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Clothing and Lifestyle, 1950's and 60's
The Lawton kids of the Old Black River Road wore and did what they could, using cast-offs and hand-me-downs and made-overs...but we still were part of the times and of the history of our time.
The kitchen was the heartbeat of the old home.
Women wore aprons over their precious house dresses. My grandmother, Gannie, and Mom wore big ones.
The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few and it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears..
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold grandma wrapped it around her arms. Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the menfolks knew it was time to come In from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.
In school we learned to read with Dick and Jane...repetition seemed to be the method...it worked but phonics suffered.
In grade one, I used a slate and we played with slates at home. This is like the lunch box I used.
I still have my wooden pencil box.
We learned to print and to write by the Nelson Copy Books and memorized times-tables and poems. I remember this poem from grade four.
The Elf and the Dormouse, by Oliver Herford, 1863-1935 (published in the 1800's)
Under a toadstool crept a wee Elf,
Out of the rain to shelter himself.
Under the toadstool, sound asleep,
Sat a big Dormouse all in a heap.
Trembled the wee Elf, frightened, and yet
Fearing to fly away lest he get wet.
To the next shelter--maybe a mile!
Sudden the wee Elf smiled a wee smile,
Tugged till the toadstool toppled in two.
Holding it over him, gaily he flew.
Soon he was safe home, dry as could be.
Soon woke the Dormouse--"Good gracious me!
Where is my toadstool?" loud he lamented.
--And that's how umbrellas first were invented.
As kids, we girls wore waists with garters to hold up long brown stockings.
Then we wore big white bloomers with elastic at waist and legs to keep us warm. All of these tended to sag.
On our feet were the all present gum-rubber boots, usually down at the heal and well worn.
Girls had to wear skirts or dresses, but in winter, we all, boys and girls, wore woolen pants over our clothes for playing in the snow.
We wore knitted woollen mittens, woollen hats and socks, so we were all nubby with snow in no time and dragged the weight of our snow-laden clothes uphill to slide down on our sleds or on cardboard.
Boys wore union suits, long woollen underwear with a trap door on the back, both winter and summer. They often slept in them too.
Army pants and coats were wore for warmth.
Of course we were never really in style, as that took money, but we came by cast-offs and made them do. Saddle shoes, bobby socks, crinoline's, flared skirts, cinch belts, neckerchief's, and penny loafers as well as reversible plaid skirts were to die for.
Sock hops were popular at school with boys and girls dressed very much as in the above picture. On Sadie Hawkins Day, the girls could ask the boys to dance.
Well turned out teens.
Boys wore slacks and shirts and sweaters and girls wore flared or straight skirts, blouses or sweater sets. The lucky ones got to hang out and drink coke...we in country amused ourselves with dreams and wishes. Sometimes we got lucky and went out to Dog and Suds in a speedy 57 Chevie driven by a boy with an Elvis hair cut.
Then came A and W and Dairy Queen...banana splits...ummmm
I remember having a precious straight skirt and sweater set, bought with money I earned on weekends at The United Store uptown, where the manager squeezed us in places he should have not touched. Then came the Hula Hoop...heaven.
In the 60's we girls wore high-heeled(spike) shoes with pointy toes...murder on the feet but beautiful for the legs.
The boys sported duck-tail Elvis hair styles slick with Brill Cream or crew-cutts and the girls traded their 50's pony tails and page-boys for backcombed, short, big hair stiffened with hairspray. Panty girdles, hair-curlers, itchy crinolins and pointed shoes with spikes for heals left little comfort to the girls. They relaxed at home in baby doll pj's...all net and no warmth.
We had the magic of radio..swing music and war tunes were my favourites and an old phonograph but never had new little portable on which girls played Elvis.
We played as kids with simple toys, with jack-in-the box, roly-poly, pedal-cars, dolls, doll carriages, six-shooters, marbles, skipping ropes, down in the ankle skates, all black, Slinky's, colouring books and crayons, cut-out paper dolls, doll dishes, tops, knitting needles and yarn, spool-of thread made into a weaving tool with tacks, comic books, story books, BB guns, 22 rifles and air rifles, fishing rods, usually made of a stick, home made bows and arrows and sling shots, hand axes to cut trees for camps, pails and shovels, tin cans for mud pies, for targets and for kicking, cracker-jack prize toys, yo-yos, bicycles, tiddly-winks, playing cards, ink transfers, magnifying glasses for setting fires, matches...the same, dynamite, fire-crackers, caps and cap guns, roller skates, checkers and imagination......
