It was a very difficult time for all who struggled through at the time and they would prefer to leave the bad memories behind them and concentrate on the good ones (aren't we all like that??). If you think about a very difficult and stressful time in your own life, the feelings and tightness in your chest come back as if you were living it all over again. Probably not a good thing to put her through. :)
My grandmother never really talked about it much, but when she passed, I filled a dumpster full of the containers that butter, milk, sour cream, etc come in. In other words, she never threw ANYTHING away if there was a remote possibility of it being used again. I also found food ration tickets.
We've become a "disposable" society. Back then, you just didn't throw anything away if a use could be found for it -- material or personal.
Not exactly a positive thing that our landfills are overflowing, but it is a positive that people were resilient and survived and made something of themselves by overcoming obstacles and not giving up. It's a testament to the will and determination and sacrifice of our grandparents that very few people under 60 will ever have or understand.
One thing you could maybe do is to not focus on what she went through, but make a timeline of her life with the advances society has made over the years. Accentuate the positives that came out of the times. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but there's a funny/eye-opening email that has passed around that mentions things like if you were born after 1980, you've probably never used a rotary dial phone, much less seen one...same with the manual typewriters. (If you haven't seen the email, let me know and I can forward it to you.) Maybe you could make a game of it that everyone could participate in? She could tell her own stories of when some things were first invented like "What was the first tv show she watched? What was the first car she drove?", etc.
Perhaps you could make a list of anecdotes/words of wisdom/lessons learned that you may have gotten out of her stories? The one I remember most from my grandma is she told me her father told her "Never try to save money on mattresses or shoes because you spend half your life in one and the other half in the other." VERY wise words.
For yourself, keep the stories -- good and "bad". It may be good for a book later on, or just to refer back to when you can't go to the original source anymore.