S/o Saving the World--Things Your Grandparents Did

[fairfarmhand]

In reading the other thread, I was struck by the thought that so many of the practices that my grandparents did on a daily basis are so very practical and "green" before being green was a thing. I thought I would share them. Feel free to share your thoughts too,

1. Line drying--they never had a dryer till my granddad (Grandmother had died by then) got too feeble to get out and hang clothes on the line. In winter, they threaded clothesline in the hallway and would hang things there.

2. They bathed fully only 2-3 times a week. They would "wash up" by using a cloth at the bathroom sink, but full baths didn't happen every day.

3. They re-wore clothing several times before washing it, unless it had visible dirt or nasty sweat. This also helped their clothes last longer.

4. Granddad wore undershirts, grandmother wore camisoles and slips. They changed undergarment layers daily, but rewore outer layers. The undergarments were less bulky so didn't make up big loads of laundry.

5. Grandmother hand washed many of her underclothes. This probably helped her things last longer. 

6. Grandmother sewed many things herself, mended clothing, and altered things so to avoid having to buy clothes.

7. They recycled newspapers. 

8. They used junk mail for notepaper.  I remember my grandmother giving my mom coupons and other things in a recycled envelope that had been carefully slit open.

9. They ate mostly veggies and starches with limited meats.

10. They grew a small garden in the backyard, eating mostly from it for a couple of months in the summer.

11. They did not purchase things excessively. They were a 2 income household with good jobs, not having my mom till in their 40s; they were very financially secrure, but they lived well below their means. They didn't buy or consume just to buy and consume. They lived in a tiny house but they were content and very happy there.

12. They cooked from scratch and I never remember them eating out.

13. Grandmother cut up old Christmas cards to make tags for gifts at the holidays.

14. They never turned on the A/C until it was quite hot. Then they generally used it only at night, until the dog days of summer set in fully. 

15. Grandmother used aprons to protect her clothing from dirt. She had a cooking apron and a gardening apron.

 

Both grandparents were born in 1912, so they experienced in the Great Depression. Their frugality was not a result of fear or anxiety. They were just content living simply and thought it made sense.

 

Anyone else want to share?

Edited November 2, 2021 by fairfarmhand

[Jean in Newcastle]

Everything you mentioned is what my parents (born in the early 1920’s) did all through my childhood. 

[fairfarmhand]

5 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

Everything you mentioned is what my parents (born in the early 1920’s) did all through my childhood. 

Are there other things I’ve forgotten?

[Arcadia]

The wet market sellers would use old yellow pages to wrap up the fish, meat and vegetables. People typically walk home from the wet market. Actually people would typically walk or bike everywhere not so much as to save the environment but because they couldn’t afford to spend on public transport. My grandparents migrated from China because of famine and poverty so they were very careful with expenditures all their lives. 

My parents generation (30s-40s) were the ones who could afford washers and it is my generation (60s-80s) that could afford the money and space for washers and dryers. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

19 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:

Are there other things I’ve forgotten?

My mom washed baggies and those went on the clothesline. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

20 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

The wet market sellers would use old yellow pages to wrap up the fish, meat and vegetables. People typically walk home from the wet market. Actually people would typically walk or bike everywhere not so much as to save the environment but because they couldn’t afford to spend on public transport. My grandparents migrated from China because of famine and poverty so they were very careful with expenditures all their lives. 

My parents generation (30s-40s) were the ones who could afford washers and it is my generation (60s-80s) that could afford the money and space for washers and dryers. 

My brother (homebirth in Japan right after WWII) was wrapped in newspapers right after birth . My mother said “like a fish”!  

Edited November 2, 2021 by Jean in Newcastle
Clarity

[Arcadia]

5 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

My brother (homebirth in Japan right after WWII) was wrapped in newspapers right after birth . My mother said “like a fish”!  

The fishmongers did wrap fishes in newspapers but they usually use yellow pages because those are free and so customers would pass them older copies. People would walk to the community centers or libraries to read the newspapers instead of paying for a subscription.

[Carol in Cal.]

We took public transportation routinely.

My great-grandmother took crumpled tissue paper from packages and ironed it for reuse.  Her daughter could wrap presents perfectly tightly without any tape.  Everyone always saved wrapping paper from one year to the next.

My mom saved bacon grease to cook trout in.

 Nobody through out food even if it was nasty tasting.  You sucked it up and ate it until it was gone so as to avoid waste.

My grandfather bought old wooden furniture at junk stores and refurbished it.  Everybody did.

Sunset magazine assumed that carpentry, knitting, simple plumbing, crochet, and sewing skills were commonplace in every household, in addition to cooking.  

[Melissa in Australia]

2 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

In reading the other thread, I was struck by the thought that so many of the practices that my grandparents did on a daily basis are so very practical and "green" before being green was a thing. I thought I would share them. Feel free to share your thoughts too,

1. Line drying--they never had a dryer till my granddad (Grandmother had died by then) got too feeble to get out and hang clothes on the line. In winter, they threaded clothesline in the hallway and would hang things there.

2. They bathed fully only 2-3 times a week. They would "wash up" by using a cloth at the bathroom sink, but full baths didn't happen every day.

3. They re-wore clothing several times before washing it, unless it had visible dirt or nasty sweat. This also helped their clothes last longer.

4. Granddad wore undershirts, grandmother wore camisoles and slips. They changed undergarment layers daily, but rewore outer layers. The undergarments were less bulky so didn't make up big loads of laundry.

5. Grandmother hand washed many of her underclothes. This probably helped her things last longer. 

6. Grandmother sewed many things herself, mended clothing, and altered things so to avoid having to buy clothes.

7. They recycled newspapers. 

8. They used junk mail for notepaper.  I remember my grandmother giving my mom coupons and other things in a recycled envelope that had been carefully slit open.

9. They ate mostly veggies and starches with limited meats.

10. They grew a small garden in the backyard, eating mostly from it for a couple of months in the summer.

11. They did not purchase things excessively. They were a 2 income household with good jobs, not having my mom till in their 40s; they were very financially secrure, but they lived well below their means. They didn't buy or consume just to buy and consume. They lived in a tiny house but they were content and very happy there.

