A Time Capsule from the 1930s: What’s Different Now

September 25, 2023

by Charles Hugh Smith Of Two Minds

If we compare health and endurance, well-being, security, general attitudes, family and community ties and values, we would conclude that it is we who are impoverished.

We’re taking care of my 92-year old mother-in-law here at home. She has the usual aches and pains and infirmities of advanced age but her mind and memory are still sharp. Her memories of her childhood are like a time capsule from the 1930s.

My mom-in-law has always lived in the same general community here in Hawaii. She’s never lived more than about 10 miles from the house where she was born (long since torn down) in 1931. Listening to her memories (and asking for more details) is to be transported back to the 1930s, an era of widespread poverty unrelated to the Great Depression. Many people were poor before the Depression. They were working hard but their incomes were low.