In marbles we had big ones called crockies, glass fish eyes, and black pretties and many more...we carved a pot into the ground, brushed the earth clean with our hands, and shot at the pot, closest one got to shoot in until he missed, last marble in won the pot..if playing for keepsies.
Some favourite pop and a precious and fragile toy, the pin-wheel.
Robbins Soda Fountain was a little bit of fantasy for a kid taken to town. Ice-cream soda....wow.
Some favourites
Roller skates I won in a colouring contest...not much use on a dirt road.
Fire-crackers and More favourites of childhood
Christmas was lean and magical......candy, a tree, ornaments, tinsel made of lead, old socks hung up, a Christmas apple, an orange, some nuts, and a doll or a toy gun....we polished the oil cloth floor in the fromt room with our wool socks and put up the cold and fragrant wild fir tree with excitement and joy.
Barley toys and ribbon candy lasted forever in our sticky hands , faces and clothees.
We knitted all the time, making our own mitts, even the boys knitted. We made a knitting tool from a spool to make long knitted tubes to sew into mini rugs. We washed our doll clothes on our toy wash-board.
We had many skipping rhymes...here are some..
On the word pepper, turn the rope fast, to make the jumper miss!
Mabel, Mabel, set the table.
Just as fast as you are able.
Don’t forget the salt, sugar, vinegar, mustard
And red-hot PEPPER!
Mother sent me to the store.
This is what she sent me for:
To get some coffee, tea and PEPPER!
I am a little Dutch girl dressed in blue.
Here are the things I like to do:
Salute to the captain, bow to the queen
Turn my back on the submarine.
I can do the tap dance, I can do the split.
I can do the hoka polka just like this.
Spanish dancer do the splits, splits, splits.
Spanish dancer do the kicks, kicks, kicks.
Spanish dancer turn around, 'round, 'round.
Spanish dancer jump up and down, down, down.
Spanish dancer get out of town. (run out)
Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, show your shoe.
Teddy bear, teddy, bear, that will do.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, go upstairs
Teddy bear, teddy bear, say your prayers
Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn out the light
Teddy bear, teddy, bear, say goodnight.
Benjamin Franklin went to France
To teach the ladies how to dance.
First the heel, then the toe,
Spin around and out you go !
Two little dickie birds sitting' on the wall
(the two players jump in)
One named Peter, one named Paul
(each player waves at their name)
Fly away, Peter, fly away, Paul
(the player exits the rope as name is called)
Don't you come back 'till your birthday's called
January, February - - -December
(player returns when their month is called)
Now fly away, fly away, fly away all
(players both exit the rope)
"I am a Girl Guide" I am a Girl Guide dressed in blue,
These are the actions I must do,
Salute to the Captain,
Bow to the Queen,
And turn my back ,
To the boy in green
HOPSCOTCH was another game that cost nothing and was hours of outdoor fun.
Kids brought along their imagination.
We pumped water and watched TV..cowboys, Don Messer, Plouf Family, Jackie Gleason, and listened to Time for Juniors on the Radio and Boston Blackie and The Lone Ranger too.
The outhouse was an institution. We put wood ashes down the hole to cut the smell. Old catalogues made toilet paper...not very effective.
Best Books
We could not afford Nancy Drew books so Mom found "The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew "on sale and after many tears I read it and fell in love with it. Another favourite was Fog Magic, about a little Maritime girl that plays around an old foundation on sunny days, but in foggy days, the old house is there with it's long-ago family.
Fog Magic by Julia L. Sauer Greta had always loved the fog—the soft gray mist that rolled in from the sea and drifted over the village. The fog seemed to have a secret to tell her. One foggy day on the old Post Road, Greta notices the outline of a house where no house has been for a hundred years. Greta was walking in the woods and the mist was closing in when she saw the dark outline of a stone house against the spruce trees—a house where only an old cellar hole should have been. Then she saw a surrey come by, carrying a lady dressed in plum- coloured silk. The woman beckoned for Greta to join her, and soon Greta found herself launched on an adventure that would take her back to a past that existed only through the magic of the fog. Greta travels back in time to a mystical, long- gone village. I warmly recall this book as a favourite from my childhood.
