With so many economic issues in the news these days, I’ve been thinking about what I know of how my grandparents handled economic hardship during the Great Depression. On both sides of the my family, my grandparents moved to the country and began gardening. My maternal grandparents had been living in West Reading in Berks county after their marriage in 1925, but by the early 1930’s, had moved out to Brecknock township and converted an old hunting lodge into a small home. From what I’ve been told, the property had originally belonged to my grandmother’s family and at some point, it was given to my grandparents. I don’t know how longed they worked on the house before moving in, but there are a number of old photos showing the original cabin and quite a few of the addition being added. The property was heavily wooded, made up of about 20 acres with only a few acres cleared for the house and garden area. With an easy supply of wood at hand, the lumber for the addition came from the property as did firewood for the cookstove in the kitchen.
On the other side of the family, Dad’s parents bought an old farm property, also about twenty acres, but the house was already in livable condition, though there was no indoor plumbing until sometime in the 1950’s. Dad’s father had been a butcher for Armour Star for many years prior to his retirement and though money was very tight, they tended enormous gardens to feed the family. My grandfather was an avid woodworker and often found old furniture values in the country sales in the area which he could then repair and refinish for resale.
Growing up, my parents both had plenty of experience in small scale farming and we raised most of our own vegetables, though in our case, it was more from a desire for fresh food than out of economic necessity as it had been for their parents.
