# What jobs were there during the great depression...?



## hintonlady (Apr 22, 2007)

I thought we could all benefit from discussing jobs during the great depression or any recession that followed and was hoping some of you had ideas or have some stories to share. I am at a loss after doing some brief searches.

What jobs were semi-secure during times of lean?

Appliance repairmen or mechanics during the 80's???
Repo men??
Pawn shop owners??
(depression era jobs are a bit beyond my imagination)

Anyway, you get the idea. Just thought it may be good food for thought to find out what sort of employment may be more secure than others during our current financial trend. Maybe time for some to consider learning a side trade to get by, just in case. Non prepper and non homestead jobs especially welcome since most of us require off homestead income to get by.

Thanks


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

My paternal grandparents got along just fine farming and ranching. From what I was told, they really didn't notice the Depression... others did, apparently, when they had to lower themselves to the living standards of my grandparents...  For cash money, they logged off part of their land, turning it into pastures, and would log for a local large timber holder. Needed the extra cash for the tax payments. Otherwise, the little money from selling cattle and hogs would get the family a new pair of shoes each year and a new set of clothes.

They never went hungry.


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

Cotton mill, coal mining, farming, were what my family did.
Most of the mines are shut down, most of the mills were moved overseas, gov is making it nearly impossible to farm...........


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## whodunit (Mar 29, 2004)

texican said:


> My paternal grandparents got along just fine farming and ranching. From what I was told, they really didn't notice the Depression... others did, apparently, when they had to lower themselves to the living standards of my grandparents...  For cash money, they logged off part of their land, turning it into pastures, and would log for a local large timber holder. Needed the extra cash for the tax payments. Otherwise, the little money from selling cattle and hogs would get the family a new pair of shoes each year and a new set of clothes.
> 
> They never went hungry.


Reminds me of a story I once heard. Someone told me their grandfather who grew up on a farm was in one of the big wars. He thought he was poor until he meant city boys who sometimes went without eating growing up.


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## kasilofhome (Feb 10, 2005)

My mothers father (he was quite old for that work) was a steam pipe fitter / plumber worked thur out at least the East Coast building hospitals.
My mothers mom died 
Great Aunt Helen stepped up to raise mom (got mom out of an orphanage and adopted mom and her sister. Helen had many homes she had inherited that she allowed other family members to live in and keep up gardens. Helen worked at some point for AT&T as a telephone operator. 

My Fathers mom She was Nanny for a Dr.'s family and there was a quarantine for the children and the mother of the children kept away from the sick children cause she was having a bad pregnacy. If I understand it the job was not to be long term but the mother died. I know that sometime after that she was a real rosy the rivitor.

She met my grandfather there and when the job was winding down Grandmother worked in the cafe and Granddad was a dishwasher. Grandfather was a very recent Irish immigrant and low man on the totem pole. After 10 years of marriage he ditch a wife and 3 kids and took off for a small place no one really knew would be any thing. LAS Vegas. Granddad became a known person. He was the first and often Grand Marshal for the St. Patrick day parade. He started the Sons of Erin We used to travel to see him in the parade. I know that there were wild stories about the goings on in the early years in Vegas. Grand dad had money but sometimes he would go MIA from Vegas (well that was 1970's) and we were to offer to take messages but say that we would pass the message on *if* he contacted us. (he was in Ireland I know cause I help ship his meds an vit. and toliet paper--we were told to pretend that we knew nothing- Honestly I didn't know anything and I still don't ==but I would love to know) After a few years he would return to Las Vegas Big as life and picked up right where he left off.--its a big mystery to me.

Part of the depression mom was in the orphanage and the kids there had to tend the loster pots as that was what that ate a lot of --that and dyed potatoes they were dyed blue for farmers to feed pigs but that is what she ate. The kids also tended the garden and the boys cared for the cows and pigs. No mention of chickens was every made.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Cyngbaeld said:


> Most of the mines are shut down, most of the mills were moved overseas, gov is making it nearly impossible to farm...........



Yeah....all in the name of "progress"......


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

Cyngbaeld said:


> Cotton mill, coal mining, farming, were what my family did.
> Most of the mines are shut down, most of the mills were moved overseas, gov is making it nearly impossible to farm...........


