There were many things I took for granted growing up. We were a family of five, the folks and we three brothers. Both sets of grandparents lived in the same small town with us. My dad worked to support us and my mom worked at home to take care of us. One brother went to the elementary school down the road and the other attended the junior high school in town. While we lived in that small town, I was too young to go to school.
Both grandfathers worked at the Chrysler plant in town and had done so since the early 1930s. One grandmother was at home, never having worked outside the home, and the other began cooking at the clinic in town during the war, then later became an LPN.
My dad was born at home in this town in 1921 just after his parents moved there and my mother was born at home in Tennessee in 1922, just before her parents made the same move. They went to the schools in town and began their adult lives. My mother graduated from high school in 1940, and my dad from the same school in 1941. Then the war started.
Between their births and the start of the war, however, they had gone through what was in our house called "the Depression." When I first started hearing the term I didn't think much about it. I figured out it was a tough time because the folks said it was. The life I knew wasn't tough at all, so I didn't have much to compare it to.
We were very lucky boys. The folks were very loving, we later realized, but they were not indulgent. We lived pretty simply, what some would call frugally, although times were not tough by any stretch of the imagination. My dad bought used cars, as his dad had always done. There was the new '55 Dodge, but my dad said it was the only lemon he ever had, and we didn't keep it long. It was yellow and black, but that wasn't what he meant by it being a lemon. We went back to used Plymouths and Chryslers after that. He never bought a new car again.
We lived in a house my dad had built himself about 1950. He built half a dozen or so houses after he came back from the war in Europe, sold each in turn, and kept us comfortable that way. We lived in the house he built for us for 9 years, until we moved away. He had other jobs here and there, but we didn't want for anything.
I said we were very lucky boys because the folks talked to us as we grew up. I don't mean they just talked at random. They talked about what was going on in the world and they talked about what they had already been through in their lives. When I really began to remember some of what they said, they were just past their mid thirties. At that young age, they had been children of the 1920s, they had lived through the Depression, and they had lived through World War II. Little did I suspect how those monumental events had already affected them, or how they would come to affect us all.
They didn't talk about these things all the time because there was daily life to discuss each day at the supper table. There was what my brothers had done at school, what my day had been like, what was for supper, how my mother's day had been, and what my dad had done at his worksite. There might be family news from the grandparents' gardens, from the farm next door, or events in the little town. On a regular basis, it seemed, the folks would talk about what was going on in the wider world, or make comparisons to their lives as they grew up.
The first conversation around that supper table I can recall involved my dad speaking firmly about somebody named Roosevelt. This man had done lots of things my dad didn't like, and I knew this from his tone of voice. He mentioned something called the Depression, and how Roosevelt had made it worse. This Roosevelt had then won third and fourth terms as president, and my dad didn't like that at all. My middle brother collected dimes, so I could see on some of those what this Roosevelt looked like. That Roosevelt's image was on the new dimes also annoyed my dad.
I became more familiar with Roosevelt and the Depression over the years around the supper table. I heard about how our families had dealt with the difficulties of those years in different ways. Our grandparents went through those times as parents to our parents. My dad's side took it all in good stride and relied on good humor and hard work and preparation to come through with colors flying. My dad's dad remained optimistic and positive. He was respected and well-liked at the Chrysler plant where he worked for 37 years. That side of the family had been Republicans since the start of the Civil War. They didn't like Roosevelt because he was a Democrat, of course, but they really didn't like him because he was arrogant and pompous and self-important, talked too much, and produced too few results. He was an aristocrat and didn't understand how our country was supposed to work.
My mom's side, however, struggled and knew real privation during those times. Her dad suffered from what we now call clinical depression, and it made him bitter and resentful of those who were better off than he was. He was laid off from his work at the Chrysler on several occasions, one of them for many months. He was a staunch Democrat from about 1931 onward, and I heard him say once that "Hoover made my little girls starve." Roosevelt became his instant hero upon his first election in 1932, and held that position to the end of both their days. "Roosevelt got us through the Depression, and then the war," he would say. When we were back home, my dad would roll his eyes and shake his head in wonder that anyone could be so deluded.
All of their talk wasn't about politics, of course. We learned that the folks had rather normal childhoods and similar school experiences. This talk gave us ideas, of course. In junior high school my mother did babysitting, and then took on domestic work with a well-to-do family in town, then worked in retail and offices. My dad worked at home, then began to drive a delivery truck for a dry cleaner in town. He went on to retail after that.
Living through the Depression didn't make the folks bitter, but it made them a little cynical. It made them observant because they understood that the things people did in far-off places could have an impact at home. They taught us it was important to be aware of the world, but not to give in to it or to be seduced by it. Vigilance was needed to keep the country on the straight and narrow, and that vigilance needed to come from families like ours.
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These conversations gave us perspectives we might not otherwise have had. We began to understand that others had come before us. We lived with the cycles of life, hearing about the past, seeing our own present, and wondering about the future. In that way we began to see that bright as our present was, there would be others who would follow after us. We were not sheltered from either the good or bad parts of the past and present.
