Who Are These People?
- searcylivingads
- Sep 2
- 4 min read
By Don Moore, Resident of Harding Place, Searcy, AR
No one has given a tag to this generation. What happened to shape their values and virtues? Are they unique? Facing some of life’s hardest challenges, their courage makes one wonder how these people came to be the people they are.
They grew up in an era when there were no institutional provisions for the aged and infirmed. The elderly around them probably rotated from one child to another for their care. No government programs addressed their condition. People could save cash, but investment strategies and retirement programs were not possible for their parents or their grandparents. This may be the first generation to come to retirement sustained by their own resources rather than their children’s.
Some of the conditions described in this article likely shaped their intentions and efforts to plan and prepare for their later years.
Most of these people were shaped by WWII, since they were children during the war years. No family was spared military service, the rationing of essential materials necessary for war, and the loss of life. Large sacrifice was made by everyone during those years of uncertainty. Hand-me-down clothes met the need of growing children. Garage sales and the storage building industry had not been thought of. Shopping was many years away from becoming a favorite past time. How exciting do you think it was to order the children’s clothes for next year from Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogues. Besides, many families did not have automobiles to travel to distant towns. The first shopping center had not been built. Their parents “made-do” with whatever was at hand. That may have come from older siblings or cousins.
Though likely unaware of it at the time, they grew up in a time of deprivation, struggle, and limitations. Even in the area of nutrition, many families would today be classified in a “food desert.” For many, meat once a week would be common, with dessert only on Sunday. Even that would often be shared with the pastor and his wife. Again, something of these realities put DRIVE into the rising generation to work toward a better life.
With the obvious physical and financial needs, and the uncertainty of the outcome of the war, it was common for faith to play a role in the lives of families during this period of our history. Life was simple. Needs were simple, and faith was simple. Human need and a gracious God needed to be joined together to make it through. The sophistication of education and technology seen in the church today would have been very strange in the stark, raw days of human existence. Though economic and domestic advances have been staggering and the standard of living elevated to comfort, pleasure, and leisure, the faith of the fathers has not been abandoned.
With WWII ending in 1945, the wheels of progress and economic improvement went into high gear. Most of these people had a car, indoor plumbing, and electricity by the time they graduated from high school. Education became a chief goal of life. It was to help them get from a menial subsistence to self-sufficiency. By this time their mother and sisters entered the war time workforce. Family life would never return to the one-income nuclear family known earlier. Women became the work force in the rapidly expanding, consumer driven economy. Soon the small farm, family-oriented, mostly rural economy switched to movement into the suburbs where industry, manufacturing, and growth were happening. So those people learned early to ADAPT to change. A change of vocation might require a change of location. These people in the productive years were “all over the map.”
A quick visit with a dozen people here will take you from Florida to Alaska and regions on other continents. The varied jobs they did--from common labor to highly-skilled tasks to Chief Executive Officers, you will find it all with these people.
For whatever reason and certainly with hard work and divine favor, they have come to the stage of life where their efforts have paid off, and they are able to live with a wonderful degree of comfort and their needs met.
The field of battle has changed. Physical limitations, wheel chairs, walkers, braces, heart attacks, strokes, cancer have all taken a shot at these people. Dependency upon someone else for nearly everything is now the scene. Pride and stubborn willpower does not carry much weight in this arena. Competition that once drove them has been left behind. Pomp and circumstance will not fit any occasion here. They have climbed all of the ladders they are ever going to climb. They have impressed all of the important people they are ever going to impress. Yet, they press on with determination, courage, and vigor. The remnants of “The Greatest Generation” and the lessons learned in very hard times must have fallen on them. Now driven by COURAGE, these people are the “Hardy Harding Gang.”
"Life was simple. Needs were simple, and faith was simple."
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