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The study has started!  I'm happy to start, too.

Thank you for the link.  I so look forward to watching that.  Do you recommend the book as well?

I'm reading a book now (I'm sorry, I forget the title, but it concerns homesteading) and so far it has discussed preserving food.  The author gives lists of things you really NEED in your kitchen to put up foods, and the things that are just nice to have, therefore helping to simplify what we keep in our kitchens.  

I have a pattern for a sun hat and I need to make it.  Thanks for the nudge.  The sun is so hot and bright here, as you well know where you live!

Grandma Donna Wrote, Hi Joan S,  I do recommend the book because it has some great short stories of her life and memories.  Most all if not all of her recipes are in the book.  If you happened to have read the post before proofing I am sorry for the errors of too many ands or it's and things like that.  Charles normally helps me to re-read my blog posts before I post them to correct mistakes.  I get dizzy going over and over it to find the mistakes. Lol  I had to call my daughter and put it live so she could read it to me while I was in the editor and correct knowing that all the while people were reading it with the mistakes.  So whatever twenty people, the mistakes are no longer there! 

Today I was having massive overwhelm and stopping to read this blog post really helped calm my mind. it was very nice opening my inbox to see another history experiment has been started. :)
I have been sewing a 1940s dress, but unfortunately the sewing machine has hit another snag, being that the tension is all wonky. I have been trying to fix it to no avail. I may have to hand-sew from here on out. (but I do like to hand-sew, so that eases the pain!)
I finally darned a pair of pants, as I had been meaning to, but never had the time. I caught the hole when it was tiny, so it was a small fix.

Unfortunately, there was an oops moment when a lip balm went through the wash staining multiple button-downs. my cotton dress seems okay, but the shirts were my fathers! I really hope those stains come out! (I put the stain remover on them, so crossing my fingers)

The weather has been strangely warm, but now settling down to a comfortable 15C, and around 5C at night. Very nice. The AC is free, because of the nice breezes going through. :)

I am so pleased to be back in the thirties! As I looked around my home, I found I was more in the thirties already than when I did the last study. I have a very thirties' yard with a garden, fruit, and lots of old-fashioned flowers to cut and bring in the house. We have one car that is paid for. We mostly pay our bills in person, but have a couple of area ones we mail. We go to our local library, post office, gas station, small grocery store, and bank. I will be walking to the bank now that I am in the thirties. Some of these are changes that I made last study. And I have my very handy and useful money can! We have been changing our gardening tools for manual ones like our nifty hedge clippers to keep the lilac bush under control. We don't like the push mower we bought a few years ago, so when it's replaced, the power mower goes. The one electric garden tool we are keeping is the string trimmer. It would be too hard to do all of the fence trimming by hand. We do have a manual edger for the lawn, though. And we sweep our grass clippings with an actual broom. 

The changes I am making this time start with my meals. I made a week's menu of inexpensive, simple meals and I want to get better portion control. This will save a lot of money. Meals like salmon cakes, cucumber salad, tomato gravy over rice, and cornbread. We are also not spending on anything that isn't absolutely necessary. One necessary item is a rack for my canner so I can stack jars. I have Weck jars and don't want to take a chance of chipping them by stacking them without support. I am going to keep a better ledger of my spending this time. We will use the car less. This time when I watch my old movies on the weekend (and no other TV), I will put the 1932 cost of going to the movies in a different can from my kitchen counter one to save for movie snacks. :) I may even treat myself to an 8 oz bottle of pop when I'm at the movies! 

Dear Donna. When I read your blog post this morning I breathed a sigh of relief. Time to learn more of the old ways and a break from the world we're in now.

We have no air con/heat pump in our home. We have 2 fireplaces and how very grateful I am for the hard work my husband puts in harvesting many cords of firewood every year from down trees on the farm so we can be warm. I also cook on top of the large firebox ( the other fire is an open fire and great ambiance) and am about to purchase a kettle to have constant hot water for drinks instead of boiling an electric jug. 

I am buying a countertop oven mostly to cut electricity costs from using a standard oven which i decided to do before the study. These were available in the 1930s. To better use shockingly expensive dairy food ingredients I am now cutting my 500g blocks of butter into 10 x 50g pieces and only using 1 piece per day . If I want to bake I wait up to 3 days and then use 3 pieces.( I can make 2 loaves and 1 batch of scones with that much butter) It's working amazingly well. I do the same with cheese but cut a 1 kilo block into 10 pieces and grate and freeze 8 pieces and keep 2 pieces in the fridge for sandwiches.