I find that the government is making it hard for other people to consume the products of the small farm, but not making it impossible to farm. The farm family can still enjoy the staples of farm life amongst themselves, and blessed is the neighbor of a farming family who thrives in abundance.

I also believe that it is false education and fear-mongering, not legislation, that keeps most non-farmers from enjoying the fruits of the small farm. Just recently there was a large article on the dangers of raw milk, the research stating that TWO people have died in the past decade from it. The horror. More people have been killed by vending machines toppling over on them. I would dare say more people have been killed by commercial PASTEURIZED milk that was tainted than the alternative. 

I think there is going to come a time very soon where local farm products, unregulated and unrestrained, are going to make a comeback. I cannot provide you lamb or beef cheaper than the commercial producers right now, but I don't believe they can sustain themselves through $12 per gallon gasoline or the civil unrest which is fast approaching us. Pretty soon I believe that America will pay the price for small farmers to exist, or pay the price for small farmers NOT existing.


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## ChristyACB (Apr 10, 2008)

My opinion mirrors Ernie's in this respect. Homesteaders and small holders of many types will probably find their "niche" more appreciated and financially feasible in the future.

According to my family, the Depression had only marginal impact for most folks they knew except that more trading was done and less money changed hands. My Grandmommy used to tell us that the higher up on the food chain you worked, the worse it was for you. Makes sense from the manufacturing and consumption viewpoint.

So, I'd say things that dealt with extending the life of existing things rather than making new ones would be the safest. Plumbing, electrical, repairs of all sorts. Basic commodities would also probably continue...like extraction from mines..etc.

I think those that work in the assembly lines or refining or manufacturing will find work still going, but perhaps not the full 40 hours a week since sales would contract to some extent.


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## bourbonred (Feb 27, 2008)

My family farmed during the depression. My mom's folks were very self-sufficient. My husband's family ran a truck farm. They hauled strawberrys and produce into Louisville to sell at the farmer's market.
My #1 goal for us here on the farm is self-sufficiency.


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## NoClue (Jan 22, 2007)

My grandfather worked throughout the depression. He was a mechanic with little formal edducation (only to the third grade) and worked at the grain elevator in the Port of Galveston though most of the depression. Towards the end, he went to work on ships and continued to work as an engineer on ships of one form or another until he retired in 1976.


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

I would hazard a guess, however, that this depression will not be like the last one. In the last one they put in place a lot of entitlement programs that we have today. In this one we are dealing with the recipients of those entitlement programs three to four generations removed. 

The only thing that will trigger a real depression is the sudden loss of cabin pressure on the American dollar due to hyperinflation. Otherwise the government can keep the puppet show going and make it look like everything is fine (much like they're doing now).

When hyperinflation hits, much of America will be eating each other within 6 weeks.


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## Forerunner (Mar 23, 2007)

What are they going to eat for the previous 5 ?


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## Aintlifegrand (Jun 3, 2005)

I agree Ernie..I do not think this time will look anything like the Depression..or any other low time in our history... it will be beyond ugly and very dangerous..but I also think that six weeks was being generous.. people will wig out much quicker than six weeks..crime will be so much worse than we can imagine...I only hope people are preparing themselves for what their "neighbors" will _become_ when they are hungry and feel they have nothing to lose. Do not be idealistic and think that will be like _The Walton's_...think more along the lines of _The Road_...


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## Trixters_muse (Jan 29, 2008)

My grandma once told me that her family did better during the depression because they made money selling fresh grown produce and fish and crabs to the once more financially stable people who were falling on hard times. Great Grandma baked bread and made sandwiches and the kids took them down to the docks and edge of town to sell to the people there who could no longer afford to eat at the Diners. They also sold pears off the tree and Great Gran sold eggs and milk. They didn't even live on a farm, just a little house on 2 acres at the end of a dirt road with a creek out back. 

Grandpa says his brothers all made money doing handy work in the richer areas of town. He said it was common to see men walking around with a tool belt on ready to work. 

My great Aunt supported herself and three kids as a seamstress and a laundress. She used a washboard and washtub and bore bristle brush with homemade lye soap. She had one client that said he didn't care how hard times got, no one but Bessie would ever wash his shirts


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

All my family had big gardens in the GD, no matter what else they did. Usually a cow, a pig and some chickens as well.

Small farmers may eat ok but how're they going to pay the taxes and buy gas for the tractor and chainsaw, shoes for the kids? If gov won't let you sell any of your production, you'll have to get some kind of income producing job.


