Who Here Started Out Dirt Poor?

Edgarblythe and I are about the same age - I'm a wee bit older. We share a lot of the same opinions, if not every single time. He had a much tougher road, at least while young.

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Bookmark for later.

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I didn't elaborate a great deal about myself, because, most of the older posters have heard it all before. But, if you want to know about wired shoes to keep the soles from flapping; no underwear, and a zipper that keeps sliding down; eating beans and then trying to sleep while your sweet old stepdad cooks himself a steak - Well, I'm your man.

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I was brought up relatively rich.

However, oddly, I always FELT poor...because my father was one of those warped by poverty as a child, and he made each penny spent seem like he had given birth to it in agony, and would never have another.

Well, he did on the SMALL things...like clothing and shoes and such. He happily paid for a dumb private school.

My mother made our clothes, upholstered the furniture etc.

After she died, I was basically in rags. Wore the same skirt, shirts, gym shoes, blazer, jumper, ties (school uniform) from at least grade six to year 12.

One of my closest friend's fathers ran an exclusive department store....she was told to stop being my friend because her mother thought that being seen with me (the rags) reflected badly on the shop! (She refused to do that.) But I had a horse!!! Weird....

I only realised my father had a lot of money years later, when I was taking him out, and he added to his regular moans a moan about the amount of tax he had paid.

I idly asked how much.....he had been retired for nearly 20 years by then, and he was being taxed twice what I was, and I was on a full time professional (albeit a relatively poorly paid profession) wage.

You should have seen his face!!! Sprung!!! But, he was just as unable to spend on himself as on anyone else.

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We weren't rich, but growing up on a horse farm Dad and the rest of us all worked hard. Dad was gone most of the time - auctioneering, horse tradin', and other stuff.

We ate our share of tuna noodle casserole, to the point of Dad never ever wanting to see a noodle again. I think that was more to Step-Moms attempts to save and cut back than actually not being able to afford other food. We had a steer butchered each year that we shared with Grandma and Grandpa, or vice versa, and we shared in working and harvesting the acre plus garden at Grandma's house. They were instrumental in making sure we kids had, though for the most part for clothing and shoes I had hand-me-downs.

Even if Dad didn't "have" he was generous. he never complained about slipping us $50 to go to the carnival part of the state fairs after several days of working hard and showing the horses. He's still quite generous.

I was raised to not worry about the where the next dime might come from. "Work hard and the Lord will provide" and "Give and ye shall receive" were the basic messages. Still applies today.

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I thought you didn't believe in the Lord anymore....

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Tuna noodle casserole, I may need to start a thread..

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dlowan wrote:

I was brought up relatively rich.

However, oddly, I always FELT poor...because my father was one of those warped by poverty as a child, and he made each penny spent seem like he had given birth to it in agony, and would never have another.

Well, he did on the SMALL things...like clothing and shoes and such. He happily paid for a dumb private school.

My mother made our clothes, upholstered the furniture etc.

After she died, I was basically in rags. Wore the same skirt, shirts, gym shoes, blazer, jumper, ties (school uniform) from at least grade six to year 12.

One of my closest friend's fathers ran an exclusive department store....she was told to stop being my friend because her mother thought that being seen with me (the rags) reflected badly on the shop! (She refused to do that.) But I had a horse!!! Weird....

I only realised my father had a lot of money years later, when I was taking him out, and he added to his regular moans a moan about the amount of tax he had paid.

I idly asked how much.....he had been retired for nearly 20 years by then, and he was being taxed twice what I was, and I was on a full time professional (albeit a relatively poorly paid profession) wage.

You should have seen his face!!! Sprung!!! But, he was just as unable to spend on himself as on anyone else.

ms. buns poverty and poor circumstances have have "warped" my outlook on money as well... it sucks and it has caused me problems in my life... I don't begrudge spending on those I care about but I've been accused of it soooo many times in my life... it's that I'm extremely frightened that at any moment I'll be plunged back into poverty..... I come across in the end though....

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Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

dlowan wrote:
I was brought up relatively rich.

However, oddly, I always FELT poor...because my father was one of those warped by poverty as a child, and he made each penny spent seem like he had given birth to it in agony, and would never have another.

Well, he did on the SMALL things...like clothing and shoes and such. He happily paid for a dumb private school.

My mother made our clothes, upholstered the furniture etc.

After she died, I was basically in rags. Wore the same skirt, shirts, gym shoes, blazer, jumper, ties (school uniform) from at least grade six to year 12.

One of my closest friend's fathers ran an exclusive department store....she was told to stop being my friend because her mother thought that being seen with me (the rags) reflected badly on the shop! (She refused to do that.) But I had a horse!!! Weird....

I only realised my father had a lot of money years later, when I was taking him out, and he added to his regular moans a moan about the amount of tax he had paid.

I idly asked how much.....he had been retired for nearly 20 years by then, and he was being taxed twice what I was, and I was on a full time professional (albeit a relatively poorly paid profession) wage.

