People who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s say living in today’s tough economy may be difficult, but not like it was 75 years ago.

In fact, Mary Melcher, a speaker with the Arizona Humanities Council, told a group June 8 at Sedona Winds during her talk, “Making Do with Less: Arizona Women and the Great Depression,” people today who learned to “make do” during the 1930s are using some of those skills again.

“People bartered for goods and services, made clothes from flour or sugar sacks, darned socks and patched shoes. People banded together and families moved in with each other. They made food stretch, many times by making soup with lots of potatoes and little meat,” Melcher said.

In her research, Melcher read about a woman who fed 12 people with one chicken, she said.

Some women took in sewing and laundry, some sold eggs or expanded their garden to feed their family and would sell produce to get cash. Others became hairdressers.

Nothing was wasted. Families handed down clothes or remade them. People used cardboard patches when the soles of their shoes wore through.

Melcher’s talk was sponsored by a partnership between the Arizona Humanities Council, the Sedona Public Library Board of Trustees and Friends of the Library.

Melcher, who has a doctorate in history, became interested in the Great Depression after hearing stories her mother told about growing up on her grandparents’ farm in North Dakota. They lost their farm to back taxes.

“My grandfather became a bartender, my grandmother ran a boarding house and my aunts got jobs in a chicken plucking place in Iowa,” Melcher said. “Several people lived on farms, but many lost those farms and had to find other work.”

One child of the Depression told Melcher that on their farm they always had a roof over their head and never went to bed hungry, which was a lot better than most,” said Melcher.

Claude and Hazel Aiken homesteaded 360 acres near Chino Valley in the 1930s. Their daughter Betty said in an interview at Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott that by today’s standards they were certainly poor, but didn’t know it. The family had huge gardens and their mother canned hundreds of quarts of fruits and vegetables. She also took in washing.

In the early 1930s, the price of beef and mutton plummeted to 3 cents and 4 cents a pound, respectively. Copper’s value also dropped considerably, but people still came to Arizona looking for work in ranching and mining — about 40,000 of them.  

“It was also the time of the Dust Bowl. People left everything and went on the road to look for work,” Melcher said.

Many came to harvest produce and lived in Hoovervilles — towns made of cardboard boxes named for Herbert Hoover, who was president of the United States when the Great Depression began in 1929. U.S. unemployment in 1932 was nearly 24 percent, with 13 million people out of work. More than 1 million families lost their farms and several hundred thousand families were evicted from their homes.

Some relief came when President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration through his New Deal. Many men found jobs and sent money to their families. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt moved to expand the New Deal to create more jobs for women. Some were hired in research labs or sewing rooms as well as in domestic service.

Some of the CCC and WPA projects still stand today in the Sedona area.

“The example of these women who made do during the Great Depression are wonderful examples of maintaining hope in the worst of times,” Melcher said.

Many people who attended the talk had comments.

Paul Knopf said his father resoled shoes, “over and over.”

Another woman said she wore flour sack dresses.

A few others said they still live by the rule that if it’s not absolutely necessary, don’t buy it, and don’t throw anything usable away.