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## fetch33 (Jan 15, 2010)

My grandfather was laid off from the furniture factory in town. Grandma stepped up to be the breadwinner. She took in laundry, washed and stretched curtains, gardened and cleaned the houses of the rich. In fact, she cleaned the same family's house well into her 80's. My father tells of how he helped his mother stretch curtains late at night until morning sometimes. My father was a bell hop at a swanky hotel in town. He also had a paper route. When the war started, he worked as a welder building LST ships before he was drafted.... he was only 19.


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## bee (May 12, 2002)

My families story has already been told by previous posters. My Mom's Mother took in laundry; Mom remembrs skimming the worms off the soaking beans..they were not on a farm and life was very hard for her family.

My Dad's family faired better. They were more rural and still tied to his Dad's farm roots. Grandad ran a truck from the farms to town and sold eggs,veggies, butchered chickens and anything else he could get and haul. He also brought boarders from the plant where he worked for his wife(Grandma) to feed and sold sandwiches to those at the plant.


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## Cabin Fever (May 10, 2002)

During the depression my Dad quit high school, left home, and went to work on the Alcan Highway. He sent most of his paychecks home. When WII started, he signed up.

Mom's family had a small dairy farm (by today's standards) in nothern Minnesota. They survived better than a lot of the city folk.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Grandpa on Dad's side was a carpenter in a small town in Wisconsin. He kept working but there was no cash around so he would take in trade, usually fresh produce, meat, milk, cheese, etc. He would also lease an acre of timber every winter and he and my Dad would fell and cut it up for firewood. Dad was a teenager and he drove an ice truck, delivering ice to bars, creameries, and cheese plants. He spent one fall working in a turkey processing plant. Wouldn't eat turkey to his dying day (he ate Lutefisk on Thanksgiving and Christmas).

Mom was from Minneapolis. Her Dad was a milk man. He drove a team. Her Mom died when she was 6 so she spent a lot of her youth on an uncles farm.

She worked for Nash Coffee. Of course everyone had a big garden.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Everyone should read "The Grapes of Wrath".


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## thesedays (Feb 25, 2011)

One of my grandfathers worked for the railroad; the other sold real estate and insurance, and they always had enough money. My grandmothers also kept chickens, and one also had goats and sold the milk mainly as baby formula.


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## whiterock (Mar 26, 2003)

Both sets of my grandparents farmed. Mom and Dad married in '33. Dad farmed, he and his dad ran the cotton gin, Dad had a threshing machine and ran threshing crews. He paid his crews .25 a day, the cook got .50. Mom and dad and grandpa bought two farms one on either side of this one during the depression from the companies that foreclosed on them. They paid, I think, $50 an acre. I wasn't born until '50, so they didn't have children to raise during that time. Two of momma's bil farmed as well, the other worked for a natural gas company and did well. Her brothers were the babies, but her dad found a way to send both boys to A&M. Dad's brother went to A&M as well, they all went directly to Army from college.
Ed


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## machinist (Aug 3, 2010)

My Dad was born in 1900, thus he was in his 30's during the Depression. He did carpentry, hauled coal with his own truck from western Indiana mines to New Albany, IN, worked at a relative's gas station as a mechanic, and later helped out in my Grandad's furniture shop. He did pretty well, but didn't get rich at any of those things. 

Grandad had been making wood trim for homes, and furniture for relatively high-end markets. The furniture business pretty well dried up, but he got by making coffins and doing work for the County building wood school bus bodies. The coffin thing made a lot of money, and was a "sure thing". Dad tried to talk Gamps into borrowing some money to expand the shop and hire help, but Gramps was afraid of going in debt--maybe wisely so.

By the late 1930's, Dad bought 10 acres a couple miles out of town and raised produce, sold milk, eggs, and raised a lot of hogs. His best gig was trucking the "mash" left over from making whiskey (Louisville) to Indiana farmers for hog feed. It cost two dollars to fill his 1100 gallon tank on the truck, which he sold for 50 cents/50 gallon barrel = $9 profit/load. Of course he supplied his own hog feed this way, too. He worked as hard as he could at this, often only sleeping 3 or 4 hours a night, but making upt to 13 loads a day = $117 gross profit PER DAY when a decent job paid $40 per week. This ended when the feed companies had noticeably lower profits and lobbied the Kentucky legislature (through the Health Dept.) to require the distilleries to DRY the mash before sale. It wasn't a health hazard--the stuff was BOILING when he picked it up--another example of how big business works. 

