Re: Re: bankers/depression years story

Posted by Buzzman72 on December 20, 2003 at 07:27:37 from (67.241.15.121):

In Reply to: Re: bankers/depression years story posted by KURT on December 20, 2003 at 03:37:44:

I'm not as old as a lot of you, but I know a little bit about the farm equipment business, seeing as how my family was in it from 1941 to 1991. This talk about repossessions during the Depression, and whether or not they occurred very often...seems to me like you're trying to look back at those days thru a modern prism. As I've been told, the selling on credit of farm equipment--unless it was done thru a LOCAL banker--was a rare circumstance back then. You either paid cash, saved up until you could pay cash, or you did without...or so I've been told. Dad always told me that they always seemed to have some money during the depression because his dad was a mechanic, and a lot of folks didn't understand machinery back then...and Dad's grandfather was a barber, and HE always seemed to have money back then, too...I guess not everybody went without haircuts then.

In the early '30's, both Granddad and his father-in-law (the barber) built new homes; Granddad had his built by a quality carpenter (and it's still a fine-looking house yet today), but his father-in-law hired "day laborers"...winos, bums, whoever he could get to work cheap...and the house showed it. There wasn't a level floor in it! And on top of that, to save money on lumber, he had the house framed up out of low-demand red beech lumber...ever try to drive a nail in red beech? Better drill a hole first! That was the house I grew up in, and as long as you were on the right side of the room, your marbles always came back to you!

Still, these folks faced a lot of hardships. My mom's family had just taken out a big loan on the farm right before prices crashed, and they struggled just to keep the farm. Sold eggs, milk, chickens, cattle...raised their own garden, and planted their own apple, peach, and pear trees. Grandma's dad was a storekeeper, so onec in awhile they'd go to the store and the kids might get some penny candy or some ice cream.

So the farmers were the ones who made do with what they had, and the folks in town were the ones with a little money...but they weren't gonna buy the tractors, 'cause they generally had no place to use them. And since bankers weren't in the realty or machinery resale business (as a lot of them seemed to be from the '70's until today), they'd generally let a loan to a good customer ride until he COULD pay them back.

Or at least that's what I've been told.

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