12. They cooked from scratch and I never remember them eating out.

13. Grandmother cut up old Christmas cards to make tags for gifts at the holidays.

14. They never turned on the A/C until it was quite hot. Then they generally used it only at night, until the dog days of summer set in fully. 

15. Grandmother used aprons to protect her clothing from dirt. She had a cooking apron and a gardening apron.

 

Both grandparents were born in 1912, so they experienced in the Great Depression. Their frugality was not a result of fear or anxiety. They were just content living simply and thought it made sense.

 

Anyone else want to share?

we live this way now

 except we don't have a A/C at all  and I don't use a apron gardening

[Shoeless]

My one set of grandparents simply didn't buy a lot of stuff. They did not buy new things because the old stuff was out of fashion. When the upholstery on the furniture wore out, they had it re-upholstered rather than get a new sofa. Their house looked the same for decades!  The only things I can think of that got replaced were appliances and cars when they finally died. 

[gardenmom5]

My grandmother and my mom dried clothes on a line.  When my grandmother started doing wash - dryers didn't exist, when they became available, they were a luxury item.  My mother dried clothes on a line until the early 70s when our basement was finished.  Then she started using a dryer.  Mom also stopped using a sud saver.  Do you really want to wash multiple loads of clothes in the same water?  (I remember how icky that water looked - but it was still being used to wash the next load.) That also required a basement (or an attic or other large indoor space) to hand clothes in winter/rainy weather.

They also used an outhouse  (and a wood stove) until they moved to Seattle in '42. - but hey, it's "green" because it's not using water or sewage. - but you still have to go outside even in the middle of winter if you need to relieve yourself.

My grandmother canned - it was cheaper, and you had access to foods in winter you normally would not.  But she was a farmer's daughter, she kept a vegetable garden even in the city. it was cheaper and allowed more variety.  A "Victory Garden" was about getting city families to grow their own food during the war, so those resources that would otherwise go to producing food for the masses could be used for other purposes.  It was about "supporting the war effort." 

  She also used oleo/margarine, never butter, - because it was cheaper than butter.  (I personally won't use it because it's an unnatural form.)

I once mentioned to my mom thinking about getting chickens.  She shuddered and said "oh, . . . chickens". . and shuddered some more.   I never found out what that memory was about.

 

[Carrie12345]

6 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

 

Both grandparents were born in 1912, so they experienced in the Great Depression. Their frugality was not a result of fear or anxiety. They were just content living simply and thought it made sense.

Compared to what, though?  
We are living in a time of mind boggling abundance. Some choose to reduce their consumption. Some choose to live like everything will always be abundant. Many make their choices based on finances and/or location. Most of our grandparents/great-grandparents were also just living within their particular time period with its own technological, educational, financial, logistical, and local cultural norms.

My grandmother didn’t refrain from using a smart phone due to any certain set of values; she just wasn’t interested in learning another new, major piece of technology in her 80s. She was, however, the first in our family to get both a VCR and a microwave! Because why shouldn’t  she at the time? Of course some things from her childhood stuck with her, but she spent her life mostly in a small city area where people rapidly adapted to the vast changes from the 30s to the 90s.  
She had some amazing skills that she was quite proud of. But I’m also very certain she was glad to not have to rely on them to get by.

[Guest]

@fairfarmhand I love your list. I have thought many times before about how compatible frugality and conservation are with each other. 
 

I think one big difference (which I point out while I hypocritically sit here in a very big house) was that the average house size was *much* smaller and people with huge houses were the super-wealthy. Bunking kids together two or three to a bedroom was completely normal. Not many people had whole rooms for certain things: guests, exercising, watching TV, etc. 

[Laura Corin]

My mother did most of what has been listed so far.  I particularly remember the careful saving and washing of baggies.

She was very careful about heating and cooling in the house.  In the summer, in the house that we moved into when I was 17 that had almost all south-facing windows, on hot days she would close all the curtains as soon as the sun came over the neighbouring houses to keep the house cool.  Then she would spend the day in the kitchen, which was an add-on extension that sat in the shade of the main structure.  In winter, as soon as it started to get dark, she would close curtains or (in the house I grew up in) solid wooden shutters to keep in the warmth.  When she lived with us, we had to ask her not to close the public-room curtains so early, as we valued every last second of light in the winter.

One thing that I do that she did too is to keep the thermostat low-ish.  As I write, the room I am in is 17.2 degrees C, so 63 degrees F.  I'm wearing lined jeans, wool socks, a flannel shirt, a fleece and a down body-warmer/vest.  I'm drinking hot lemon and ginger tea.  This feels cosy to me, and I don't miss having more heat. 

Her frugal habits did make it hard as she started to lose strength: she didn't have the energy to carry on maintaining her life in such a labour-intensive way, but was not able at that stage to change her habits.

[Pawz4me]

5 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

 

My mom saved bacon grease to cook trout in.

 

Bacon grease is liquid gold. 😉 

My maternal grandparents were my inspiration for home cooking for my dogs, and why I don't worry about getting every nutrient just right. After eating the dogs' bowls (they usually had multiple GSDs) were washed and placed on the counter. Almost all food the humans didn't eat went into the dogs' bowls and was then topped off with some dog food. They all lived long, healthy lives.

Up until I was six or so my maternal grandmother cooked on a wood stove. She didn't have to, they were quite well off financially. She just liked to. It was certainly probably frugal but also probably not very good for the environment. They had a brand new house built "down the mountain" and she left her wood stove but always regretted it.

My paternal grandparents never had central heat in their house or any kind of air conditioner. They were also very financially secure, so it wasn't because they couldn't afford it. They had some sort of free standing wood stove in their living room that kept it very toasty (way too toasty for my comfort, usually). The rest of the house was always freezing in the winter.

