Answer:
The old generations usually lived a life absolutely different than the actual generations, they lived most of their life without cars, tv, computers or internet (specially in South America, where most of these things arrived latter than in the US), so they are a good source of information about the other things you can do/learn without these, like cooking, camping, fishing, doing some work, etc.
Older generations also teach about their culture, independent of the culture that they come from (natives or Europeans)