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1929 Depression..............and stockbrokers JUMPING to their death. Be careful walking on the sidewalk below.

 

Saved for a later post.

 

I asked my granddad about the great depression and he said he never heard of it. Sometimes it pays not to be a bigshot.

I enjoy the woodpile report.

 

My granddad has been dead for nearly 35 years, he was born in 1901. I asked him the question back when I was in grade school.

 

I would be pretty certain your Grand Dad knew plenty about the Depression. He just didn't want to tell you, or didn't want to talk about it. He would have been in his late 20's. Almost impossible he wasn't affected some how.

 

My father-in-law was the same way. I know he was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, so he saw significant action. Lost his leg in Belgium. He never talked about it, and the unwritten rule, which everyone respected, was don't bring it up.

 

I asked my aunt about it and she replied that they were poor farmers and wall street and such was worlds away. I think perhaps that my granddad figured the depression only affected rich people. In his world rich people had jobs, he was a subsistence farmer. I got the impression his life was not much different in 1928 versus 1932.
Eventually my granddad became a blacksmith, then welder, then machinist.

 

That makes sense. He was so far removed from it, and working like a rented mule, he didn't pay any attention. As long as the bank he was dealing with was solvent if he dealt with a bank at all. He had his own problems to worry about.

An interesting sidebar: Back in the 80's when states were looking at legalizing gambling a friend asked his father what he thought about it. The father replied " I been a wheat farmer in Western Kansas my whole life. All I ever done was gamble."

 

I mostly read about Africa and Alaska from the period of 1880-1940. Mostly the explorers, professional hunters, and gold miners and early homesteaders. For the most part they knew zero about world events, including world wars.

 

If you were already poor the depression didn't have a great effect on you. My family was a farming family. they didn't have any money but they ate pretty well and were not as affected by the depression as urban people were. Rural people have a lot more access to resources like fish, game, and gardens than someone living in an apartment a big city that is suffering from all sorts of businesses closing down.