[73349]

I think you'll find a lot of people my age and younger (and I'm old enough to be the mother of some young homeschooling moms) have no idea; that was my great-grandparents' generation, and they didn't live long enough & I didn't live close enough to them to see a lot of their lifestyle.
My grandparents' generation (born in the 1930s) left the farm, bought Tupperware and other plastic instead of tying things in paper and twine, had two cars, used a washer and dryer (no A/C: we're from New England), bought clothes from the store, learned to use email (if they lived long enough for it to be commonplace), etc. They decorated their homes with mass-produced items. Sure, they cooked at home; I think most families with children still do most of the time.

My parents' generation (born in the 1950s) consumed even more (including choosing disposable diapers, paper plates, convenience foods, etc.), and many of us in my generation who cared had to use the internet to do stuff like cloth diapering our children (both buying the diapers and learning how to use and care for them). We knew nothing of composting and gardening (lol, I still know pretty much nothing about gardening), or what to eat for breakfast that didn't come from a box with a cartoon character on it. And we're not finding a lot of 1000-square-foot houses on the market.
I wish I had gotten to see more of my great-grandparents' lifestyle, and that more skills had gotten passed down even if folks didn't want to entirely rely on them. I'm lucky my MIL was able to teach me the basics of crochet, so at least I can make rectangles. A few generations ago, all the women in my family could crochet. My mom learned how as a kid, a bit, but never used it & didn't think to teach me (our blankets were store-bought)--but now I crochet all my own dishcloths.

What skills do you think we should make sure our kids don't lose, beyond the obvious stuff like cooking?

[Jean in Newcastle]

I do not miss the kerosene heaters we had in the winter because we had no central heating. The fumes would give me headaches but you had to sit close so that the side next to the heater was practically burning while the side away from the heater froze. (Ie. It was not efficient heat at all). 
 

At night it was too dangerous to leave the kerosene heaters on so we had no heat. I remember my pet bird froze to death one night and we had canned fruit that froze in the jars overnight. We had beds piled high with heavy quilts and later electric blankets. My siblings and I would threaten to switch off each other’s electric blanket. 

[regentrude]

Grandparents' lifestyle depended on where they lived. A rural farm family led a different life than an urban one. One of my grandmothers was the first woman in her town to get a drivers license, had a car and a business. My other grandma lived in large cities and never gardened. 

Both cooked from scratch. There were no plastic baggies to rinse - they did not exist in my country.

Things I remember form my childhood:
many things were reused. Packing paper, twine, wrapping paper, ribbon. The very rare plastic bag (from a package from a western country).
Most glass bottles (soda, beer) had a deposit and were returned to the store
Thorough recycling. Newspaper, glass (jam jars and wine bottles). We did not have single-use plastics.
Cooking from scratch. There wasn't much else. I still do that.

Edited November 2, 2021 by regentrude

[regentrude]

8 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I do not miss the kerosene heaters we had in the winter because we had no central heating. The fumes would give me headaches but you had to sit close so that the side next to the heater was practically burning while the side away from the heater froze. (Ie. It was not efficient heat at all). 
 

At night it was too dangerous to leave the kerosene heaters on so we had no heat. I remember my pet bird froze to death one night and we had canned fruit that froze in the jars overnight. We had beds piled high with heavy quilts and later electric blankets. My siblings and I would threaten to switch off each other’s electric blanket. 

I grew up with coal heating. Buckets of coal, carried up three flights of stairs, ashes carried down. In the winter, the streets were smoke filled. It took hours for the large ceramic stoves to heat up. Definitely don't miss that, and the environmental impact of the open pit mines where the very poor coal was mined was bad.

[Carrie12345]

27 minutes ago, Carolina Wren said:

What skills do you think we should make sure our kids don't lose, beyond the obvious stuff like cooking?

I have sort of given up on getting my kids to master certain skills in favor of more currently relevant ones, but it’s still been important to me to touch on them and point out resources. 
So, my kids are somewhat familiar with growing food.  With diy home repair. With sewing. With emergency preparedness. With first aid (though EMT classes eventually take over around here, lol.)

They get the basics, and then they know how to  dig deeper on the things they value most.

My 10yo does a fair job of recognizing what YouTube videos have good advice/instructions and which ones are a waste of his time. 😉

[regentrude]

7 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Her daughter could wrap presents perfectly tightly without any tape.  Everyone always saved wrapping paper from one year to the next.

We still do that. Tape is not necessary; you can tie the parcel just fine with ribbon (unless the shape is very unusual).

[EmilyGF]

The family I lived with in the former East Germany in 1997 didn't cut their lawn with a mower but harvested it with a sickle when it reached 12+", stored the hay, and then used the hay to feed their rabbits in winter. During the summer, they ate grass and leftovers from the family. The rabbits provided meat for celebratory meals (Christmas, Easter, etc).

They did basically everything a depression-era family would have done and were some of the hardest working people I ever met.

Emily

[MEmama]

I mean, the things listed here that our Depression and War- era grandparents and parents did were done out of *necessity*, not altruism or a sense of eco consciousness. It’s natural that some of the habits/ norms that a person grows up with tend to be repeated throughout their adulthood, and some of those are passed down yet again. So it’s no surprise that many of us still wash and reuse our plastic bags, or watch our heating bills, or line dry. Those are still habits that make sense, both financially and environmentally. Our kids will pick up on some of the habits they grew up and continue some those practices throughout their adulthoods, tweaking them as necessary as each generation does.

I don’t think our grandparents' habits were “better” than ours though. I hear so many people romanticize the past as though we’ve lost something along the way, but I don’t buy it. Our kids are going to do amazing, incredible things to truly the save the planet—keep in mind it was our grandparents who contributed directly to the human made climate disaster of the Dust Bowl, and all the environmental horrors in the decades since. Our kids have no choice but to clean up the mess, and their actions are going to go much further than tending backyard gardens and reusing scratch paper. 

[marbel]

My parents were born in 1916,  The did most of the things listed in the OP, though I don't recall my mother sewing our clothing. My sister and I took home ec in school in the '60s and '70s, and sewed a lot of our own garments. I lived close to my grandparents as a kid (up to age 10) but don't really remember how they lived day-to-day, if I ever knew. 