I used up veg out of the fridge and so nothing got wasted I diced up the carrots and celery that needed to be used and added a diced onion and froze bag fulls into the freezer to use at a later date for soups, casseroles. I've begun saving my peelings ( not potato) and freezing them until I have enough and then cook them to make vegetable stock. The pulp then gets fed to the hens. Did you know that in the Depression people wouldn't throw away their potato peelings but cooked them like french fries . Nothing was wasted. I use broccoli stalks that taste delicious as an extra vegetable for dinner or in a broccoli and potato soup I make.

Our microwave has died and I am not replacing it. We own a small car that is very economical and live rural so town is once a week for shopping. If we visit our daughter or friends then we do that after putting in 2 weeks petrol allowance as they live 2 hours 20 minutes from where we live round trip.

Thank you for the link about Clara that I will be looking at. I also will be looking at papers past here in New Zealand as we did some things differently to what folk in other countries may have been doing. Much of our life is already like ones lived in the 1930s such as growing vegetables, preserving food, being very frugal but I know I can tighten up in some areas. I really loved your bedroom in the kitchen idea and how homely your home looks.

Karen NZ

Oh I am SOO excited! Loved this post and will be re reading it over and over. I have Clara's book as well. I need to bring that out again. It is a very interesting history and recipe collection. Simple meals which I need to get back into doing. I am known for my cooking and baking and sometimes that ends up making me feel as though I have to do more elaborate and different meals daily. I personally eat very simply, but I make meals for my fiance and mom that are different. (I pretty much eat the same things daily and don't tend to rotate out, very simple salads/chili and soup for my mail meal and homemade yogurt with fruit and homemade granola for breakfast) This is going to be so fun and I will read along with your adventures and incorporate some into my daily life as well!

One other thing I wanted to add. I started using my credit card that gives me Amazon points. It isn't really credit because the money for the purchases is sitting in the bank, and I use it to pay the card later. The points are used like cash, and as long as I have at least $35 worth of points so I can get free shipping, it saves a lot of money. It seems like it's very modern but S&H Green Stamps started back in 1896 and gave out stamps you collected to use to get merchandise. It's really a very old practice that's updated, and it fits in with the 1930s. :) I'm just using my charge plate instead of cash, and they had charge plates in the 1930s, though they were for specific stores back then. So that's something new I'm doing this time, though I still use cash for other things. 

I am away from home for a few days but have been reminding the family members at home about turning off lights, etc.  I am going back to 1932, but will have to compromise some until I am home.  Even at home, I will be doing this by myself as my family members aren’t joining me other than being (positively) impacted by choices I make.

I didn’t even realize I was preparing to go back to 1932, but this past winter I cut our heating use significantly and am prepared to do the same with air conditioning.  We cut back on restaurant food, to the point that we don’t really even enjoy restaurant food anymore.  I’m already almost 2 years into not owning a clothes dryer.  Like Grandma Donna, I won’t be replacing items that aren’t period appropriate in their modern form, but still would have existed.  There will be compromises such as using the dishwasher.  I do have a small toaster oven and have already been resizing recipes to bake in it instead of the big oven — I even cut store bought baguettes (Trader Joe’s organic for $2) into thirds so I can heat them in the toaster oven.  Lately the big oven is only turned on to bake bread.  I’m planning to schedule a weekly or every-other-week baking day and bake more than just bread.  I’m thinking the bread, pies or cake, cookies or muffins (to freeze as snacks), and then a casserole or pot pie for dinner.

One thing I’m planning to do this time around is really commit to writing a diary such as Sarah’s that we had the first time around.  Fortuitously, I brought a nice notebook with me, so I can start today.