But Dad made some killer profits for several years through the end of the Depression and WWII. He paid for his 10 acres, a a new house, a new truck and a new Oldsmobile. By then business was picking up, so he got into cutting high quality logs for veneer, another profitable venture. 

The bottom line is, he made his own jobs. It's all about finding a suitable opportunity and working it hard. I think most people today are far too stuck on the idea of "getting a job", never having given thought to business opportunities.


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## farmerDale (Jan 8, 2011)

My grandpa worked for a farmer for a year before he bought his own land. He got free room and board and a free pair of mittens for his work, no cash!!!! 

He hauled logs from a lumber camp with horses a 40 mile round trip. He got a couple bucks a load. Somehow he bought a quarter of land. Once he did, things got better. he borrowed some machines and got the first crop on 22 acres of land. From then on he had some decent years, being self sufficient and not having much cost to survive, along with selling eggs for 6 or 8 cents a dozen, and cream, they pulled through. Crop prices were no good, but at least they grew crops while the plains were a dustbowl. 

I wish we could live like that now a days, but land taxes nowadays probably surpassed their entire yearly budget!!! 

Several hundred chickens and some cheap feed would get a guy a decent amount of cash for little work and input. I figure a guy can net 2 bucks a dozen in some regions. Cheap feed would be key, and easier said than done. Or buy a chain-saw and cut wood for firewood, or lumber. Just need a strong back, and fuel. In a bigger thought process, buying a baler, or some implement to do custom farming can be a good deal, but it requires more initial investment.


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## hintonlady (Apr 22, 2007)

I find it fascinating to see how many people post of family histories that involved farming or at least small plot tending with some livestock. While I realize that these small plots were much more common quite some time ago there were plenty of city folk as well, folk who could not garden due to living space.

Just pondering the connection, if there is one, between us homesteady types and our roots. My paternal grandfather was born on a farm, my paternal grandmother was poor as dirt and cooked many a foraged dandelion greens well into the 50's. My maternal grandparents were from deep old money but it ran dry in the 60's,(my crazy great gran had a gambling problem, lol) later my Grandfather started a veggie garden and dreamed of someday retiring to a farm...died before he could.

I think I was born craving the country air and it took me many years to finally break free to where I belonged all along. I couldn't imagine living any other way even though I did for *cough* 30-ish years. 

Sorry for the thread drift, was just wondering, you know...there are plenty of people who are "allergic" to this lifestyle so it got me thinking.


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## manygoatsnmore (Feb 12, 2005)

My dad's family had a farm and dad went to work for the CCC. My mom's father was a dentist, and he worked on a lot of mouths for whatever folks had to trade. I have a violin that he took in trade for dental work.


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## Cabin Fever (May 10, 2002)

manygoatsnmore said:


> My dad's family had a farm and dad went to work for the CCC. My mom's father was a dentist, and he worked on a lot of mouths for whatever folks had to trade. I have a violin that he took in trade for dental work.


Do you know which CCC camp your Dad was in? Our hallway wall is filled with 25 or more photos of CCC troops. Maybe your Dad is in one of my photos!

Here's a picture of the hallway wall from a few years ago when I just started collecting these photos. There are many more photos on the wall now.


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## Pelenaka (Jul 27, 2007)

Here'a an urban point of view from elderly neighbors who were children durning the depression. Four were born in my neighborhood.

Very common for extended families to live together. Usually all it took was one person to bring in a steady paycheck to support the entire family. _Bare in mind from the stories I have heard over the years the common denominating factor was that the house was paid for_. Cash went for taxes, utilities, dry goods that couldn't be batered for was what paychecks were spent on. As mentioned older siblings hit the road for work and if luck was with them found a job & sent money home. 
Tween aged children were farmed out to f&f who needed extra hands come harvest. 

Arrangments were made to hitch rides out to potato fields to glean. Gay, a German lady told me that you always dug up more than you needed so you could bater a ride home. She said more than once they had to sleep in the fields until transportation could be worked out.

