One is to remember how prices and paychecks have changed. The other, the more important one for me, is the taking care of my brothers and sisters.
I honestly could not think of spending my money on anything other than buying groceries. And as you might imagine from this story, we had almost no excess.
Here's a heartwarming story from that time. I loved to cook, and I loved to make things for my siblings. In my mother's old cookbook from the 1930s, I found a recipe for doughnuts. I used to get up very early in the morning, make the doughnut batter, and deep fry them for breakfast. I can barely recall doing that, but my younger sister has very fond memories of my doing that, and has told me recently.
Mom was so occupied with working, and especially working double shifts whenever she could get them, that (as I mentioned above) we could go for weeks without seeing her. But we always knew that her absence was of necessity, and never resented it. I think the most important thing was that we learned self-sufficiency from a very early age. Because of financial necessity, even before the move to Tucson, Mom was working full time, a 4-12pm shift at a nearby hospital. While Dad was a physical presence in the household in the evenings, he didn't do much other than drink. We kids learned from an early age to take care of ourselves and to fix dinner. It was pure survival, and that wasn't so bad.
I don't want you, or anyone else who reads these posts to feel sorry for me. Yeah, times were tough but we managed. It made us resilient. And to me that's a good thing. While I wouldn't wish so difficult a childhood on anyone, looking back it wasn't so bad, and as I've said, it made me and my siblings strong.
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