Michelle, I also eat differently from my family, they are ovo-vegetarian (no dairy, meat, fish, or chicken) and I can’t eat that way due to IBD.  I too eat very simply and mostly the same things over and over again, such as ground beef mixed with diced boiled potatoes, homemade bread toasted for breakfast, egg salad with homemade mayo, etc.  When I got sick my family had to let go of the idea of me being a fantastic cook and baker, because I barely had the energy to stand and cook.  Now they are on a rotating meal schedule that is very simple, and as a bonus has a lot of cooking ahead which saves energy.  I make a big pot of beans, a double or triple batch of TVP, and rice at the beginning of the week.  They eat that fresh as bowls the first night.  The next night I usually make a soup for them based on lentils or split peas, but sometimes I’ll mix things up by making a chickpea curry or another plant based dish.  The night after that some of the ingredients from the first night are recombined into something like black bean chili, tamale pie, Caribbean black beans, etc.  Then they have soup again, and the fifth night all of the remaining leftovers from night one are combined into a filling for burritos or tacos.  Night 6 we have breakfast for dinner, usually sourdough pancakes or egg and potato casserole, and on Sundays they choose from meals I’ve cooked previously and frozen in individual servings.

Hannah, last week I bought a used 1958 Singer 503A for $16 and the tension was way off — super tight top tension and I had to set the tension to 0 to get it to look halfway correct.  I assumed it was the top tension and kept trying to fix it, but finally realized someone had messed with the tension on the bobbin case (loosened it), and once I fixed that the top tension wasn’t a problem any longer.  The funny thing is that even though this is an all metal vintage machine, I got the idea of it being the bobbin case because I took a class 13 years ago about my modern machine, and was taught about changing the bottom tension to create certain kinds of effects, but was also warned it was best to do with an extra bobbin case so as to not mess up the tension for normal sewing.

I’m preparing for the time my modern machine might stop working due to motherboard issues — we bought it used and it is now a 20+ year old machine.  In April I bought a $30 Singer 603 Touch and Sew at the thrift store that I have set up to do chain stitching only (it had the parts for it included), and then the 503A.  I also have a vintage Featherweight.  I’m teaching myself to do all of the maintenance and repairs on these machines, as in March I paid $200 for service on the modern machine, which just seems ridiculous to have to do very often (it’s recommended every year but I’ve only had it done twice in the past 13 years).  If I had done it every year after the first year it would have cost $2400, which is more than new machines cost!  I realized that this is a way sewing stores can generate income, by selling machines that can’t be worked on easily at home.  So it is back to the old machines for me.  I might buy an aftermarket handcrank for the featherweight.  Oh, for $12 I found a vintage Singer 301 but it is in rough shape and I am going to have to teach myself how to take it completely apart, clean it, and reassemble it — something I will make time for in a few months.  I am excited to take learning about these old Singers to that level

One thing I noticed missing from g. Donna's wardrobe was aprons.  My grandmothers born in 1890's (died in 1980's) both always wore full aprons when in the kitchen.  One of them wore their aprons 100% of the time at home and when company came, she quickly switched to a clean apron.

I have an apron from the 1930 or 40's made from a feed sack that I got in an estate auction box.  It was for a rather large lady and is trimmed with rickrack.  What touched me was how carefully it was mended numerous times.  This apron to me says how life was on the farm in the Depression years, that an apron made from a chicken feed sack was so important that it was carefully mended numerous times and the fabric is worn very thin.  

In those years and until TV came into being, farmers came to town on Saturdays to "trade".  They purchased needed items and the farm women brought in eggs, cream and butter to trade for groceries at the grocery store.  Saturday nights would find main street full of people standing around visiting after shopping.  Saturday was the only time the stores stayed open in the evenings.  In the summer there were bank concerts in the park.  Movies cost around 25 cents for adults and 10 cents for children.  All of that went away with TV.  Sundays were for church and there were many small churches in the country, so farm families didn't have to drive back to town.  There were also many country schools for the first 8 grades and after which kids either traveled to town or boarded in town for high school.  The country schools started closing after WWII with most closed by mid-1950s.

More farmers were using horses than tractors until after WWII.  Most farms had electricity but still used wood, coal, cobs or kerosene for cooking and heating.  During the Depression corn was sometimes burned for fuel because prices were too low to bother selling and I understand it had a high BTU value.

My grandmothers view of the Depression was quite different.  One was on a rented farm, and they raised most of what they ate, farmed with horses and had three sons and a mentally challenged daughter. Grandma often talked about taking a team and wagon to the timber in the fall to collect nuts for the year.  It was made into a family fun event with a picnic.  They were so poor before the Depression that their lives did not change much through those years.  My dad and his brother's road ponies to school which was 4 or 5 miles away.  They stabled the ponies at their grandmother's house in town.