I began to hear about this war they talked about just now and then. That was some kind of a big event, much bigger than anything in our world. I eventually learned that my dad had been in the middle of that mess in Europe, as had two of my three uncles. None of them said much about what they had seen themselves, but they knew the war was important and they shared that with us. I often heard about its effects and legacies. We were in the middle of some pretty bad situations there in the middle of the Cold War, and it turned out Roosevelt had his hand in creating some of those messes, too. There was much to be alarmed about, but we seemed rather safe on the edge of our small town. When I began to hear about bomb shelters, I hoped my dad would build one for us, but he never did. We knew which corner of a basement offered the best hope for surviving a tornado. In case of a missile attack, I decided that was the corner I'd seek. Besides, all my grandmother's home canned peaches and green beans were down there, so we'd be okay, I reasoned. I must make sure I had a spoon with me should the need arise.
I grew up in a household where we had measured discussions about serious things. I assumed everyone did, but when I eventually began school and advanced in the grades, I discovered that not every family was like ours. Many of the kids I grew up with never talked about such things at all. I was astonished by this. Some didn't even know if they were Republicans or Democrats or something else. It was yet another way I found to appreciate our happy and interesting home life. I still seek that kind of conversation, but it has been hard to find. It's even harder to find today.
One of the most important lessons I heard from hearing the folks talk about their growing up years was about whether it could happen again. Obviously a war could happen because talk of nuclear war was common. But what about the Depression? Could that happen again? They assured us that it could. It was awful and it could happen again. That opened up a whole new world of concern for me. If it could happen again, what were we doing to prepare for it? How could we be in a better position than my mom's folks had been when it hit them? What had caused it? Could the same things cause another one?
The folks had some answers for what had caused the Depression, but I wasn't convinced. Our school books said it was caused by overproduction and people buying too many stocks on margin, but that didn't satisfy me, either. I began a quest to really understand what had caused it. That quest took me to college and to grad school looking for answers. The Depression shaped my life because the folks had cared enough to talk about serious things at home.
Over the years as I studied economic history I grew more and more concerned about a return of difficult economic times. There was the oil embargo and the inflation of the 1970s. We had a period of price controls in the early 1970s. There were stock market ups and downs, the Cold War, and a terrible war in Southeast Asia. I became more and more alarmed about when we might see a return of those economic difficulties of the 1930s.
In short, I adopted much of my parents' ways of thinking, and from those ideas I began to look back to simpler, more practical ways of living. These columns are a result of their willingness to talk about the world they knew growing up. When you have Depression parents, you hear them speaking nearly every day, even long after they have passed into the next life. We were so lucky they shared their experiences and wisdom with us, and we have all been the richer for it.
Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II, may be ordered from Indiana University Press.
There were many things I took for granted growing up. We were a family of five, the folks and we three brothers. Both sets of grandparents lived in the same small town with us. My dad worked to support us and my mom worked at home to take care of us. One brother went to the elementary school down the road and the other attended the junior high school in town. While we lived in that small town, I was too young to go to school.
Both grandfathers worked at the Chrysler plant in town and had done so since the early 1930s. One grandmother was at home, never having worked outside the home, and the other began cooking at the clinic in town during the war, then later became an LPN.
My dad was born at home in this town in 1921 just after his parents moved there and my mother was born at home in Tennessee in 1922, just before her parents made the same move. They went to the schools in town and began their adult lives. My mother graduated from high school in 1940, and my dad from the same school in 1941. Then the war started. 
Between their births and the start of the war, however, they had gone through what was in our house called "the Depression." When I first started hearing the term I didn't think much about it. I figured out it was a tough time because the folks said it was. The life I knew wasn't tough at all, so I didn't have much to compare it to.
We were very lucky boys. The folks were very loving, we later realized, but they were not indulgent. We lived pretty simply, what some would call frugally, although times were not tough by any stretch of the imagination. My dad bought used cars, as his dad had always done. There was the new '55 Dodge, but my dad said it was the only lemon he ever had, and we didn't keep it long. It was yellow and black, but that wasn't what he meant by it being a lemon. We went back to used Plymouths and Chryslers after that. He never bought a new car again.
We lived in a house my dad had built himself about 1950. He built half a dozen or so houses after he came back from the war in Europe, sold each in turn, and kept us comfortable that way. We lived in the house he built for us for 9 years, until we moved away. He had other jobs here and there, but we didn't want for anything.
I said we were very lucky boys because the folks talked to us as we grew up. I don't mean they just talked at random. They talked about what was going on in the world and they talked about what they had already been through in their lives. When I really began to remember some of what they said, they were just past their mid thirties. At that young age, they had been children of the 1920s, they had lived through the Depression, and they had lived through World War II. Little did I suspect how those monumental events had already affected them, or how they would come to affect us all.
They didn't talk about these things all the time because there was daily life to discuss each day at the supper table. There was what my brothers had done at school, what my day had been like, what was for supper, how my mother's day had been, and what my dad had done at his worksite. There might be family news from the grandparents' gardens, from the farm next door, or events in the little town. On a regular basis, it seemed, the folks would talk about what was going on in the wider world, or make comparisons to their lives as they grew up.