I remember my mother saving the wrappers from margarine sticks to grease pans with. This sticks out in my mind because I remember a few years ago reading some chi-chi food site and seeing that listed as a super cool new discovery/way to be green and save $$. That gave me a good laugh. I am quite sure my  mother was not the only person doing that back in 195x.

Saving plastic containers for food storage was another thing she did, though I doubt she bought much food that came that way. I'm thinking cottage cheese and such. 

Line-drying... I am not sure when clothes dryers or dishwashers became mainstream. We did not have one in our family's original house, but when we moved (for my dad's job), there was a dishwasher and a clothes dryer in the house, and my mother was delighted. 

My parents were both poor growing up; my mother never got over living in poverty, being on welfare, etc. My father did and they clashed a little bit as he tended to be freer with money than she was, once they had some.

This is a little different but my father worked for the same company for 50 years. He started at 17 and retired at 67. He had different jobs throughout that time, but it never occurred to him to find a different company to work for. Once when I told him I was quitting a job, he asked why. I said I hated it and wanted to do something different. Then he asked 'how long have you worked there' and when I said 4 years, he laughed and said I'd hardly worked there long enough to know if I liked it or not. But really it would never have occurred to him to quit a job because he didn't like it. If you had work, you worked and were grateful to have a way to earn $$.

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by marbel

[Laura Corin]

I answered about my mother,  who was born in 1924. I didn't know my grandparents very well, and one set had spent decades in Uganda with servants. They were all born in the late 1800s.

[sheryl]

Love this thread!  So accurate and true.  Yes, my Mom 1922 was raised by her parents (born late 1800's) this way along with her 2 siblings!  However, they didn't have a/c back then.  It was invented but not common in household use.  They just got through it.  

So much of it was practical.  My Mom would eat a bite or two of a candy bar, fold it over and save for another day!  Thanks for sharing; what a good reminder!   People walked more.   Walk to the little grocer (my Grandpa owned one), post office, etc.   Sure this is more attainable in a smaller city but still people walked.  Today I need to remember to walk a flight of stairs rather than take the elevator or escalator.  It kept people in shape.  All of the "activity" of washing clothes, hanging, washing dishes by hand (no dishwasher), rug beating, etc burned calories.  People did not overeat or indulge as much.  

I personally think it's a testimony to not be wasteful unnecessarily.  From old family photos of the time I'm going through now, life was much simpler.  

[marbel]

Just now, sheryl said:

From old family photos of the time I'm going through now, life was much simpler.  

Well was it really simpler? All that washing by hand, beating rugs, etc. was not simple. My mother embraced the dishwasher, clothes dryer etc when she got them at age 50. I guess it was simpler in one respect: there were fewer choices to make. But there was a lot of  hard work, and not everyone enjoyed it. My mother would have preferred more time to read, I do remember that.  Growing vegetables in the garden is not simpler than buying it at the market, though of course for some it is very gratifying and even fun. 

I do think maybe people enjoyed any leisure time more, because there was less of it. I know my mother loved our 2-week camping vacations every year, though it was a lot of work for her to prepare for them. And of course she cooked and did dishes then too!

[sheryl]

17 minutes ago, marbel said:

Well was it really simpler? All that washing by hand, beating rugs, etc. was not simple. My mother embraced the dishwasher, clothes dryer etc when she got them at age 50. I guess it was simpler in one respect: there were fewer choices to make. But there was a lot of  hard work, and not everyone enjoyed it. My mother would have preferred more time to read, I do remember that.  Growing vegetables in the garden is not simpler than buying it at the market, though of course for some it is very gratifying and even fun. 

I do think maybe people enjoyed any leisure time more, because there was less of it. I know my mother loved our 2-week camping vacations every year, though it was a lot of work for her to prepare for them. And of course she cooked and did dishes then too!

Yes, simpler in many ways.  It depends on your definition.  

[Starr]

Don't forget just a little swipe of a decorative paper plate used for cake and it's good for the next party. My great aunt always teased my great grandmother about that.

[rutheart]

In the 80s, my parents line dried laundry, cloth diapered, had a veg garden and canned, washed dishes by hand, used a push (i.e. completely human powered) mower. My mom made all our clothes, and we were the only ones at our school with clothing that didn't have a label. I was the oldest cousin, so there were no hand-me-downs until I was adult sized. My mom cut our hair with scissors. We didn't own a tv. I think the only electricity we used was the fridge, oven, washer, and lights at night. It was as close to Amish living as you could get inside a big city. 

In all the places we lived, my parents never used HVAC. Even in Nebraska, in the late 90s, my father would just light a fire every morning during the winter. My mother (who finally owned an electric sewing machine) made us thermal pajamas, lined our skirts with flannel, and sewed heavy quilts. I was glad to share my bed with the family dog. We didn't own a hair dryer and the house only had one shower, so with six people in the house, it was hard to find a time to shower that wouldn't leave you freezing all night or go out in the cold with wet hair. I remember once leaving the house with wet hair in -20 degrees (Fahrenheit), and if I bent my waist length hair, the ice crystals would make it stick straight out horizontally. I never did that again!

For my parents, it was at least 95% about saving money. Now that they are empty nesters, they are hobby beekeepers. I think on some level, they care about the environment, but for them, it's all wrapped up in their religion (i.e. being good stewards of the earth).

My mother's parents had a farm with cows and chickens. At some point during my childhood, they moved and then owned a business growing and freeze drying flowers, especially roses. My grandfather was really into technology, and I have memories of him teaching me how to use DOS to play computer games. 

My father's parents had a chef and acreage in California (they donated everything to the church before my grandfather died) and I never saw any hint of environmental stewardship from them.

My FIL and his father also worked in IT, so technology has always been a part of their households.