The other grandmother lived in town and grandpa had a fuel station, ran a tank wagon hauling fuel to farms and an ice delivery business.  Their home was heated with a coal stoker/furnace and the cookstove in the kitchen which burned cobs, coal or wood.  They had town water which was pretty bad and a well behind the house.  They had enough money, but the stores often didn't have much available for buying.  They had a big garden and stored or canned the harvest.  They also kept a milk cow in a shed behind the house on the alley.  Most of the neighbors also had cows and they would hire someone to take the cows out after morning milking to graze the roadside ditches.  They had 3 sons and 2 daughters.  The boys were older and adults in early 1930s.  My mom graduated high school in 1939 and her sister a year later.  Four of my grandfather's sisters lived on farms and I'm sure there was a lot of trading done amongst them.  I remember sometime in the mid-1950's grandpa coming home for noon and telling grandma that the last person that he'd carried on credit through the Depression had come in and paid his account.  

Thanks for another fine post. I was curious about how much a single person like myself might have spent on groceries in the 1930s and what they might have bought. I asked my AI, and here is what it said. Here’s a sample weekly grocery list for a single person in the 1930s, reflecting common, affordable foods during the Great Depression. This would typically cost around $1.50 to $2.50 per week, which equals $6 to $10/month:

???? Breads & Grains

• 1 loaf of bread – $0.08
• 1 lb of flour – $0.04
• 1 lb of rice or oatmeal – $0.05
• 1 box of Saltine crackers – $0.10

???? Vegetables & Fruits (mostly canned or homegrown)

• 3-5 lbs of potatoes – $0.15
• 1 lb onions or carrots – $0.05
• 1 can of corn or peas – $0.10
• 2 apples or 1 bunch of bananas – $0.10

???? Proteins

• 1 lb ground beef or stew meat – $0.15
• ½ lb bacon – $0.10
• 1 dozen eggs – $0.23
• 1 can of baked beans – $0.10

???? Dairy

• 2 quarts of milk – $0.20
• ¼ lb butter – $0.08
• ¼ lb cheese – $0.05

???? Pantry & Staples

• ½ lb sugar – $0.03
• ¼ lb coffee – $0.10
• Tea bags or loose tea – $0.05
• Lard or shortening – $0.10
• Salt, baking powder, etc. – pennies

???? Extras (when affordable)

• Bar of soap – $0.05
• Small treat like hard candy or jam – $0.05 to $0.10

It brought out that they spent 25% - 40% of their income on food, and now we spend 10 - 12% on food. That is quite a difference!

@Becky Sue K Thanks for sharing this!  Using an inflation calculator, based on these prices a dozen eggs today would be $5.37.  A pound of coffee would be $9.34.  Looking through them, some of these prices are similar to what we pay now when adjusted for inflation from 1932 to 202.  I too have read that we spend far less of our income on food now, I wonder what the comparison is for utilities and gasoline.  We know we spend more on housing, on average.

Ann W. There is 2 aprons on the list Donna put about the clothing she is going to use.

I noticed in the 1800s women wore full aprons and only changed their clothes once a week or even longer. They often had an outdoor apron for choring and gardening and one for inside. They would remove them when company called.

I have to say your post was fascinating. Thank you very much

I am very excited to begin this study of the Great Depression years.  Yesterday I rearranged my living room to look more 1930's.  I don't leave many electrical things plugged in all the time but I unplug them when they are not in use.  The exceptions are the internet, fridge, electric stove, washing machine, a nightlight in the bathroom and the lamp beside my bed because the outlet is difficult to reach.  Today I unplugged my dryer and dishwasher (they came with the apartment); so as to cut down the amount of wasted electricity or "phantom power". "This wasted energy can cost homeowners a considerable amount each year and also contribute to environmental pollution." . I'm going to put my electric kettle away and get out the top-of-the-stove one.  I will listen to the radio for news and weather reports and have a weekly movie night watching DVD'S that I own or YouTube videos.  There is a good selection of '30's and'40's movies there, mostly for free.  I will try to do more walking when I can but most places I would need to go are not within walking distance.  I watched Clara's videos a while ago and will re-watch them now.  On with the adventure

I went to bed last night thinking I would wake up to the 1930's.

