down to their kids (my mom etc.) They were millionaires even back in the 80s but you would never have had any idea. Makes for lots of fun stories.

Grandparents basically never had store bought Tupperware and reused every container they had. I thought they were on the brink of disaster growing up because we drank out of reused yogurt cups Nothing got wasted. They were generous with family and I would get a hefty birthday check and feel guilty and worried for them until my mother explain it was not any kind of financial burden.

If food was burnt it was still eaten and not thrown out. My mother's BYU college friends still laugh about how they always had to save their burnt toast for her because she preferred it burnt, having eaten so much of it her whole life. In fact, month after she was married they visited her and presented her with a bread bag full of the burnt toast they had saved her.

When I finally got around to reading grandma's history I was very humbled by her circumstances growing up in the depression. They built their tiny two room home for a family of 6 kids out of railroad ties. It wasn't warm or private. They had homemade toys. They almost never had meat for cost and because it wouldn't last with no way to refrigerate it. The stories are funny but it stems back to some serious survival instincts in a world with much scarcity. Just makes me grateful for their efforts and for what I have now.