Supply Chain Shortages from the Past

You don’t need me to tell you that the store shelves have great, blank spots on them where both necessities and luxuries have normally been found.  The media tells us there is a global supply chain crises, the reasons for which they have failed to explain to my satisfaction. 

As a rule I try not to live in fear, but these changes and shortages certainly tend to push me that direction.  It makes me wonder what my Great Grandmothers were thinking in the early 1930’s. 

It was October 29, 1929 when the stock market crashed, effectively plunging the US into The Great Depression.  None of my family held any stock so that news story didn’t hit them too hard.  Their self-sufficient lifestyle meant they didn’t immediately notice when the local general store failed to stock new yard goods, housewares or other luxury items.  (Please remember that luxury is defined differently by different people; can you imagine what those ladies would have called an automatic washing machine?)

One of my Great Uncles told me about their lives during The Depression.  He reminded me that the economic issues were exacerbated by a severe drought that affected crops across the country.  We learned about The Dust Bowl years in history class, but no one outside our homes or communities ever mentioned what was happening in Appalachia at the time.  I was blessed to have living historians who talked much about those years.

All my life I heard things like, “The tater crop is good so we won’t starve this year.”  And, “This will taste good when the cold snows fall.”  A part of me scoffed when I heard those things because I’d never come close to starving and frankly we ate about the same foods in the snow as in the sunshine, save for the fresh vegetables we had during summer months.  Now I’m beginning to relate to those old people.

I was taught to keep a well-stocked larder.  I always thought it was because my family were farmers and there was cash to be earned in the summer months, but little of it in the winter.  So Grandma would buy up flour and corn meal, soap and lotion - really everything she used that wouldn’t spoil quickly – and have it stocked up for the wintertime.  I’ve always found myself doing the same thing despite having a more steady income, it’s just what came natural to me.  This is shaping up to be a winter that I’m glad to have done that.

At the beginning of the Pandemic shutdowns I wrote an article here challenging the modern mountaineer to buck up and face the situation bravely.  I need to re-read that piece myself.  But the shortages are very different now, not just toilet paper and Lysol, which people were hoarding.  There are times there’s no milk in the store’s coolers.  Cold medicine is scarce.  Apple juice. Please comment below on what you’ve missed on the shelves.

I want to be very careful of my comparisons between 2021 and 1931 and I am certainly praying we don’t face the same difficulties.  But I am predicting that I am neither as tough nor as resourceful as my grandmothers.  During The Great Depression, desperate mothers found ways to cope – recipes like Water Pie come to mind – and I’ll be interested to see how you readers and I work through things if the current crisis persists.