I have taught my girls how to cook and bake from scratch, do basic sewing, gardening, wash dishes by hand, to reuse before recycling, etc. However, for the most part, we live in a high tech, high electric house. My husband works from home doing IT stuff, so we'll always be dependent on electricity, but we used 1,434 KWH last month and I would like to reduce that footprint. I don't think (with my health issues) that I am capable of living like my parents did, but I would like to live a lifestyle somewhere in the middle.

[MEmama]

7 minutes ago, marbel said:

Well was it really simpler? All that washing by hand, beating rugs, etc. was not simple. My mother embraced the dishwasher, clothes dryer etc when she got them at age 50. I guess it was simpler in one respect: there were fewer choices to make. But there was a lot of  hard work, and not everyone enjoyed it. My mother would have preferred more time to read, I do remember that.  Growing vegetables in the garden is not simpler than buying it at the market, though of course for some it is very gratifying and even fun. 

I do think maybe people enjoyed any leisure time more, because there was less of it. I know my mother loved our 2-week camping vacations every year, though it was a lot of work for her to prepare for them. And of course she cooked and did dishes then too!

Agreed. Few people make the decision to not trade hard work for easier work. Even today’s diehard off the grid homesteaders typically have an escape route (ie other jobs they could transition to). 
 

I think a lot of people confuse “simpler” with “having less”. Life pre-war was not simple, it was tough. Making do is hard work, struggling to feed a family is draining, sending children away to orphanages or work in the mills must have been unbearable. Those shelves of jars of applesauce and green beans a lot of us remember didn’t exist because Grandma had a spare Saturday to go apple picking with her kids and have fun in the kitchen—those were the product of endless, hot hours of hard physical labor to make sure the kids didn’t get malnourished over the winter. 
 

Those old photos we all love don’t tell the whole story, and in romanticizing them I think we do a disservice to their actual lives and to future generations. 

[Pawz4me]

24 minutes ago, marbel said:

Well was it really simpler? All that washing by hand, beating rugs, etc. was not simple. My mother embraced the dishwasher, clothes dryer etc when she got them at age 50. I guess it was simpler in one respect: there were fewer choices to make. But there was a lot of  hard work, and not everyone enjoyed it. My mother would have preferred more time to read, I do remember that.  Growing vegetables in the garden is not simpler than buying it at the market, though of course for some it is very gratifying and even fun. 

I do think maybe people enjoyed any leisure time more, because there was less of it. I know my mother loved our 2-week camping vacations every year, though it was a lot of work for her to prepare for them. And of course she cooked and did dishes then too!

I agree.

And kind of tangentially related -- it's why it kind of baffles me when people talk about making their own laundry detergent or all purpose cleaner and things like that. I'm thinking--Hello, there's a reason we have commercial products, and the really big one is that they tend to work so much better than what our grandparents/great grandparents had to use.

[regentrude]

12 minutes ago, MEmama said:

I think a lot of people confuse “simpler” with “having less”. Life pre-war was not simple, it was tough. Making do is hard work, struggling to feed a family is draining, sending children away to orphanages or work in the mills must have been unbearable. Those shelves of jars of applesauce and green beans a lot of us remember didn’t exist because Grandma had a spare Saturday to go apple picking with her kids and have fun in the kitchen—those were the product of endless, hot hours of hard physical labor to make sure the kids didn’t get malnourished over the winter.

yes, life was tough. I would like to distinguish between "easier" (which it was not) and "simpler", which I think in some sense it was: there were fewer choices. We tend to think of an abundance of options as a good thing, but actually the human brain does not do well when overwhelmed with choices, and being constantly forced to creates decision fatigue.
One of the exhausting things about modern life is the feeling that one needs to optimize everything. It begins with the choice between fifty different kinds of cereal in the grocery store (for my grandmother, the only available one was oatmeal), between dozens or hundreds of options for every article of clothing (in my childhood, there were maybe 2-3 options to purchase an item that fit), consumer goods; then all the weighty choices about life paths: college or not, which of the hundreds of colleges, which job, which city, which country, kids or not, stay home or not.... Don't get me wrong, it is wonderful to have options - but it also makes everything more complicated. Without choices, life is simpler (and it was in my childhood when we had far fewer choices to make). Simpler, and definitely not easier.

Edited November 2, 2021 by regentrude

[1234]

13 minutes ago, MEmama said:

Agreed. Few people make the decision to not trade hard work for easier work. Even today’s diehard off the grid homesteaders typically have an escape route (ie other jobs they could transition to). 
 

I think a lot of people confuse “simpler” with “having less”. Life pre-war was not simple, it was tough. Making do is hard work, struggling to feed a family is draining, sending children away to orphanages or work in the mills must have been unbearable. Those shelves of jars of applesauce and green beans a lot of us remember didn’t exist because Grandma had a spare Saturday to go apple picking with her kids and have fun in the kitchen—those were the product of endless, hot hours of hard physical labor to make sure the kids didn’t get malnourished over the winter. 
 

Those old photos we all love don’t tell the whole story, and in romanticizing them I think we do a disservice to their actual lives and to future generations. 

Yes, my grandfather lived a very long time and hated when people said the times of his childhood were “simpler”. He was the only one of his many siblings that survived to adulthood because it was anything but simple.

 

ETA: My grandparents did some of these things but they mostly enjoyed being able to have it easier as they aged and utilized the easier ways of doing things.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Joker2

[MEmama]

2 minutes ago, regentrude said:

yes, life was tough. I would like to distinguish between "easier" (which it was not) and "simpler", which I think in some sense it was: there were fewer choices. We tend to think of an abundance of options as a good thing, but actually the human brain does not do well when overwhelmed with choices, and being constantly forced to creates decision fatigue.
One of the exhausting things about modern life is the feeling that one needs to optimize everything. It begins with the choice between fifty different kinds of cereal in the grocery store (for my grandmother, the only available one was oatmeal), then all the weighty choices about life paths: college or not, which of the hundreds of colleges, which job, which city, which country, kids or not, stay home or not.... Don't get me wrong, it is wonderful to have options - but it also makes everything more complicated. Without choices, life is simpler (and it was in my childhood when we had far fewer choices to make). Simpler, and definitely not easier.

