Things My Mother Never Told Me

 

While I was wrapping Christmas presents this year an odd recollection came to me as I was fumbling around--it was a message from my mother offering advice, almost as clear as if she were standing beside me. “If you fold the paper this way,” she said, “you won’t use so much wrapping paper, "My oh my” she went on, "wherever did you get so much ribbon? Do you really need ribbon for every gift box? It seems to me that once you see one ribbon, you won’t even look at more when it is on every package.”

Of course, I knew what she was concerned about. Two things drove her: cost, and, in her mind at least, wasteful practices. If a foot of ribbon were used, she would question why a six-inch piece wouldn’t do just as well. Those attitudes had been driven into her psyche since she was a child.

Both my mother and father lived through the Great Depression starting in 1929. Each was born in 1917, both watched their parents struggle financially during the period when they were impressionable children, both saw and felt the effects of the financial hardship that was universal among their families and neighbors. It must have seemed to them that no one could escape what they called hard times. The solution to the problem of hard times was the same then as now: use less, reuse everything, and make do with what you have instead of buying new. One instance of that was wrapping paper for Christmas presents. In her mind, making do without new packaging and ribbons meant doing things like carefully unwrapping the decorative wrapping paper on gifts so it could be reused the following Christmas.

I didn’t realize the scope of the hardships my mother experienced until I dove into the genealogy of our family a few years ago. Her father seemed to be a proud man, concerned with appearance. This became apparent to me when he came to live with us after the death of his wife and his gradual decline in health. My mother seemed the only one of his children who had both the means and the inclination to take care of him. He was given his own bedroom in our house, and he laid claim to a comfortable chair in the living where he sat with an ashtray at his fingertips for his ever-present cigarette. He wore a dark blue wool suit every day that I can recall, including the time that he spent working in his large vegetable garden before his health prevented it.

His name was Jesse Hiester, and I learned more about him when I worked on a book about the family. Jesse was one of several Heisters that were involved in a furniture business in our small town. Jesse’s involvement in that business came to an end during the Great Depression when his boss decided to reduce Jesse’s wages from $9 dollars per week to $7. The blow was too great for Jesse and his ego and he decided to quit his job rather than suffer the ignominy of such a salary decline.

It must have been during this time that my mother recalled walking along the railroad tracks with a sack in hand to pick up and carry home whatever stray lumps of coal jostled from the coal car that bumped along behind the steam engine. Apparently, the family used the coal to advantage during the colder winter months in northeast Indiana. Another surprising find during my genealogy search was that Jesse never owned a house. He and his family lived in a single modest home for many years that was rented rather than owned. At the back of the house was an outdoor pump where all household water came from (as long as you were willing to work the handle) and further back, next to the alley, was the privy that was used by everyone who lived there. No one wasted time there during the winter months.

Living was harder during these times.