Most everyone keept a handful of chickens and rabbits. Occassionaly a pig if they had a bigger yard. I was told by one Polish gentleman that his a daily chore was to push a wheelbarrow out to a small wooded area behind the train tracks & bury the used pig bedding. In the spring it was easier to give it away to the Italians who always put in a huge garden no matter if they were comfortable or not. The pig bought as a suckling was only grown out until fall. 
One year his younger sister became very attached to the pig as it was her job to take it for a walk along the tracks so it could pasture. To this day there is some great berry picking along those tracks. They would always take along a basket to collect any coal that fell off the trains to use for their stoves.

Taking in boarders, foster children, & laundry/sewing were other money generating activities. As was brewing beer & wine. 



~~ pelenaka ~~


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

my grandparents were kids of the depresion 

on my dads side his mothers side were merchant mariners , comertial fisherman , boat builders , and the worked their home stead , orchards and such they did all of that 

my dads dads side he won't talk much about it he grew up in chicago , said they would take baths in the neighbors apartment because their was brew in their tub as the neighbors and them were in on it and the neighbors had already been caught once.
but he was a kid not old enought to join WWII till it was almost over when he joined the navy.

my moms moms side my grandmas mother was a cook to the rich of chicago and her dad was a carpendar they lived in the summer hang out of the ultra rich of chicago the wrigglys , and such grandma was also a kid she wasn't old enough start nursing school till the war was over. the depresion was considered over by the war but she talks of making wedding dresses for freinds and relatives from parachutes , they used what the had and made do with som many things.

my moms dad his parents had a farm they were dairy farmers , and owned and ran the hatchery , they sold chicks , they were also the feed dealer , and they took orders from the grocery stores in town my grandpas job was to catch the chickens going for afternoon pick up at the store , he said my great grandma was so fast she could pluck a chicken in 30 seconds she would have them in a pot eviserated ready to go near as fast as he could catch them. he was also just a boy for much of the depresion born in 33

comon theme being the ones who did well or should we say ate well raised much of their own food , worked for themselves or others that they knew from family connections.


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## hsmom2four (Oct 13, 2008)

I remember asking my grandmother about the great depression when I was in elementary school. She said that her father worked in a hospital during the week and came home on the weekends. I gathered that he was some sort of orderly or janitor. Her mother always had a helper around the house to help with the kids and do laundry during that time too. She said they always had what they needed and she didn't know about the great depression until years later. I always thought this was odd.


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## shelljo (Feb 1, 2005)

My grandparents were on the eastern edge of the dust bowl. My grandma B was raised by a single mother and my grandma's brother tried to keep the farm going. (He was 18 years older than my grandmother and a bachelor.) He also did some mechanic work and I know he was on one of the govt programs to plant trees in shelter belts along the highways. My GGrandmother did lose the farm simply because they couldn't make enough money to pay the mortgage and the taxes. SHE cleaned houses in town and did some midwifery and nursing.

My Grandpa's family farmed, but I know that sometimes they only had eggs to eat. Eggs and onions. There were 12 children in the family. Looking at the old farm account books, they survived on what they made selling eggs and cream.

On my dad's side, they farmed, but had fewer children and better farm ground. Life wasn't as "hard", but Grandad W also left home at times to work on govt programs--mainly building highways. They needed the money to pay the taxes to keep their land. Grandad also got free trees to plant on his place to keep the soil from blowing away.


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

From what my mother has told me and what I remember myself, things weren't so hot after WWII either. Dad went back in the Army when I was 2 because there just wasn't any work. He was in the CCC out in Oregon (IIRC) working on parks projects. Then he went in the Army and was sent to Japan after Hiroshima. Mom said he was one of the first ones in after the bomb was dropped.


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## Sonshine (Jul 27, 2007)

My paternal Grandmother was a widow raising 7 kids during the depression. She ran a laundry and did the linen for the town's hospital and the kids raised the garden and a few yard hens. My maternal Grandfather worked for the railroad. My Grandmother raised a garden, some goats and chickens.


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## naturelover (Jun 6, 2006)

hintonlady said:


> I thought we could all benefit from discussing jobs during the great depression or any recession that followed


I don't think you can make a comparison between the great depression times and present day circumstances and the jobs done then and jobs in demand now. There is too much disparity in population, in people's circumstances and in technological and living standards. Also too much disparity in the per capita percentage of farmers. 