You should have seen his face!!! Sprung!!! But, he was just as unable to spend on himself as on anyone else.

ms. buns poverty and poor circumstances have have "warped" my outlook on money as well... it sucks and it has caused me problems in my life... I don't begrudge spending on those I care about but I've been accused of it soooo many times in my life... it's that I'm extremely frightened that at any moment I'll be plunged back into poverty..... I come across in the end though....

Oh yes, I understand.

It's sad...my father WANTED to be generous, and sometimes was. It's just that you paid in blood for any act of generosity.

I got a scholarship in the later years of my school life, which paid the fees and gave a living allowance. I also got jobs. Ditto university. It nearly killed my dad...he had wanted to provide these things, and extract endless emotional fees (not that that was conscious)...but I found it better to be poor and work 18 hours a day.

Not that study poverty is like REAL pverty...you know it's just a phase.

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dlowan got me thinkin...

I guess really I had a real mix of poor and well off. At one time Dad bought a Ramada Inn, a house way above the average home that he thought nothing of dropping 50K to furnish, a sale barn where he ran cattle sales, he had a country band that opened for Marty Robbins and his own band bus fully equiped, recorded in Nashville... Maybe we had very humble beginnings and worked up, but either way he was generous and the lesson was one of hard work to get there.

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I was poor. The hungry kind of poor. The dad's away working, mom's got no car, got no way to get to the store, got four kids under seven who are wanting some food kind of poor. But we always had a roof over our heads and most times found a way to share with the neighbors because sometimes their dad wasn't away working but just away.

Now I live in a "real fixer-upper" that cost more than most people ever dream of spending on a house but I still clip coupons and buy my jeans at Value Village and can carry one chicken through three meals.

Here's the thing I notice the most --

Many of the houses in my neighborhood sell for around the million dollar mark. A lot of the people who live in those houses don't really seem to live in those houses. They feel like museums. The possessions seem more precious than the lives that live among the possessions.

<sigh>

I dunno.....

But it makes me glad I live in the neighborhood shack where the dog can tear her toenail and bleed all over the damn place and I don't have to call the insurance company before I clean it up.

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I was brought up poor, but didn't know it until I was older, because my parents worked so hard and sacrificed so much to keep us insulated from it.

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I honestly didn't feel poor. Though I know mom and dad struggled hard to do what they did. Sometimes, like one mom or dad got sick, it was scary. There was no back up, just what we had.
It was family business, and us kids knew that meant tightening up and not having some extras, as we got a short outline of what was happening.
It wasn't a big deal, even then, as we were taught to understand how we were all in it together.
We got to make some decisions, as to what we would have or not have. Sometimes that meant, if you choose to have something nice, someone else wouldn't get what they wanted. I am grateful they taught us that early.
I didn't learn until much later just how much they sacrificed and worked so that we could have that choice.

They had to suck up their pride more than once, and do some things they didn't really want to do. Dad had high ambitions. Mom and dad were both very hard workers and not people to complain.
Dad took a lot of pride in the fact that he earned everything he had; having being kicked out his own family home at an early age bc he was rebellious and later, chose to marry my mom.
His family did not approve of him marrying a woman who was not french, not educated, not Catholic, and who worse...my mom has some native blood.

There was always the extremes growing up and I often felt torn as to what to do identify with.
Family was really important, and on mom's side, a lot had less than us. I grew up knowing kids who didn't have food, who had neglectful parents and would come to our house to eat and get some love sometimes.
Lots of the kids came to our house.
On dad's side, we didn't see much of, but they were rich and seemed to have it all.

Reality was compared to many, we had much. But it was always up in the air. And we all knew it.

I respect my parents more and more as I grow older and try to carve a life for myself.
They did really good for themselves in the important things.

I wish I could share that with my dad. I know he often felt like he was a failure, didn't provide well enough, didn't give us enough compared to what he saw others in his family doing.
I'd love the opportunity to tell him he gave us what really mattered. They had more money, but looking at them today it is clear who was poor and who was not.
We weren't poor.

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looking back at some old black and white pictures just now .
the year was 1932 and i was two years old .
we lived in the port of hamburg where dad was the inspector (the bossman) for a large import-export business . the company supplied the house free of charge which was certainly a great benefit .
we lived right on the company premises . this picture was taken in the large garden that came with the property - probably afternoon "coffee and cake time" .
i'm on mother's lap , my seven years older brother karl is on the right .
the only disadvantage was , that i didn't have many other kids to play with until i started school - so i grew up with the workmen in the harbour !

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/317/child1rk1.jpg

here i am a few years later - 1935 .
my dad is on the left-front and i'm sitting next to my granddad - who is on the right .
it's an after work get together with some of my dad's colleagues - and i just had to be part of it ! :wink:

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4047/child2jw1.jpg

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I was born with a gold spoon in my nose and a PlayMate of the month for a nanny.

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That was filthy rich, Dys! I just had the latter...

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I was so poor that I couldn't pay attention.

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so,

did you ever have nothing for dinner? Edgar had that, and I had it a few times, as did other posters.

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Yup, but, happily, I was fortunate to have bread with my nothing.

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Who Here Started Out Dirt Poor?

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