If you’ve ever wondered what your Grand Dad or Great-Gran Dad did during the 1930s look no further than below! It was not an easy time and that is an understatement – but they survived! Here is what is suggested by one expert:

Have a skill or supplemental job: All farmers, it seemed, had some sort of side occupation. Leo was a butcher, and he would travel to farms to process cattle and hogs. He frequently got paid in meat. (Leo died when I was seven or eight, but I remember him skinning a pig and tending his bees.)

Stick together: Pete’s family moved to another farm north of Ames, and got a new start. I grew up on that farm, and my dad bought it in the 1960s. (I hunted the same hills and timber he used to hunt as a kid, but I never had the pressure to be successful!)

Other neighbors were not so fortunate, and many of them had to hit the road (Think “Grapes of Wrath”). Our next door neighbor, Jo Stahlman, was born in Foley, Alabama, when her family moved south to find work.

Make do: Fix, repair, recycle and reuse. Clothing was patched, handed down and used up. When it finally reached the rag stage, it might be made into a quilt.

That went for just about everything. Money was scarce, and fixing or mending something didn’t cost anything.

Garden: While millions of Americans went hungry, my relatives gardened like they always did. Every farm had a large plot, and many families were largely fed off the produce. Fruit orchards and berry patches were common.

There was virtually no market for livestock, but farmers could and did raise animals for their own tables. As far as I know, places like Iowa and other midwest states, which didn’t have the severe droughts of the dust bowl areas, fared better than many areas.

Raise chickens and rabbits: Farms back then were more diversified, with a variety of food raising activities. Every farm had a flock of chickens for the eggs and meat.

Rabbit meat is one of the most nutritious meats available, according to Rise and Shine Rabbitry, and rabbits can produce six pounds of meat on the same feed and water as it takes a cow to produce one pound of meat.

We found the observation about having more than one job interesting because that is exactly what our great-grandfather did. He had a small farm and our Mother said her Mother and siblings never went hungry. Yet, he also worked in “the brick yard” and supplemented his income as well. Considering he was not born in America, came over on “the boat”, and eventually became a legal American – that is quite impressive!

The point is, they did what they did because they had to and one day we will too. So, as suggested by Survival Common Sense, it may well be time to hone those skills, take the lessons learned from the Depression, and use them!