture is so very touching. Thank you for showing us.
No problem - we have begun the huge task of find the family papers and getting the photos, letters, and other papers all scanned and copied for the future.
mitchf....you are one lucky person to have all that history for you and your family.....i have nothing about family history but stories....but no pics, documents, proof.....would love to be able to delve into my past......i conduct estate sales.....i think i love doing it cause i get to look at all the things of someones past....but it drives me crazy when the family wants to sell old photos memorabilia.....
I used to be the manager of a thrift store. One of my favorite items that came through was a bundle of old letters that a girl wrote home. They started when she left home to go to school. One of them was a thank you letter to an uncle who was a Supreme Court judge. She was thanking him for the bottle of wine he sent for her birthday. LOL In the letters, she eventually got married and moved away from home and the later ones talked about her children. There were a big box of them and I didn't get to read them all (I had to work sometime!) One of my favorite customers bought them and researched the family who lived in.. umm.. Georgia or Alabama.. I don't remember which. The letters had come to Ohio with one of the sons and had obviously been in his house until he died. I'm sure whoever cleaned out his stuff and donated it to us didn't realize all of what was in there. At any rate, the customer sold the letters back to the family for exactly what he paid for them and they were thrilled. I was so glad when he came back and told us!!
Mitch, thanks for sharing a look at your family momentos. I have a copy of a poll tax receipt, but had never seen a depression era work slip. The family photo is from a time when not many people had or could afford cameras and most families didn't get good photos like yours. I notice that all of the menfolk in the picture had hats on, regardless of age.
"My Grandpa had a fav'rite gun, a watch and things like that. But I think the thing he valued most, was a darned ol' worn out hat............................"
This message was edited Sep 7, 2006 9:25 PM
Txwillie, that looks like a pencil or Conte crayon drawing.
There is a well known artist by the name of Charles Ewing.
the name at the bottom.
Yep, that's a good print done by Charles Ewing. What a talent! The verse is out of cowboy poet, Perry L. Williams' poem, "Grandpa's Hat".
TXwillie, Great thread. I was born after the depression but was reminded of how we ate what we had on the farm.
I just wanted to bump this thread.
I think many that have lost their jobs across the nation in the past year, almost worry that with our economics, we could be headed for another one.
I just love that first picture. It speaks volumes
Here are ancestors in my mother's family. There were originally eight children when the family left Georgia during the Reconstruction period. They migrated to Indian Territory after stopping a few years in west Texas. In this picture (1937) they've gathered for a reunion. The farmhouse behind them is still there. My grandmother, Mary Elizabeth, is standing between her brothers.
I love that women always wore dresses back then.
Nice family photo ;0) thanks for sharing
My mom talks about the "cousins" who came to visit wearing slacks. They were considered to be "loose" women and not appropriately attired. She said she was envious that they got to wear them. Her mom let her wear her brothers pants only when they were out berry picking. Even then, her mom was worried someone would see her in pants.
That is so funny now! I agree though women in dresses is so much more ladylike and I really love the hats in church. I think white women miss out on that treat. I love going out to eat after church and seeing the beautiful black women in their beautiful attire with hats to match. Why on earth did we quit wearing them?
Charlene
Thanks for this thread.
Notice how slim and trim everybody is. Exactly what America needs today is another depression to lose some of its fat.
The hobos used code alright, but with all the acronyms we are bombarded with on a daily basis, I am not convinced that communication today can be considered a tribute to our civilization. Even today more than ever lots of people out there still think it's cute/coy to talk in code to try and throw people off the true meaning of what they are saying especially in mixed company.
Jerry
Just saw this same topic on CBS news...just after I read about it here! Wow! Converting "useless space" to edible landscaping.