Perked my coffee, watched TV news because they would have had a morning paper and then turned it off. Made my list for groceries last evening and only bought "whole" ingredients. It is hard for me to cook for one person. I need to cut my recipes down or will have to freeze portions if I make too much.  I did make potato salad and will have it as a main dish for a few days. 

Housework done and floors  swept, dusted.  No background noise. Very peaceful, soaking cleaning cloths for washing tomorrow. 

I am already feeling a bit less anxious, hope this feeling lasts.

JC

I'm enjoying everyone's comments. I'm still working out how I will incorporate 1932 life for my own. 

Like everyone else I am very excited about this study and so happy to hear from so many kindred spirits. I feel we all are going to learn a few things . I started the study on Sunday as I couldn’t wait:) Sunday I did all the baking , Monday all the wash was on the line and rugs were clean, Tuesday was ironing and I walked to the grocery store with my list  and carried it all home( 5 miles round trip), Wednesday got mending and knitting done, today ran some errands and my daughter drove me as we combined our errands and I am limiting my driving. So far in a family of 4 at home it has been a lot of washing dishes and preparing food. But I have really been enjoying it. Walking to the grocery store and back really gave me a good perspective of how fast everyone is moving and they are still in a rush. Even though I have always lived pretty simply I am already feeling myself  slow down inside  even more.  To add to what I’ve shared already would be reading books and periodicals of the period, following 1900-130 recipe books, weening down my wardrobe and grandma Donna has, tightening the budget, trying to make birthday and Christmas gifts , listening to records and the radio, having one weekly movie night( at home) no microwave ,dishwasher, dryer( except when sick), learning to make some of my clothing or repurposing clothing, just really slowing down more and enjoying the process of things.  

What fun it was to read all these posts!!  It was like a mini version of The Tightwad Gazette. 

Kimberly, I would like to know how to service my non-computerised machines, one from the 1970s and one from the 1980s. Just wondering where you found the information you needed please?

We have a Singer treadle from 1938; the piece of leather (not really a belt, but similar to a fan belt in a car) that goes between the wheels needs replacing. I've found a leather shop in our local region where they sell the replacements. We're going to take the old one into the shop owner who has offered to instruct us on how to replace it.

I'm really enjoying everyone's enthusiasm for the 1930s. I'm going to start by getting out the kettle to sit on top of the slow combustion stove.

I have been wanting a benchtop oven for a while, to save electricity. Our slow combustion needs replacing and I thought about getting one that includes an oven, but I haven't been able to find one with adequate heating capacity. I think the benchtop will be a reasonable compromise. Thank you Karen in NZ for the ideas.

Grandma Donna Wrote, Kellie O, Is this the belt you are talking about?  Donna

Continued to Kelly O,

Kellie O, I bought my leather belts off of Amazon, they come with a small clip to cut the size you need.  I used my old one as a guide.  The orange one I bought from the singer store.  This was in 2019 that I bought them.  My singer is a 1923 but if it is the same set up I hope this helps.  Donna

Grandma Donna wrote, As you see above I am not even good at sizing the photos for the forum.  I feel we need to keep the pixal sizes under 1000 maybe even around 600.  I will have to ask my son.   Some of you do better than I do.  :) Donna

My go to source for searching old newspapers online is the Library of Congress site chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers, which is free and doesn't even require an account.  I really like the search feature that allows looking for two words within 50 words of each other, because it allows me to search the name of a  local town and whatever topic I'm researching, even if those words don't appear right together in the article.

I'm easily distracted though.  After reading the article I originally searched for, I usually read the rest of the page, find an interesting story about someone, screenshot it, and go look for their memorial on findagrave so I can post it there.  One of my "best finds" was the obituary of a former slave who had escaped along the underground railroad, and it gave so much useful genealogy info like exactly where he had been born and when he had escaped to freedom, what he did for a living when he first got to Canada, when he bought his farm, how many acres he owned by the time he died, et cetera.  Then I found his memorial page and it had nothing but his name and years of birth and death, taken from the gravestone by a volunteer recording the cemetery.  So, thanks to me people visiting the cemetery who look him up on findagrave can actually see something about who he was, and more importantly, so can any descendants who might be using the site for genealogy research.  Reading whole pages instead of just what I was looking for makes the whole process rather time consuming, but I feel really good about doing it. 

