My dad grew up during the 30s, much of it on a farm in Colorado, where they dry-farmed wheat, after moving from Texas and Oklahoma. Grandpa had a day job as an accountant, when there was work, and had been the first one in his family to go to college, so they weren’t as poor as much of the country, but they still farmed, didn’t have indoor toilets, bathed in the river during the week and boiled water for hot baths on Saturdays. Dad was the youngest kid and had the dog for his pet, so unlike his siblings who had pet chickens and goats, his pet didn’t get eaten. Grandma had been the last of 8 kids (7 that lived), and her mother died in childbirth*, so her father placed most of the kids with various aunts and uncles because he couldn’t raise them all and farm at the same time. I know she taught school some years; I’m not sure if it was when they were farming or after they moved to a city.
(*And if anybody tries to tell you that birth control is a bad thing, please yell at them for me?)
