My Maternal grandfather had 6 uncles on his mothers' side who fought in the war. Two of them died (one in battle and one shortly after returning home). That's one third of the heads of household in his mothers family! 2 widows and eleven children without a father. Think of that repeated time and time again all over the state. It makes me shudder to think what life was like for these very REAL people for decades after the war. Papa used to say "the only thing's we had left was our pride and our dignity." To which my granma (God rest her fiesty little soul) always replied "And ya can't EAT neither one of 'em!" And this was when they were well into their eighties. The older generation never forgot how hard things were. Heck, the depression didn't even make a DENT in things for most of them......Depression? What depression? Ha-ha! My grandparents were sharecroppers tho- "on halves" as they called it, so.

The NYT article and Mr. Pitts Reply tend to bring things home for me a bit more. God Bless them all.

Rachelle