What if you knew a natural disaster would strike long after you were dead? And you wanted to alert future generations?

You might be tempted to write a message in stone – literally. That's what Japanese people did to warn their descendants about tsunamis.  

Stone tablets dot Japan’s coastline, typically one to three metres high. Some were erected over 600 years ago; others after Japan’s 1896 and 1933 tsunamis.  

Like voices from the past, the messages chiseled in stone murmur their wisdom. One reads, “If an earthquake comes, beware of a tsunami.” Another says, “Do not build any homes below this point. No matter how many years pass, keep vigilance high." Another advises, “Choose life over your possessions and valuables.”  

The common sense wisdom on the stone markers is still relevant today.

Past generations had common sense wisdom not only about major disasters, but about everyday living, too. It was understood that wasting or depleting resources also affects long-term well-being and survival. That wisdom was written in the lifestyle and daily habits of past generations, and included not squandering water, old clothes, heat, and food.

I asked friends and neighbours to share what they remembered of everyday wisdom from past generations. The phrase “nothing was ever wasted” came up often.  

They told me about old wool sweaters being unraveled to make new ones, wood ashes going onto the garden, leftover meat in casseroles and leftover porridge in pancakes. Tin cookie containers were reused for years, brown paper lunch bags and wax paper sandwich wrappers were brought home for the next day’s lunch.

People grew gardens, composted and often canned garden produce with jars saved from other grocery items. Clothes were darned, patched and mended before becoming rags, dusters, and rag rugs. Handkerchiefs were the way to blow, not disposable tissues.  

Here’s more hand-me-down advice from the past that looked to preserving the future.

• “My grandmother used old dresses, aprons, sheets, shirts in quilts. I look at them now and see her in that dress or apron.”

• “An empty food tin with holes punched into the bottom (and often a nice piece of paper wrapped around it) was the most usual container for house plants.”

• “My mother made flat bedsheets last twice as long by cutting them lengthwise and then sewing the outer sides together and hemming what then became the (cut) outer edges.  It’s an old pioneer trick called “sides to middle.”

• “Heat and electricity were always turned down at night.”

• “My grandmother bought sugar and flour in 100 pound bags; those bags were cut apart and sewn together as bed sheets...that way, when I shared a bed with my sister, we had a seam down the middle which kept each of us on our own side!”

• “Clothes were dried on lines in the basement. I told someone about this, and after she switched to line drying she cut her hydro bill by one-third.”

• “My grandmother used to bake small bread loaves in empty soup cans. We loved those 'little round loaves'.”

Bits of everyday wisdom like this are markers in their own way and a reminder of the African saying: "When an elder dies, it is as if an entire library has burned to the ground."

Like Japan’s stone markers, may the voices of our elders continue to murmur their wisdom to us all.