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My son often teases me about having the frugality of my Depression-era grandmother, the oldest of 10 children on an Iowa farm who was 15 when the stock market crashed in 1929. 1/ https://twitter.com/kherman/status/1250420066539036675
She saved everything. Repaired and patched and reused. Nothing ever wasted. It was an unconscious habit of mind instilled by hardship and not up for questioning. 2/
My son teases me about her influence most often when I'm cooking. I wear out the sides of mixing bowls scraping out the batter, gather up every stray grain of rice, bleed every drop from bottom of the can or bottle. It's deep in the bones. Not even aware I do it. 3/
The other night we were cooking a quarantine dinner (beans ...), and he mused, "How long does does it take for the effects of something like the Depression to run through a family until there's no trace left?" 4/
A great question. But the answer is we'll probably never know now. That experiment just came to an end with our own economic collapse. 5/
My son is a teen like my grandmother was when the Crash happened. He will likely come to carry his own deep scars and abiding fears like his great grandmother did. 6/
And in another 90 years, some great grandchild of his will wear out the sides of mixing bowls and not really know why. 7/7
