In between what has been called the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers is a generation overwhelmed numerically and influentially by the generation that followed it. It is a generation, relatively small in number, of Depression babies. (Starting a family during the Great Depression was not enormously popular for obvious economic reasons.)
Few families had refrigerators, which did not become universally commonplace until after the end of World War II. Many an “ice man” was still driving a horse-drawn cart, as did the local grocer.
The supermarket as we know it was unknown. The local grocer and butcher typically kept a “book,” which kept him in business, if just barely. There just wasn’t enough money to adequately feed many families, and so they would pay what they could “on account” as they went along. Some of them didn’t manage to get out from under this debt until the ’50s. This was the environment in which the Depression babies spent their preschool years. Some white-collar workers with families were even transferred by their employers to other cities, which could involve long absences from home. And they were the lucky ones.
Then the war came. While most of the fathers of the Depression kids were a little too old for conscription, brothers, uncles and cousins were called. Unemployment was no longer a problem for those who were still at home, but life was not easy during the war years.
And so the ’30s kids entered junior high school having never known anything but adversity. To them, adversity was the norm.
This generation was too young for the second World War. But they were fully ripe for Korea. The Korean War is properly called “the forgotten war” because it was fought by the forgotten generation.
Then they bought a home and raised a family and now they are retiring. The post-war baby boom came along, and all of America’s marketing resources and political thinking were brought to bear on this huge population segment. So IRAs and 401Ks came into being, thanks to the boomers, but were a fairly late coming to the older crowd.
Through all the years there was not much whining. Adversity is normal, so they made the best of it. They just did their bit as their parents had done and their kids are doing and their kids’ kids will do, if they just forget about whining and get on with it.