The quilt on your bed is beautiful. It’s my favorite pattern. I love your two bedrooms…so nice and cosy looking 

thank you for mentioning Clara’s YouTube channel. I had caught a few of her videos in the past and then I forgot her name and couldn’t find them.

After reading the post by Tea S and thinking about news, I spent some money!!! I spent $31.60 to get an annual subscription to the print version of our local weekly newspaper. I did this after serious thought. The local paper doesn't have a lot of national news. It has two pages dedicated to reprints of news from the past. I've decided not to look at online or TV news and read my weekly newspaper instead. If I want more information about something, I can listen to public radio. I know this costs money and there are free news options, but I feel like I am buying some sanity by getting away from too much news all the time. I feel calmer just thinking about my life with a little newspaper. Imagine not having to think about the news for days at a time! Maybe I'll never go back to any other kind of news. 

I just love everyone's comments. So many good ideas in them. 

This 1930s study is having an impact on my life already. I am spending less time on the computer. I am trying to reorganize my kitchen right now. I defrosted the freezer on my vintage refrigerator, wiped out the inside of the frig, and I got all of my kitchen counters completely cleared off. If I keep up the 1930s lifestyle, I'll get my whole house organized.

I enjoyed the part in your post about fixing and taking care of things. I have a window fan for my kitchen that has gotten really dirty. I took it apart today and washed it up really well. Hopefully, it will work better than ever. I may have gotten some parts wet that shouldn't be wet, so I will wait a day or so before I plug it in.

Becky Sue

Another way to dry washing. Put a cot ( crib) side on a pulley and pull your washing up to the ceiling to dry in the Winter making sure the screws that hold the pulley up are firmly into trusses through the ceiling.

Heat rises from a fireplace.

Hello, Grandma Donna, yes it is! Thanks for posting the photo.

Here it is with the wheel in the background. It has a piece of wire at the end.

Thank you Grandma Donna, that's great! Very helpful info about the clip.

I'm looking forward to using the machine; I'm hoping it will cope well with several layers of curtain fabric and lining so I can make some energy-saving window coverings.

There are so many ideas on the forum, it's very exciting!

I love this!  When my mom died 12 years ago, I got a phone call because of her obituary.  The man I'll call Joe was into genealogy and was looking for a picture and/ or some info about a family branch we shared.  Yes, he had more than enough backup that I knew he was legit. Long story short, he shared the most incredible stuff with me about my maternal grandmother's side!  I talked to him for 3 hours, I sent him a pic of the portrait he was looking for (my great grandfather), the only one anyone knew about, and he asked for any tidbits to add to my mom's history, that he'd be happy to.  Nothing personal, but something that an ancestor might find interesting.  Then he asked about me and another cousin he found.  I told him that that cousin and I were both redheads with freckles and that just made him laugh out loud.  Why?  We're all Hispanic!  Black hair and dark eyes.  There were no others that he knew about and said that was exactly the stuff that people loved.  He mentioned another cousin that had blonde hair and blue eyes.  I asked if he meant Veronica X.  I did.  Anyway, didn't mean to yammer on, but it was certainly fun.  For relatives, it's all pretty interesting.  

Oh, and it turns out that I'm a DAR, Daughters of the American Revolution!!  I had no idea!!

I've dreamed of doing this for years.  I saw it in a period show on PBS and thought it was brilliant!!

Debby B., 

Me, too!  I actually just found out a few months ago that my 6x-great-grandfather fought in the American Revolution.  Also that his great grandfather (my 9x great) had immigrated to Massachusetts in 1634, which is by far the oldest immigrant ancestor I've been able to find.  His name was Hezekiah Hoar, which I think is awesome and sounds like some sort of villain from an old novel, lol.  And now my sister wants to name her next cat Hezekiah, it being a family name and all.

Karen S.,

I have two old wooden crib sides in my attic that genuinely date from the 1930's!  I saved them during the last big attic clean out precisely because I wanted to do something like that, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.  Maybe this will be the year!

I am really enjoying this new 1930s study. I have watched Clara's videos, and I borrowed her book from the library. A few years ago, I bought a book called "We Had Everything But Money," published by Reminisce Books, that is about the memories of people during the Depression. It is inspirational!  I have had an interest in this time period ever since my grandma shared with me her memories as a young girl and teenager. 

