Homespun Memories
~~~~~~~~~~~
Childhood Memories
from Shirley
I was raised in the country (and will
always be a country girl!). We played
outside whenever possible, keeping in the mind
the rain we get in the Pacific Northwest.
Two neighbor kids were about my age so we usually
played together.
We had a "house"
in a small clearing and played there a lot.
Rainy day activities could be playing school or
house. If someone got a large box, my
sister or mom would draw red burners with crayons
and make a stove for me. Another box would be a
refrigerator.
Sometimes we'd go to one of
the local creeks ("cricks") to play in
the water, try to catch fish or frogs by hand,
etc.
One time we were playing on tree stumps on the
hill just behind my friends' house and kept
hearing weird noises. Paul and I thought it
was Kathy (a couple years older) just being
funny. That evening, Paul & Kathy's dad
called my brother and asked him to come up with
his rifle. He shot a bear in the stump we'd
been playing on! It was making the noises
we heard.
We had bear meat for
dinner. It tastes a lot like beef.
Dad knew my sister (really a finicky eater)
wouldn't like it so he conspired with the rest of
us not to tell her until we were all done.
She turned all shades of green when she found out
it was bear and not beef!
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Mary
My Dad was cleaning out my
grandmother's house and he brought me an old
Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a
stopper with a bunch of
holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but
my daughter had no idea.
She thought they had tried
to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it
as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing
board to "sprinkle" clothes
with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I
am old.
How
Many Do You Remember??
Head lights dimmer switches on the floor
Ignition switches on the dashboard
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall
Real ice boxes
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
Older
Than Dirt Quiz
Count all the ones that you remember -- not the
ones you were told about!
Ratings at the bottom.
1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar
water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed bottle
5. Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with
cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P. F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (Olive -
6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packard's (the car)
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered
0- 05 = You're still young
6-10 = You are getting older
11-15 = Don't tell your age,
16-25 = You're older than dirt!
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Juanita
I still have one of the clothes
sprinkling bottles. And I still iron most
of the clothes. I automatically do the
laundry every Monday morning, just as we did when
I was a child. I also still like to
hang the laundry outdoors to dry but have gotten
lazy and use the dryer now. Still have the
folding clothesline stored in the garage and drag
it out every once in a while. Old habits are hard
to break. I'm really older than dirt, I
remember all the things mentioned, plus a few
more <smile>
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Jennie
Am I the only one who goes back to
"hand sprinkling" all those starched
clothes, rolling them up, placing them in a
bushel basket with an oilcloth liner and placing
a folded towel over the top. We placed the
clothes on the clean kitchen table, also with an
oilcloth covering, for the sprinkling
process.
It would usually take me an
hour to sprinkle the clothes for our
family. The water in the bowl or pan had to
be quite warm and I'd dip and shake first one
hand and then the other to get those clothes the
right dampness. They would uniformly
"draw" the dampness overnight, then the
next day was ironing for most of the day.
We didn't have an ironing
board, so we put folded sheets on the same
kitchen table, AFTER removing the oilcloth and
the old irons would be put on a rip-roaring fire
in the kitchen stove and an old skillet was
turned upside down over them. We always had
a special cloth over which we'd make a few
strokes with each hot iron, so that no black
spots from the stove would be on the iron and get
transferred to the clothes.
I could get about 3 items
ironed before replacing that iron and getting
another from the stove. The first item
would be ironed as fast as possible to keep from
scorching the items, the second was ironed at
about the speed I use with my modern steam iron
and the last item would take longer to iron as
the iron was getting "cold" by that
time.
We didn't use Kleenex in
those days, so there were "tons" of
handkerchiefs to iron and fold. We ironed
pillow cases, dish towels, you name it, even the
underwear. I hated ironing the overalls
that my Dad and Brother wore. Puffed
sleeves were another nightmare. Remember,
we only had a flat surface, the table, on which
to iron.
We also kept a piece of
waxed paper to "slick up" the bottom of
the irons. One ran the iron quickly over
the paper and it made the iron glide more
smoothly over cloth. Oh, yes, we kept a
little bowl of warm water nearby, when ironing,
as some spots would not be damp and they had to
be damp to get the wrinkles out. A flip of
the hand with that warm water would do the trick.
We didn't have electricity
and we heated with wood and cooked with wood or
cow chips. Cow chips made a lot more ash
than wood. I'll never forget the evening I
brought in the wood for the kitchen stove and put
it in the woodbox. Later, after dark, I
went out on the porch for something and it looked
like the wood in the woodbox was on fire.
It was "foxfire," which is a fungus
that glows like fire in the dark. The wood
looks normal in daylight, but glows after dark.
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Mary Anne C.
No, you are not the only one who did
that. I did it myself when my kids were
little. I had a pepsi bottle with one of
the sprinkle caps on it. I also did my
laundry on Monday and hung them out to dry in the
summer, but did use a dryer in the winter.
I used an old wringer washer
and made my second child's complete layette on a
treadle type singer sewing machine.
Diapers, receiving blankets and all. Even
little sleepers with the feet in them. Wish I had
kept some of them now, but they all got lost in
the moving and whatever.
I didn't go so far as to
iron pillow cases and things like that, but I did
iron all of our clothes. I have cooked on a wood
kitchen stove and on the heating stove that we
had when I was a teenager. I used to take my
baths in the kitchen in an old wash tub because
we didn't have a bathtub or a shower. Our
bathroom was only big enough for a toilet. The
only good showers I got was when I had PE at
school and we always had to shower after PE,
before going to our next class.
