Short term effects of Great Depression?

I don't know dates and I'm in the US. I went fishing...decades ago...a friend had found this place owned by a German lady and she didn't allow anyone to use minnows because she didn't want them to grow in her lake. At some point I ended up talked to her and what a tale she had to tell. She was very old but very bright and knew what she was talking about. She talked about having a speakeasy at her place back in the 30's and all the whos who of the St. Louis area came out to drink and party. After prohibition was over, no one came out to see her anymore and I think that hurt her feelings. But she told me she came over after the depression in Germany. She told me that people would sell their family jewelry for something to eat so she and her husband came over here and bought some property and she ran a boarding house on it. She implied that her people thought this under her but she was fueled by what had happened in Germany and she vowed to never be hungry again. I don't know if the boarding house was on the land where the lake was but she ended up buying this property with the lake with the money she made from the boarding house. Then she had the speak easy and I'm sure she made tons of money. One day she was out planting trees around the lake for shade. Her husband told her she was foolish because she would never live to see the trees grown. She just went on with planting and she lived to see the trees grown....he didn't. I know she did well and she set her sons up. He pulled up driving a Mercedes and dressed very nicely and was in real estate. I thought her delightful and I respected her ability to pull herself out of a bad predicament and bring her family's wealth up and educate and set her children up in business. Just from the way she talked the depression in Germany must have been horrific for a lot of people.

One example would be very poor dental health. With a poorer diet and a lack of money to get treatment from a dentist, many people lost teeth. Consequently, many of these teenaged boys who became men in the late 1930s were turned down for the army and not allowed to serve in the early days of WWII.. As the war churned on, men without teeth and all sorts of other disabilities were conscripted.