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Aunt Norie’s Sewing Room

By Eleanor Mckee - | Apr 29, 2009

Doris Shockley also remembers well those Depression days, and how precious those pennies were. Pennies bought lots of things, all sorts of candy, and treats. That little brown pencil we all had at school, its tiny little eraser, that pencil — a collector’s item now — was dubbed “the penny pencil.”

Any of us old timers remember well that pencil. The stamp on a post card was just a penny. It took two pennies to buy a stamp for a letter.

Doris tells a true story that happened to a neighbor and his daughter. They each got on their bikes for a ride and rode right by this shiny copper penny. As they came back from their ride, the father asked, “Did you see the penny?”

“Yeah I saw it,” she answered.

“Why didn’t you pick it up?” he asked.

“Won’t buy anything, Dad,” she replied.

Her dad then asked her to go upstairs to get her piggy bank, dump it out and count it. It totaled $3-$4, most of which consisted of pennies. She hurried out to pick up the penny. A lesson his daughter never forgot I’m sure.

As we all know it took years to recover from those hard times.

I was 9 when the stock market crashed, it must have been just overnight.

I was 16 when I got a job working as a waitress for an older couple. My pay was $3 a week with room and board, those were good wages and I even saved money.

Many men worked for a dollar a day. A loaf of bread was just 10 cents. Living on the farm, Mom sold eggs in town for seven cents a dozen.

Speaking of eggs, this hint works very well. Save eggshells and let them dry out. Then crush them up and scatter them on the garden soil around an under your tomato plants, etc. Those nasty old slugs just won’t or can’t crawl over them.

Count your blessings now and remember those pennies do count up.

Aunt Norie, P.O. Box 265, Tonganoxie 66086; auntnorie@att.net.