My Grandparents lost their entire livelihood as young newlyweds when the depression hit. They moved out to a quarter section of land west of Wichita to eke out a meager living for the next 15 years. Even in the 1990's, while living in an Boulder apartment, my Grandma would wash and save styrofoam meat trays because they "could be useful" sometime in future. Each subsequent generation has suppressed the overt hoarding, but we still keep a lot of "stuff".