I agree. That is an important distinction. 

[fairfarmhand]

1 hour ago, MEmama said:

I mean, the things listed here that our Depression and War- era grandparents and parents did were done out of *necessity*, not altruism or a sense of eco consciousness. It’s natural that some of the habits/ norms that a person grows up with tend to be repeated throughout their adulthood, and some of those are passed down yet again. So it’s no surprise that many of us still wash and reuse our plastic bags, or watch our heating bills, or line dry. Those are still habits that make sense, both financially and environmentally. Our kids will pick up on some of the habits they grew up and continue some those practices throughout their adulthoods, tweaking them as necessary as each generation does.

I don’t think our grandparents' habits were “better” than ours though. I hear so many people romanticize the past as though we’ve lost something along the way, but I don’t buy it. Our kids are going to do amazing, incredible things to truly the save the planet—keep in mind it was our grandparents who contributed directly to the human made climate disaster of the Dust Bowl, and all the environmental horrors in the decades since. Our kids have no choice but to clean up the mess, and their actions are going to go much further than tending backyard gardens and reusing scratch paper. 

 

44 minutes ago, marbel said:

Well was it really simpler? All that washing by hand, beating rugs, etc. was not simple. My mother embraced the dishwasher, clothes dryer etc when she got them at age 50. I guess it was simpler in one respect: there were fewer choices to make. But there was a lot of  hard work, and not everyone enjoyed it. My mother would have preferred more time to read, I do remember that.  Growing vegetables in the garden is not simpler than buying it at the market, though of course for some it is very gratifying and even fun. 

I do think maybe people enjoyed any leisure time more, because there was less of it. I know my mother loved our 2-week camping vacations every year, though it was a lot of work for her to prepare for them. And of course she cooked and did dishes then too!

 

15 minutes ago, MEmama said:

Agreed. Few people make the decision to not trade hard work for easier work. Even today’s diehard off the grid homesteaders typically have an escape route (ie other jobs they could transition to). 
 

I think a lot of people confuse “simpler” with “having less”. Life pre-war was not simple, it was tough. Making do is hard work, struggling to feed a family is draining, sending children away to orphanages or work in the mills must have been unbearable. Those shelves of jars of applesauce and green beans a lot of us remember didn’t exist because Grandma had a spare Saturday to go apple picking with her kids and have fun in the kitchen—those were the product of endless, hot hours of hard physical labor to make sure the kids didn’t get malnourished over the winter. 
 

Those old photos we all love don’t tell the whole story, and in romanticizing them I think we do a disservice to their actual lives and to future generations. 

 

15 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

I agree.

And kind of tangentially related -- it's why it kind of baffles me when people talk about making their own laundry detergent or all purpose cleaner and things like that. I'm thinking--Hello, there's a reason we have commercial products, and the really big one is that they tend to work so much better than what our grandparents/great grandparents had to use.

I wasn't romanticizing anything. I know it was a hard life during the early decades of the 1900s when my grandparents lived. There are many things that I would not want to go back and live through. My granddad lost a brother from an illness when granddad was 12 and brother was 11. Nowadays, they likely would have saved his life. I can't imagine my 12 yr old granddad watching his younger brother die in agony.  

Granddad refused to eat biscuits. He hated them. His family had 11 children and would take nothing but a pail of biscuits to school, which were the leftovers from what they had eaten for breakfast. He understood poverty and true hunger. 

My grandparents didn't eschew technology just because. They had an automatic washing machine. They carpeted over their gorgeous hardwood floors (I didn't even know there were beautiful floors under there till I saw pictures) because modern carpet was warmer in their chilly house. They used a vacuum cleaner. My grandmother was a nurse so she kept up to date on medical advances. When granddad was too feeble to line dry, he bought a clothes dryer and later moved into a nursing home.

 

All I'm saying is that SOME of the things that my grandparents generation did make sense for us in modern times. 

I get it, and I live it. We live on acreage and could live on well water, grow all our own food, and live off grid. I don't wanna. It is grueling work and I don't want to spend every day of the summer hoeing veggies, putting them up in jars, and wearing myself out. I grow some just because I enjoy it and it helps with the grocery bill, but growing enough food to feed a family of 5 isn't something I'm interested in doing. 

There's also the heartbreak that comes with living on your own that way. The grief when a hailstorm levels your garden...We've lost 5 calves this year. It's unusual for us to lose any calves, but this was a tough year for some reason. My favorite cow died in 2020 and I sat in the field and howled beside her because I was so broken. (I still get teary as I type this) It is a hard life. 

So yes, a hard life, but there are good things to be learned from looking back as well. Every generation has its challenges. 

Edited November 2, 2021 by fairfarmhand

[JennyD]

1 hour ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I do not miss the kerosene heaters we had in the winter because we had no central heating. The fumes would give me headaches but you had to sit close so that the side next to the heater was practically burning while the side away from the heater froze. (Ie. It was not efficient heat at all). 
 

At night it was too dangerous to leave the kerosene heaters on so we had no heat. I remember my pet bird froze to death one night and we had canned fruit that froze in the jars overnight. We had beds piled high with heavy quilts and later electric blankets. My siblings and I would threaten to switch off each other’s electric blanket. 

I lived in (northeastern) rural Japan in the mid-1990s and this was still the arrangement.  No central heat, just kerosene heaters that had to be turned off at night.  I did love my electric blanket though.  

[MEmama]

31 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:

 

 

 

I wasn't romanticizing anything. I know it was a hard life during the early decades of the 1900s when my grandparents lived. There are many things that I would not want to go back and live through. My granddad lost a brother from an illness when granddad was 12 and brother was 11. Nowadays, they likely would have saved his life. I can't imagine my 12 yr old granddad watching his younger brother die in agony.  

Granddad refused to eat biscuits. He hated them. His family had 11 children and would take nothing but a pail of biscuits to school, which were the leftovers from what they had eaten for breakfast. He understood poverty and true hunger. 

