This card references a story told in Heidi MacDonald’s chapter entitled “Being in your Twenties in the 1930s’: Masculinity and Liminality during the Great Depression”. Dr. MacDonald shares the story of a man who immigrated to southern Alberta to start a homestead but had a difficult time due to the features present during the Great Depression. When his wife was pregnant, he wrote home to Europe asking for financial assistance so that they could afford the doctor bill for delivering their baby. His family sent $50, the exact amount needed, and asked him to consider returning home.

This specific example shows one way that extended family could be of assistance to those on family farms in southern Alberta during the Great Depression even when living far away. Another form of family help could come through living in close proximity to one another, like Virginia Smith, Carma Anderson, and Cale Harris outlined in their oral history interviews. These three individuals lived just a short walk away from their grandparent’s homes and were able to stop in and spend time with them. Living in close proximity to one another naturally created an extended community of support through familial connection.

Bibliography:

MacDonald, Heidi. “‘Being in your Twenties in the 1930s’: Masculinity and Liminality during the Great Depression,” in Bringing Children and Youth into Canadian History: The Difference Kids Make, Mona Gleason and Tamara Myers, eds. (Don Mills: Oxford, 2017), 156-169.