These people and the others of the “depression “ era, lived like this BEFORE the depression. They fit the image so that’s what is shown all the time, but frankly, nothing really changed for them before or after the era. My father in law was a small kid during the depression. They had a farm in Oklahoma during that era. Their fields didn’t blow away, they raised their own chickens hogs and beef cattle and milk cows and goats. As he said several times “I had no idea we were poor”.
They didn’t lose their farm, they sold it. At a profit.