I went to YouTube the other morning and something caught my eye. The name of the video that YouTube had 'suggested' for me was, "Where to Hide Your Cash When Banks Collapse". It reminded me of a funny family drama that was often mentioned at family gatherings and vacations. Grandpa would laugh, but he didn't change his ways.
My Grandfather, Jim Jaynes, got his family through the Depression, and this was no small feat. The way things are looking today sometimes makes me think about how they did it, and will we experience such a thing.
Grandpa was one of the many people who lost everything in the depression. To survive he walked 2 miles on the train tracks every day to get to his work at the ice plant in town, and 2 miles back home after work. They were living in the country, and the train tracks were the shortest route to get into town if you had to walk. He not only took care of his family of 5, but his parents as well. He worked from sunup to sundown, Grandma sewed and gardened, so they got on ok. Grandpa just never, to his death, trusted banks again.
When they finally moved to town, Grandpa bought two pieces of land and built a house on one, which they lived in until he had the second one built. It was to be their forever home. And what did Grandpa want in his forever home? A great big safe sitting in his bedroom. For some reason he thought bigger was better, which seems to be a common male thought. I don't know why. At any rate, it overwhelmed the room.
Now, I never saw this thing shut and locked. He had lost the combination when I was a baby. This meant he had to pay to have someone open it. Then he had them fix it so it wouldn't lock again. He was a plumber who dealt in cash, he owned several rental houses which he bought with cash, everyone knew he only took cash. When he sold a property, it took a couple of days longer to close so they could get the cash together. Part of the money went into the safe. It seems he didn't like everything in one place, so he had a "second safe". It was called a coffee can, which he would stuff with cash and bury in the back yard. Yes, the obvious did happen. He buried a can and forgot where. He looked for a long time. As a matter of fact, everyone had a go at looking for it but no one ever found it. We did not know how much was in the can, and if we had, there probably would have been a bulldozer taking all the top soil off the back yard. It has all rotted away by now, I'm sure, both the can and the paper bills. The people who live in the house now have no idea that they have really rich soil in their back yard.
On a side note, just to prove how safe it all was, they never locked their doors. Not until the 1980s when they were in their mid 80s and began to have health issues. According to Grandma, it had something to do with not being able to find the keys.
Those times are gone forever.
This is a double post. My blog is now: FamilyTwigs – TwigTalk – Talking about genealogy, family, creating and recording my personal history, wholeness, and all the things that come in life. This will be the last double post.
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