My grandparents didn't eschew technology just because. They had an automatic washing machine. They carpeted over their gorgeous hardwood floors (I didn't even know there were beautiful floors under there till I saw pictures) because modern carpet was warmer in their chilly house. They used a vacuum cleaner. My grandmother was a nurse so she kept up to date on medical advances. When granddad was too feeble to line dry, he bought a clothes dryer and later moved into a nursing home.

 

All I'm saying is that SOME of the things that my grandparents generation did make sense for us in modern times. 

I get it, and I live it. We live on acreage and could live on well water, grow all our own food, and live off grid. I don't wanna. It is grueling work and I don't want to spend every day of the summer hoeing veggies, putting them up in jars, and wearing myself out. I grow some just because I enjoy it and it helps with the grocery bill, but growing enough food to feed a family of 5 isn't something I'm interested in doing. 

There's also the heartbreak that comes with living on your own that way. The grief when a hailstorm levels your garden...We've lost 5 calves this year. It's unusual for us to lose any calves, but this was a tough year for some reason. My favorite cow died in 2020 and I sat in the field and howled beside her because I was so broken. (I still get teary as I type this) It is a hard life. 

So yes, a hard life, but there are good things to be learned from looking back as well. Every generation has its challenges. 

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply *you* are romanticizing, but I do hear it a lot. It’s always good to re-examine ways we can do better by our health and that of the planet. I appreciate this thread (even if I did make it take a weird turn lol). 
 

It’s good to see that so many of us here are doing what we can—even in small ways. That brings me to a point I haven’t seen mentioned yet, though, and that’s that it often takes having the means—the time, the mental space, the education, the money— to implement some of these things in this modern world. Growing veggies is fun as a hobby, but it takes time and money—and most things can be fun if we don’t *depend* on them. Driving less is awesome for those of us who can afford to live in walkable communities, but that reality eludes far too many people. Line drying isn’t feasible in many neighborhoods, either because of HOAs or simply because your laundry might get stolen. 
 

I don’t really have a point, just musing. Thanks for starting this thread, OP. 

[Home'scool]

My grandparents were immigrants who came from Italy and lived through the Depression. They never struck me as "frugal" because they never seemed to want for anything, but they had set themselves up for a comfortable living from the start. 

They had their own garden. When we would go visit the salad that was served was literally picked 5 minutes earlier. They did not serve a lot of meat, it was pasta, bread, fish, etc. 

My grandmother used to say "a wife can throw more away with a teaspoon than a husband can bring home in a wheel barrel." 

When my sister had two growing, and very hungry, sons, my grandmother advised her "You will never fill a hungry man with a steak" - so dinners were supplemented with soup and bread, etc.

She also said that when growing up, when the bedsheet got worn they would cut it in half and then re-sew it together backwards so the ends were now in the middle and not worn. When that wore down they would cut up the sheet and use it for underclothes. When those got too worn they would cut those up and use them for handkerchiefs. Nothing was wasted!

I also remember being with my grandmother and walking by a dime on the ground. I did not stop to pick it up and she said to me "What? Are you so rich you can just walk by money?"

I try to emulate them now that I am older (and hopefully wiser!). 

[fairfarmhand]

2 minutes ago, MEmama said:

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply *you* are romanticizing, but I do hear it a lot. It’s always good to re-examine ways we can do better by our health and that of the planet. I appreciate this thread (even if I did make it take a weird turn lol). 
 

It’s good to see that so many of us here are doing what we can—even in small ways. That brings me to a point I haven’t seen mentioned yet, though, and that’s that it often takes having the means—the time, the mental space, the education, the money— to implement some of these things in this modern world. Growing veggies is fun as a hobby, but it takes time and money—and most things can be fun if we don’t *depend* on them. Driving less is awesome for those of us who can afford to live in walkable communities, but that reality eludes far too many people. Line drying isn’t feasible in many neighborhoods, either because of HOAs or simply because your laundry might get stolen. 
 

I don’t really have a point, just musing. Thanks for starting this thread, OP. 

My dh keeps talkong about putting in a wood stove and I keep on balking. I don't want one more thing to maintain all day long, nor do I want to have another thing to have to clean out. Modern woodstoves are very efficient and definitely  would help with out power bill, but I am so tired. And I know it would become another of "my jobs" to deal with. 

[Carol in Cal.]

I think that there is some wisdom in knowing how to live with less, but also mostly some serious consumption of time.  Canning and sewing are fairly time consuming, and honestly they mostly don't save a whole lot of money compared with thrift store shopping or bargain grocery buying, although you still do get exactly what you want if you do it yourself, which is nice.  But BEING ABLE to can, sew, hang clothes out to dry, reuse paper, etc. are good survival skills in a pinch.  So are most wilderness survival skills.  So is being able to cook from scratch.

I think that kids should learn those skills as it is quite empowering and could become essential at some point in life.

[Spryte]

23 minutes ago, MEmama said:

 

It’s good to see that so many of us here are doing what we can—even in small ways. That brings me to a point I haven’t seen mentioned yet, though, and that’s that it often takes having the means—the time, the mental space, the education, the money— to implement some of these things in this modern world. Growing veggies is fun as a hobby, but it takes time and money—and most things can be fun if we don’t *depend* on them. Driving less is awesome for those of us who can afford to live in walkable communities, but that reality eludes far too many people. Line drying isn’t feasible in many neighborhoods, either because of HOAs or simply because your laundry might get stolen. 
 

I don’t really have a point, just musing. Thanks for starting this thread, OP. 

I love reading threads like these, and take away a lot, but simultaneously find them mildly disturbing and slightly problematic in that there is a temptation to put the onus of making changes on individuals.

My grandparents’ generation did what they did because they had to do it, and replicating a lot of it is impossible, impractical and unaffordable for most people. So we do the things we can, make the changes that make sense for us, and reducing our individual footprints is a positive that adds up.

The more of us doing small things, the better, of course it makes an impact, but I think it behooves us all to put the most pressure where it belongs — on corporations.

