Those were the words Gertrude used on a regular basis. She had been a young woman during WWI and the Spanish flu epidemic, a young mother during the Great Depression and the mother of a Navy Wave during WWII. She knew how to ration and use everything to its fullest.
When she died, we found a box of “new” fabric that was so old it crumpled like dry leaves when I touched it. But the funniest thing I found was a box labeled “String too short to save.”
She never allowed food to be wasted. When a new food was prepared, the rule was you had to taste it. Some foods I was happy to have tried, others not so much. Liver was my least favorite. I did not grow up in the clean plate club, but I was told “If you put it on your plate, you will eat it.” No question asked. I could decide if I wanted something and how much, and I could have seconds of some items, but not desert.
All leftover food was placed in refrigerator dishes. The food was scraped, every last morsel, into greenish glass rectangular containers with clear lids. I remember that they came in 3 or 4 sizes and were stackable. Reheating food was not in the microwave but on top of the stove. After 2 or 3 reheating, most foods looked and tasted the same, yucky.
Plastic bread wrappers were washed, dried and reused. Gertrude never bought plastic storage bags when a bread wrapper worked just as good. She had a drawer full of bread wrappers to use and reuse. I recall that in the winter, the bread wrappers were put over socks before putting on snow boot, that way your feet stayed dry.
She had so many ways to save almost anything. Clothes were mended, and even towels were sown together to be used until they had to be used as cleaning rags.
I wonder what Gertrude would say about what is going on today. I know that if she were here, we would have good food to eat, leftovers in the refrigerator, and she would have a plan to take care of us, no matter what happed.
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