Talking to someone who grew up dirt poor during the Depression is illuminating.. [View All]

[Fumesucker]

I talk with my son in law's grandmother on a pretty regular basis, she grew up in the same shack she was born in here in the deep South during the Depression. Her family grew most of their own food, they even grew sugar cane they took to the mill in order to have sweetener when the juice was boiled down.

She tells me that they didn't know they were poor because everyone else around them lived just like they did.

To an extent poverty is relative, it's one thing to be poor when everyone else is poor also, you have little or nothing to compare your life with. It's entirely another thing to be poor when you are surrounded by apparent wealth.

My parents also lived through the Depression but they passed away before I was old enough to learn many of the lessons they had to teach. Now I'm older and have a different perspective on life and talking to someone who really was poor is teaching me a lot that I really needed to learn.