Even small changes in corporate policies can have massive impacts that dwarf my own tiny contributions, even when added to others’. 

So, while my grandparents never worked toward influencing a corporation’s policies, I think doing so is likely the greenest action I can take. Everything else is icing.
 

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Spryte

[prairiewindmomma]

12 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:

My dh keeps talkong about putting in a wood stove and I keep on balking. I don't want one more thing to maintain all day long, nor do I want to have another thing to have to clean out. Modern woodstoves are very efficient and definitely  would help with out power bill, but I am so tired. And I know it would become another of "my jobs" to deal with. 

There’s also the smoke exposure. It’s not inconsequential, even with a well trimmed flue and healthy lungs. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/18/wood-burners-triple-harmful-indoor-air-pollution-study-finds

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, MEmama said:

Agreed. Few people make the decision to not trade hard work for easier work. Even today’s diehard off the grid homesteaders typically have an escape route (ie other jobs they could transition to). 
 

I think a lot of people confuse “simpler” with “having less”. Life pre-war was not simple, it was tough. Making do is hard work, struggling to feed a family is draining, sending children away to orphanages or work in the mills must have been unbearable. Those shelves of jars of applesauce and green beans a lot of us remember didn’t exist because Grandma had a spare Saturday to go apple picking with her kids and have fun in the kitchen—those were the product of endless, hot hours of hard physical labor to make sure the kids didn’t get malnourished over the winter. 
 

Those old photos we all love don’t tell the whole story, and in romanticizing them I think we do a disservice to their actual lives and to future generations. 

Thank you! I processed two gallons of applesauce and froze.this year. Dehydrated grape tomatoes and bell peppers. Blanched, cut of the cob, and froze a bushel of corn, canned 100 pints of tomatoes, cut up and froze 20 heads of broccoli, scooped and froze several cantelope, and...a lot more. It was exhausting. And it is still wouldn't feed my family 5-7 servings of fruits and vegetables from now to even the end of January. Putting up the harvest to make it to the next harvest is beyond the pale of exhaustion that most people today have entirely romanticized, and could not dig deep and bring themselves to do. Done wax poetical about it. Believe me, it is simpler, easier and frankly given the amount of energy used to do all this, probably environmentally friendlier to buy it mass produced when we are taking about real work math on energy required to produce X amount of yada yada.

And I guarantee you that had I needed to slave like that to provide food for my children, none of them could have been homeschooled, and much less to the level of homeschooling accomplished. There just would not be enough time in the day and especially when talking about washing clothes on a washboard, hanging out to dry, making bread for the week, etc. not to mention making clothes. My grandmother did those things. What she did not do was teach her kids more than the alphabet or counting to ten, and sent the to school at the earliest possible time which included begging the school district to take my dad even though his birthday for K was a week after the cut off. My mother's family absolutely slaved away and was totally food insecure her entire childhood. You can bet she was thrilled to have income that allowed her to shop for my brother and I in the supermarket, and buy clothes instead of making them though she was a fine seamstress.

As for hanging clothes out, I don't know what the real savings actually is. The sun and wind are very hard on clothing, and most of what we have today is not made from quality fabric. If it wears out wardrobes faster, sheets faster, towels faster, and so one is constantly buying replacements, it may not be environmentally friendlier when one considers the cost of manufacturing the replacements - often made overseas in NOT environmentally sound factories - and then shipped her by freighter, then by semi to the store. That is a lot of energy consumption! I really good energy star dryer might actually be better.

[Faith-manor]

8 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

There’s also the smoke exposure. It’s not inconsequential, even with a well trimmed flue and healthy lungs. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/18/wood-burners-triple-harmful-indoor-air-pollution-study-finds

This. What is better is geothermal heat, a truly environmentally sound way to heat, or an exterior wood boiler which is WAY more efficient than a woodstove, and keeps the smoke source out of the house.

[regentrude]

5 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

As for hanging clothes out, I don't know what the real savings actually is. The sun and wind are very hard on clothing, and most of what we have today is not made from quality fabric. If it wears out wardrobes faster, sheets faster, towels faster, and so one is constantly buying replacements

Not my experience. I am exclusively line drying, and everything lasts a really long time. I have towels that are 30 years old, shirts that are easily 20. Where do you think all the lint in the dryer comes from? It's fibers from the clothes.

[Faith-manor]

12 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Not my experience. I am exclusively line drying, and everything lasts a really long time. I have towels that are 30 years old, shirts that are easily 20. Where do you think all the lint in the dryer comes from? It's fibers from the clothes.

Okay, you may be buying higher quality things than I. When I was line drying the average shirt was very faded and developing thin areas getting ready to tear or make a hole after only one year. My towels frayed as did my sheets.

[MEmama]

22 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Not my experience. I am exclusively line drying, and everything lasts a really long time. I have towels that are 30 years old, shirts that are easily 20. Where do you think all the lint in the dryer comes from? It's fibers from the clothes.

Same.

I don’t line dry outside (brown tail moths, allergies, little sunshine in my backyard, more work than necessary), although I have in the past. I do use a drying rack indoors, which makes more sense for me now.  I do use a dryer for sheets and towels but I couldn’t make them wear out if I tried (and truthfully I really wish some would so I could replace them! lol).
 

I’ve never lived anywhere where the sun bleaches out clothes, but drying indoors would eliminate that problem.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Long distance travel for our family (ie from the US to Japan) started out on freighter in steerage. NOT some cruise ship and not quick and easy. We were so happy when we were able to switch to Pan Am!  (I still remember the blue uniforms of the stewardesses in their hats and the winged pins the pilots gave to the children. ). 
 

And our clothing and household goods were shipped by boat in

empty oil drums. 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Jean in Newcastle

[WildflowerMom]

My dad’s family is from the mountains in NC.  My nana slept on pine straw mattresses and used an outhouse (and eventually got a two-seater!).  
Those are two things I’m not bringing back. 😆

But the focus on reusing everything is something I love.