by Christy Cunningham

Created on: March 18, 2009

At least there is one thing that most of us can agree upon. We are living in difficult times. The state of the economy has really hit home and many of us are questioning what lies ahead.

If my mother-in-law, Mom Wolsey, was ruling the world, we would not find ourselves in this quandary. No, she does not have advanced degrees in economics from Harvard, Princeton or Yale. What she does have is an advanced degree from the Great Depression. People of the world could learn a lot from this amazing woman.

In the 60's she raised seven of her ten children in an old trailer as she and her husband traveled to various oil fields in Canada. Living in subzero temperatures, having not much water and no modern conveniences she learned to not only survive but to thrive. She was a conservationist and living green fifty years before the world ever coined the words. Because of the cold temperatures she would have to go weeks without washing their clothes and linens. Every week however, she would take the laundry outside and hang them on the clothesline in the frozen Alberta air and let the sun clean them. They lived this way for years until they finally had the money to buy a house in the city.

I entered her life years later but she still maintained her frugal habits.

At times, my mouth would drop wide open in dismay when I would watch her thriftiness.

She did the laundry in the old ringer washing machine so that she could use the same water for several loads of wash. She couldn't stand to waste water.

Mom Wolsey would happily ignore the scoffs of the family when she would save the wax paper from cereal boxes or as she would cut up empty cereal boxes for scratch paper. "No sense throwing away perfectly good cardboard." Or "I can use this wax paper again!" She would say.

One day while visiting, she reprimanded me for throwing away a piece of thread that was about twelve inches long. "Why would you do that? You could have hemmed a skirt with it!" I would just roll my eyes.

I thought she really had gone off the deep end when she began to fill her cupboards with jars of bacon grease. "We are going to make soap!" She beamed. Several years later, much to my surprise, she taught me to make soap. I had enough to last about ten years!

As a young bride she began saving a small amount of money out of her grocery allowance. One day years later, she saw a house for sale. The realtor all but chastised her for making such a ridiculous offer. A few months later he called her back and asked her if

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