Everyone is feeling the stress of our current economic times. These penny-pintching days are only a reminder of a grimmer time for many earlier generation seniors. Joyce Wadler author of "Making Ends Meet in Meet" from the New York Times suggests that we look at how people ran their households during the Great Depression for some insight as how to manage our budgets in our own homes and also to help put things in perspective.
This article caught my eye because of a very special great-grandmother I had named, Lillian Rieter, who grew up in the old country, never threw anything away, scolded me for not finishing my orange juice, and had a Sweedish flag in every room of her Chicago apartment. My "mor-far-mor" (mother's father's mother) would tell me and her other 16 great-grandchildren memories which seemed to be fictional stories of another time, back in the 1920's and the Great Depression. This article was so interesting because it was just that, six grandparents memories of how they made it through the Great Depression. Each of the six came from different parts of the United States but all had similar tales of hungry, shoeless, cold and worried families just trying to survive on love and whatever they could scrap together.
This article may not have helped me figure out how I'm going to pay my bills but it certainly fulfilled it's other objective; it did put things into perspective for me. After reading the recollection of Thomas Moon from Huntsville, Alabama who was only allowed one shower a week during the Great Depression, I realized that being two days late on my cell phone bill probably isn't a trajedy, and people have survived worse times. And that I don't really need all the features I have on my plan. I continued to read Annie Pezzillo's (from Manhattan) story; she was one of 12 children living in a three bed room house, I suddenly realized that being force to share a bathroom with my dad isn't such a huge problem. Then there was a story from a very fortunate woman named Anna Jane Nicholas who's father didn't lose his job in the Great Depression, in fact Nicholas's mother would set food out for the hungry people that would pass their house, and she always included dessert. This story reminded me that during these tough times we blessed families may feel the stress of the economy but someone out there has lost their job, someone out there needs someone like Ms. Nicholas's mother.
Walder may have intended for this article to inform us of another time, that until now we've never had a hint of. However this was a beautiful article because of the inspirational story within the story of determination and humility that our recent ancestors lived through. I not only encorage everyone to read this article, but I encourage you to talk and listen to those who have already been through what may be coming our way... and of course reconsider what you consider to be nessecary spending.
"Just because oranges grow on trees, that doesn't mean that juice was plucked from the branch for free!"
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I liked this article. It was great for remindeing ua that we might have it bad but there is always someone else that will have it worse. I think this article puts alot in prespective and we should thatnk God that todays time is not as bad as that day and age.
ReplyDeleteexactly! thank you!
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