I remember the little
bottles of Coca Cola that we got at the corner
filling station for a dime each and the bottle
opener on the machine. Before I got my first
washer, a wringer washer, I would wash clothes in
the bathtub and use a wash board. I hated
that and did not have to do that for very
long. Thank God.
I remember most of the
things on the list, so I guess that makes me
almost as old as the hills.
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Jake
Yes, Jennie you may the only one who
goes back to "hand sprinkling" all
those starched clothes . . . . . Ask my wife how
it was in the depression days & the story of
the "only one" doesn't ring true.
Doesn't that feel good, just look back and say,
"Yeah, I remember that!"
Well, I also go back to Those good old
days' ???
When we were living those' good old days' they
didn't seem so good. We read by the light of a
kerosene lamp and heated our homes with wood. We
carried water up the hill to wash with, cook and
scrub. And we took our baths behind the stove in
a galvanized laundry tub. I can still smell the
old lye soap and feel the hurt and sting when
some of it got in my eyes, but it really got you
clean..
We slept on featherbed mattresses, sometimes
three in a bed. If you were late you got the
foot, the early got the head. We waded snow
and ice and mud to get to the seat of
learning, with a potbellied stove that froze our
backs, while our fronts were nearly burning.
We drank from a cup by a water pail on a bench
where the teacher put it, and whatever ailments
the others had, the rest were sure to get it.
In winter we milked in a drafty barn, while the
wind whistled through the cracks. And the
swirling snow, while you were inside, filled up
your fresh made tracks. A little house at the end
of a path, half-hidden with brush and weeds. In
summer's heat and winter's cold it served other
family needs.
Now you may look with envious eyes to those
things if you are twenty. But I've
been through those 'good old days'
and once, my friend, is plenty.
YES I KNOW as I was there. In
those times in SE KS.
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Mary Ann S.
We may have come from different areas
but sounds like the conditions were very similar.
We didn't have the snow, but the three mile walk
was still long no matter what the
weather, school still kept, unless we
had that very rare snow.
We raised what we ate, that was, what we
raised from the garden, orchard, the chickens,
the cow, and the hog. There was very little
that we had to buy. Our cloths were made
from the feed
sacks.
I guess we could each write
a piece of the story that we all lived a
part of, at least those of us old enough to
have been there.
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Sandy M.
Jennie, I can relate to the old days
too.The old wood stove where water would freeze
in the corner of the room. When newspapers were
used to stuff in the cracks of the house. When
young children had to push a little red wagon
(with snow to your knees) to go after a 5 gallon
can of fuel oil. Laying sick when there was no
money for doctors knowing your siblings would
probably be next. Ironing who had anything really
worth ironing. Saturdays were for cutting wood
not playing. Everyone using the same bath water.
And the old outdoor johns!! And these were
the good ol days?
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Mary Anne C.
The pottie was before I married as I
lived in Indiana all my life. We only once
during my childhood had an outside pottie.
then we could go in a bucket at night and during
the winter, but had to go to the outhouse in the
summer. I hated that.
When I married and my new
husband took me to KY to visit his family they
had the outside toilet and I was scared to death
to go out there. He always had to go with
me. They had a well that they got their
water from. They did have electric or gas
to cook on though.
I didn't mind cooking on the
wood cook stove we had in our first little
house. A one room cabin. It also
helped to heat it. We slept on the narrowest
little cot, him against the wall, me in the
middle and our baby in front of me with her
little bed in front of her in case she fell out
of my arms during the night. She never did
though, I held her so close and never let go of
her.
Had to go outside there to
go pottie too. I still hated that.
Give me a nice warm inside Jon anytime.
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Mary Ann S.
At least you had a
pottie. We had a two holer and a slop jar
under the edge of the bed. We also had
the tub in the kitchen for baths. LOL
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Joy
When my grandmother
sprinkled her clothes, she would put them in the
icebox (later the refrigerator), and they would
all be damp in the morning for ironing. She was
always afraid of mildew, she said.
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Juanita
The home I grew up in never
had an inside bathroom. My folks
decided to add one after I grew up and moved
away. But after it was built Dad insisted on
keeping the outdoor toilet! He always said
"you never know when you might need it in an
emergency!" That proved to be the case
several times <grin>.
The house was sold after my
parents died and the new owners remodeled it
adding a 2nd bathroom upstairs. I'd love to
hear what my folks would have said about that,
after raising the 4 children without anything but
the pottie at night and the galvanized washtub
for baths in the kitchen (once a week!)
In the 1980's my husband and I bought 85 ac. of
timber and a pond and built a small cabin.
It had a combination living and dining area with
a corner kitchen, a separate bedroom and a small
bathroom with a shower stall and a
lavatory. We had electricity and running
water but we never lived there - only used it for
weekends. The ground was too rocky and we
couldn't install a septic tank so built an
outdoor john......painted it and carpeted
it.
When we sold the place a few
years ago the new owners couldn't quit talking
about having an outdoor toilet - all
carpeted. I think they were more attracted
to that than the pretty little cabin with the
enclosed deck overlooking the pond.
~~~~~~~~~~~
How OLD are you?
from Mary Anne C.
My Grandparents had an outside toilet
for a long time. That was before I was
born. When me and my brother got big enough
Grandpa cleaned it up and moved it to another
spot in the yard and made us a play house out of
it. Minus the pottie holes. He even put
some windows in it for us.
~~~~~~~~~~~
This page was last
updated February 6, 2003.
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