I think, based on the following statistics, that people who are capable of producing food and feeding the masses are the ones who will clearly prosper more than others if there is another great depression now. 

Population of America in 1930 - 123 million.
Farm population (1930): 30,455,350; farmers 21% of labor force; number of farms: 6,295,000; average acres: 157; irrigated acres: 14,633,252

Population now - 311 million plus.
Farm population (1992): 2,987,552; farmers 2.6% of labor force; number of farms: 2,143,150; average acres: 461; irrigated acres: 49,404,000

.


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## Cabin Fever (May 10, 2002)

Cyngbaeld said:


> ....He was in the CCC out in Oregon (IIRC) working on parks projects....


DO you know the name of his CCC camp? I have several photos of the troops working for Oregon CCC camps.


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## Ernie (Jul 22, 2007)

You would be hard pressed to find anyone from that era who wasn't a farmer or involved in very basic industry or resource gathering. 

I also believe the "didn't notice the depression" story that we hear over and over is a bit of whitewash. It would have been hard not to notice it. My own family were sharecroppers in Oklahoma at the time and I've always heard they did fine during the depression, but I can't see how. Dustbowl and Depression didn't treat white Oklahoma sharecroppers very gently. I know whatever happened there it was bad enough that my family ended up in Denison, Texas where they opened a small restaurant. That sustained them until World War II hit and some of my relatives went off to fight and others went to work in the Houston shipyards pumping out boats for the war effort.

After the war, with the money they'd earned and saved, they settled down in the Texas hill country and bought 380 acres of ranchland where I grew up. The 1980's brought along another calamity and we lost the farm, a situation which our family still hasn't recovered from. It scattered us to the four winds and we're all "sharecroppers" and tenant farmers again, this time working on the banker's plantation as we pay for a mortgage.

There's a better way forward though. I've seen it. Glimpsed it from afar like a shining fortress on a hill.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Any jobs that were cash based were tough. Even doctors had to take trade to survive because no one had cash. Chickens, eggs, milk, problem was you could only use so much, everyone bartered....James


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Cabin Fever said:


> DO you know the name of his CCC camp? I have several photos of the troops working for Oregon CCC camps.


There were a lot of CCC camps and WPA projects here in Oregon. Columbia river highway has a lot of rockwork bridges and railings, Mt. Hoods Timberline lodge, Crater Lake lodge. Highway 1 along the coast....James


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

Cabin Fever said:


> DO you know the name of his CCC camp? I have several photos of the troops working for Oregon CCC camps.


No, I don't CF. I just remember when we transferred to Ft Rich, AK, in 65 that we drove up the coast highway to Sea/Tac to catch a plane. We went thru some parks and Dad pointed out some of the projects he had worked on. I was 13 at the time. It never occurred to me to notice which parks. Dad passed in 72 (service connected from WWII).


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## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

Jobs during the Great Depression..

My mother's father was a police officer. Died in the line of duty, his widow opened up her house and ran a boarding house.

My father's parents were farmers.

First husband's family ran rum, opened a hotel in Tahiti, had a publishing company.

My mother's uncle opened a department store. Another uncle was a medical doctor.


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## Win07_351 (Dec 7, 2008)

machinist said:


> The bottom line is, he made his own jobs. It's all about finding a suitable opportunity and working it hard. I think most people today are far too stuck on the idea of "getting a job", never having given thought to business opportunities.


Well said, and very true.


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## Win07_351 (Dec 7, 2008)

Although times were very hard, there was still quite a bit of manufacturing during the depression years as well as some major construction projects (Golden Gate Bridge and Empire State building for example). The service type economy now would probably not fare as well.


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## Old_Grey_Mare (Feb 18, 2006)

My Mom's dad worked for the post office during the depression. I remember her saying that he had to take some pay cuts but was able to keep his job.


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## Raven12 (Mar 5, 2011)

My family were farmers and they were considered the best off. I remember the stories. Clothes and shoe shopping was a nightmare. What they had in stock was it. You dealt with it. My grandmother's feet were screwed up permanently from the experience. Multiple families lived in cramped quarters. Fitting 10+ people in a small cottage wasn't uncommon. The worst off in the towns were eating the groundhogs for dinner.


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## FourDeuce (Jun 27, 2002)

"The worst off in the towns were eating the groundhogs for dinner."

That would be the SECOND worst off. The worst off were eating nothing.:yuck:


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