I know what you're talking about. My Mom was born in '25, but we do have photos of my Grandfather plowing fields with a mule. They had a half section in Kansas and when the depression came along they pinched every penny do keep the farm. My Grandmother would pluck the chickens she sold to make an extra penny. The thing Mom hated was going to school in dresses made from feed sacks, which in those days were not burlap bags but somewhat colorful cloth. Go back earlier than that, to '03, and it would almost be like pioneer days.