Provision in the Great Depression

Of all the people affected by the Great Depression in the United States, perhaps farm families- particularly those in the Dust Bowl- were most affected.  South Dakota was not as badly affected as, say, Oklahoma, but they still had it rough.

Jacob Walburg had emigrated from the Netherlands in 1915, first to Iowa; by 1920 he had moved with his brother's family to South Dakota.  In 1922 he married Minnie te Krony, and they eventually had seven children.  (You can read their family histories under the "Genealogy Reports" tab above.)  The Depression hit their young family hard- poor farming conditions and six to eight mouths to feed led to many struggles.  On at least one occasion they ran out of food and didn't know where their next meal would come from.  I quote now from a 2010 letter from their oldest daughter to her brother and sister-in-law.

The folks had a hard time feeding us all.  It was often bread and milk for supper, usually pancakes for breakfast.  I don't remember cereal from a box.  Oatmeal, ya- and sometimes I'd eat leftover oatmeal cold.  We often had a "stucky broad met net & stroup" [some sort of bread with molasses?] for breakfast, even supper sometimes.  I don't ever remember going hungry, but I remember our Dad's prayer at the breakfast table one morning for food.  The flour was gone and eggs and coffee.  I think it was fall.  Dad had been walking behind the plow so the horses would have it a bit easier with plowing when they didn't have him riding on the seat of the plow.  Well anyway that was the morning after breakfast he plowed up what was left of an old pocketbook (billfold, maybe) bills in it were rotted away, but there were coins, enough to buy flour, eggs, and syrup and a pail of tobacco.  I think we were all so happy.

I have been told that the money found in the wallet (which, by the way, contained no identification, so they had no idea who it belonged to- in any case, it seems to have been there for a while) was enough to tide them over until Jacob got a job with the WPA, I believe.  The money in that wallet helped them get through that extremely difficult time.

Needless to say, I'm extremely grateful that God provided for the family- I maybe wouldn't be here if things hadn't happened the way they did.  And even in the depths of the Depression, there was still hope and faith.