I have plans for sewing some table runners and napkins from fabric I already have, making simple meals, and paring down my use of electronics. I also will be more mindful of using everything in our refrigerator so there is no waste. I also will be growing more vegetables and flowers in our small yard than I ever have before. 

I'm looking forward to more ideas from everyone. Thank you, GDonna, for all the work you put into these posts. 

My Revolutionary relatives were Ebenezer and his wife, Patience.  Never thought of it, but Ebenezer would make a great pet name nowadays haha!!  They were in Maine, but are buried in Massachusetts.  I can imagine Hezekiah and Ebenezer sharing a pint of ale at ye olde pub!!

Ebenezer is definitely another of those wonderful old fashioned names!

Grandma Donna, I really love your set up. Your guest bedroom with the chairs looks so inviting and I love that you sleep in the kitchen. I feel that is very authentic to how families would have lived in times past. They only had small homes for very large families. In Australia, they would enclose verandahs on traditional Queenslanders to make extra bedrooms. They are called sleepouts. The boys of the family would sleep there in the summers to escape the heat as they have windows all down the sides which open out. My house is from the 1930's and we have a sleepout down one side of our house.

We have been using less electric light at home for some time. My family had no electricity or running water well into the 1950's out in the bush and up until their passing my grandparents would always turn off a light as they left the room. I replaced the fluorescent light in the kitchen some years ago with a soft light. It is quite dark, but I like it. This is the only light on in our house of an evening. I use a small beeswax candle for the bathroom for light when I shower. I really find it helps me to unwind and get ready to sleep.

I've been reading the Australian Women's Mirror online from the 1920's and 1930's. I choose an issue every few days and then read it cover to cover instead of doom scrolling the news.

I use an enamel bowl to wash up and throw the water out onto fruit trees in the backyard. I sweep the floors and mop with grated homemade soap and eucalyptus oil. I've been doing a lot of research on dish cloths from the 1920's and 1930's but it seems in Australia at least, that dishcloths would be often made from rags. There are a lot of articles about how they were the harbingers of disease and that they must be boiled regularly. I also came across quite a few articles about using saved string to make dishcloths. They would save all pieces of string from parcels, knot them firmly together and roll into a ball. When they had enough they would knit or crochet them into an 'everlasting' dishcloth. The knots in the string were good for cleaning saucepans apparently.

We are eating much simpler meals. A bit of meat with a vegetable or two, some toast, a cup of tea.

Clara's recipes sound lovely. My grandparents had bad memories of there being nothing to eat except for bread and dripping or what could be shot. There was a rabbit plague so they ate a lot of rabbit and my grandfather said they ate an emu once and it was awful. 

I am by nature quite an anxious person and disconnecting a little, even if it is for a short time is a wonderful thing. I am really enjoying studying this time period.

So many good ideas! A few things I would like to implement:

A smaller wardrobe, like GDonna is going to do. I have mostly skirts and tops, not too many dresses so I would like to make a simple house dress if time permits. But first just pare down and put other things away.

 I love the idea of a garden apron and then indoor apron because I get pretty dirty in the garden. I am going to change into a house apron when I come in from my garden work.

I am going to simplify meals.

I want to get my children involved and thought that one school project someone mentioned of planning a dinner to feed the family on what they did back then would be interesting for all of us. 

Our garden is bigger this year so will be planting more veggies/herbs.

This study has given me a kick to get to my mending pile! 

A given is just spending less time on phone/internet, which is something I’m always striving for. My down time is when I am nursing the baby and I tend to research on my phone then. I’d like to do that less. There’s always something to “look up”. I want to just sit and look out the window, pray, and when baby falls asleep get up and do

edited to fix typo

Kellie O, so far I have found information on YouTube and many old Singers have a “service manual” intended for the Singer repair person.  I don’t know if they made these manuals after the 1960s, but I found one for my 503A.  The thing to be careful of is some people are selling printed PDFs they find for free online.  There is a website “Sewing Dude” that has some manuals free.  I also found a Facebook group for my Singer 301, where many people have done complete tear down restorations and you can post photos and ask questions — I’m sure they will be a helpful group once I start that process.

