Interesting Story About The Depression Days

I was born in Nov 26 1926 and I remember mom saving those sacks to make skirts and aprons from them. but my dad was the small town doctor so we had a little more money than most We lived on a farm and raised our own veggies, fruit,milk, eggs and butter and cheese .

Marlina this is exactly the type of thing I find so very interesting. How responsible and ingenious to come up with an idea like that. Some of those designs are fabulous and I am sure even kids of today would not mind wearing something like that. I wonder if the saying she looked like she was dressed in a sack was referring to something like this. Loose and baggy??? I am going to have to share this one if you don't mind?

I remember my mother painstakingly unravelling old woolen jumpers and cardigans in order to knit new ones for us children. We also used towels made from old terry toweling nappies (diapers) sewn together. On the whole, however, we led a very sheltered and protected life during WW2. My father would not allow a radio in the house and the newspapers were removed so that we should not see alarming headlines. Mind you, I was only 5 when the war ended, so it was unlikely that I would have read the newspapers anyway!

I have seen flour sack dresses and even shirts for sale. They might be al the syle right now.

How interesting, and weren't the manufacturers kind to do that.

I know.I lived through with this.

I believe they also used them to make quilts.

When I was very young, I can remember my mother and grandmother taking the cotton flour bags and bleaching them and then cutting them up to make dishtowels. They'd do an iron-on transfer for me (when I was about age 4) to do some liquid embroidery on them to doll them up a bit. They weren't dresses, but.....

The stories from that time period can be very interesting. It is amazing what people went through and how they learned to survive with so little...like they had a choice? No, they didn't, but they were strong people.

I remember when I was a very young girl that my Mom made dresses for me using those flour sacks, they were pretty. The husband of one of my aunt was a baker and they had plenty of those sacks. In Italy everybody used them and even the military blankets to make coats, not only the poor people, because in Italy there was nothing left in the late 40's and beginning of 50's.

That was nice that the sack company started doing that for people! I remember interviewing my grandmother once, for a school report on growing up during the Depression. She was a teenager during the Depression, and although she said her family struggled, they were able to survive and even thrive. She told me that her family took their first cross-country trip in the family car during the Depression. It was really interesting to listen to my grandmother describe how the conditions were back then.

I grew up in flour sack hammocks along with my mom's lullaby.

My grandmother lived through those days.

Tonys mom said they made panties out of them too

When I was born my mom made me three little summer rompers that I wore. They were out of flour sacks.

The depression came lately in France and was less strong than in other countries. During the depression we got paid holidays, various nationalizations (among them our national bank : weird, but it was private), a wage growth followed by a devaluation... Not so bad. The bad days came later, during WW2.

I love this idea! I wasn't raised during this time but my grandmother was. For some reason, it wasn't anything she really talked about. I don't know why. When I was younger, I wasn't as interested in history as I am now. I really wish I had asked her about it.

@marlina - Like so many others, I was born into the "Great Depression." Being a kid during the 30s, I did not personally get bad feelings about the grim economic times back then, but I surely do remember being often mighty hungry - when a slice of bread and a cup of water made the main meal. I also remember the togetherness of neighbors. It seemed that when one family had "extra," they tended to share it around. For instance, the guy who caught a bunch of fish would give lots of fish to those in the neighborhood, or when it was hot summertime, the family with the electric refrigerator would pass containers of ice cubes around. Many city people had little gardens and planted fruit trees and the like. They ate what they needed to eat and gave the rest away to others. Then came 1939 and the start of World War II. People went back to work, but their money simply bought a lot more plain bread - most everything else worth eating was severely rationed or just not available. It was really not until around 1947-48 that peace and a modest land of plenty greeted me as I finished my high school days. I wanted to get involved in forestry and went off to forestry college, but along came the Korean conflict and I dropped out of school, entered the military like so many others had to do, and that led into forgetting forestry altogether and then the military pushed me along into a whole other way of life and work. The only thing that always stayed the same and never changed even a little bit was that I continued to become better and better looking. It was surely good of you, Marlina, to bring us this "depression" post. I could not be depressed but was made happy when your post reminded me of some very meaningful and important times. -Gus-

Yes it is a way of surviving in tough economic times. We may see such times return one day but hopefully not. I would rather dress in denim.

@marlina what a wonderful thing for the flour company to do. I love this kind of story.