When I had a treadle sewing machine I was able to buy the leather “belt” at my local sewing store.  Lehman’s Non Electric online sells them as well.  Mine was a White in a beautiful cabinet but back then I never got it sewing correctly (something was missing in the bobbin area) and after time I let it go when we didn’t have room for the cabinet. 

Just checking in to see what everyone is baking on baking day. I was able to get some icebox cookies made. They are a family favorite:

No baking today. I have work being done on my kitchen. Next Saturday I'll be baking the week's bread, 2 desserts and cookies.

Thank you, Kimberley F for pointing me to many sources of sewing machine servicing information!

I was in the kitchen this morning making soup. I'd boiled up vegetable peelings that I keep in a bag in the freezer ( not potato) to make vegetable stock. ( I also don't save the dry papery skins of commercially grown onions)

As I was preparing the pumpkin and weighing it for the soup I suddenly had a realization that scales ( both kitchen and bathroom) weren't digital and run by battery back in 1932.

The same with household clocks that were wound with a key , and wrist watches were wound up too.

Yesterday I sat at my kitchen table and hand grated my kilo block of cheese cut into the portion sizes I wanted for the freezer . It was amazingly relaxing.

Sheri R... Your cookies look delicious.

I only made a layered bake for dinner last night....... Cooked potato, then tomato sauce to how much you like followed by sliced onions, sliced tomatoes, sliced mushrooms, sliced capsicum, diced bacon and grated cheese. I don't use heaps of bacon or cheese. It depends on the size dish your using. Bake in oven 40 minutes at 180oC

Karen NZ

Sheri R.,

I got up before dawn and baked peppermint cookies this morning.  I had forgotten all about Saturday being baking day, though, I just woke up wanting cookies!  

Karen S.,

While I doubt my kitchen scale dates all the way back to 1932, it is definitely the old kind with a dial and no batteries, and I love it.  It's one of the few items that sits out on my kitchen counter all the time, even though I only use it once a month or so.

Grandma Donna Wrote, What great comments everyone, we are learning so much.  I did not bake today because I was removing items that should not be in the kitchen in the 1930s.  This led to tackling the stove and burners and then on to the outside of the cabinets and I even washed the salt and pepper shakers inside and out.  I will knead some bread early Monday and do the wash while the dough is resting.  I want to try out a 1932 doughnut recipe in the morning that I will post for you if it turns out well.  In my 1932 diary of Sarah, she made doughnuts frequently and when I found this recipe in the 1932 paper I knew I have to try it. Yum on the icebox cookies that Sheri made. :) Remember that icebox cookies means the cookie dough is chilled before making the cookies, that does not mean they have to be refrigerated.

I wondered did anyone else feel a calming feeling when reading Michelle K's comment when she said,  We are eating simpler meals, a bit of meat with a vegetable or two, some toast, a cup of tea. I had to sit there are stare at that for a moment to feel the calm of that meal. That is the simple where we want to be.  

I really appreciate everything, I am looking forward to every new article and enjoy to read the comments! I cannot live like in 1932, too much obstacles. But I read and learn a lot.

I attach a page from one of my family photo albums. It shows two marketplaces in my hometown in 1932. Now, 93 years later, there are still markets on the same places every Wednesday and Saturday. You can buy fruits and vegetables in every supermarket, cheaper than on the markets. Nonetheless the markets live on. Good things endure over time

Karen S your layered bake sounds delicious! And great work making the most of your veggie peelings:)

Tea S.  Peppermint cookies sound super yummy. Sounds like your internal clock was all ready for baking day:) 

I love hearing what everyone is doing it’s like being in a homemakers club like they used to have. Thank you for sharing 

This past week and week coming my husband & I are living very simply because of work being done in our kitchen.  I have limited use of the kitchen. I am handwashing the dishes in a small bathroom sink. So I am not using too many plates, bowls, etc. The microwave serves as my "oven" and the outdoor charcoal grill cooks our meat. We are eating what is on hand in the fridge or freezer because I can't get in the kitchen and really cook up meals. So our meals are really simple and eaten on our porch.

The limited use of our appliances and accessories has me thinking about how little I've needed this week. Clean up has been very quick & easy. I will admit I have missed baking this past week.

I'm enjoying the comments as I try to incorporate some of the ideas shared.