We worked too...helping with the wash with wash-tub and scrub-board or wringer washer (Beatty brand). We ironed clothes with cast irons heated on the wood stove and later with electric irons with big heavy cords, and we toasted bread over hot coals in the stove or on our new toaster, where you opened the little door and turned the bread.
Hot irons were tricky...sometimes burns resulted.
Wringers were murder on long hair.
We hung our clothes outside summer and winter, in sun and in freezing cold, and inside on kitchen lines on rainy days.
There is so much to remember...not all of it good, so I must record here the terrible use of poisons to kill flies in houses and barns and schools and stores...everywhere kids lived and ate and played.
Our sprayer had a glass container.
A DDT powder was also used for fleas in animals, beds, baseboards etc....and most of it floated into the air to be breathed in by kids.
The coal man brought us bags of dusty black coal and we burned the ends of wood.
What did we eat and what did we crave......
Pancakes and molasses cooked on cast iron griddle on cast iron cook stove.
New ideas were coming in and some people who had the money rushed out to buy crome sets and to toss out old wooden furniture...not us, thanks to empty pockets.
We ate mashed potatoes and turnip and drank powered skim milk. We craved all manner of things from whole milk to ice cream that came in blocks to pop and jello and on and on ...we were active...we were hungry.
Mothers made lots of homemade pickles and jams, beets, mince meat made with venison, pumpkin and lemon preserves and cloud or bog berry sauce. Chow chow and strawberry rhubarb jam were the best.
The best fun was to pick berries and then eat strawberry shortcake with Mashed Berries, warm form the oven and blueberry dumplings out of the pot.
The mothers hooked rugs from rags and made quilts from scraps and the Dads took kids in the old car on Sunday to visit Ganny and Gampie on the farm.
My brother had a Model A ford............
Our house had a dug out cellar with a crawl space. It was cool down there so that's where we kept milk cold until we got an ice box. The ice-man brought the block of ice , using big iron tongs to carry it. Later, when we got a fridge, we used aluminum ice cube trays.
We played on our cellar door and sang the rhyme constantly. Hollering down a rainbarrel made a fantastic echo.
I don't want to play in your yard,
I don't like you anymore,
You'll be sorry when you see me,
Sliding down our cellar door,
You can't holler down our rainbarrel,
You can't climb our apple tree,
I don't want to play in your yard,
If you won't be good to me.
Another black eye on the times was asbestos. It was everywhere...we had a panel behind the stove, frayed around the edges....we also painted up our old place all the time with lead paint and used a pressed sawdust wall board called tin-test where today people use gyp-rock. Tin-test was very flammable and very soft.
Home remedies for sick kids included ginger in hot milk for stomach ache...works instantly, Rawleigh medicated ointment and mustard plasters for chest colds, sulfer and molasses as a tonic, and cod liver oil pills for health.
MEMORY IS WHAT WE ARE.... and in school we memorized poems never to be forgotten
"
Someone came knocking
At my wee small door.
Someone came knocking,
I'm sure, sure, sure.
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But nought there was a-stirring
In the still, dark, night.
Only the busy beetle,
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest,
The screech-owl's call
Only the cricket whistling
While the dew-drops fall,
So I know nought who came knocking,
At all. at. all. at all."
And so, with these simple poems in school, I learned to see magic in the world.
SILVER
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon:
This way, and that, she peers and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
Page Links Reorganized
The kitchen was the heartbeat of the old home.
Women wore aprons over their precious house dresses. My grandmother, Gannie, and Mom wore big ones.
The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few and it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears..
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold grandma wrapped it around her arms. Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the menfolks knew it was time to come In from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.
In school we learned to read with Dick and Jane...repetition seemed to be the method...it worked but phonics suffered.
In grade one, I used a slate and we played with slates at home. This is like the lunch box I used.
I still have my wooden pencil box.
We learned to print and to write by the Nelson Copy Books and memorized times-tables and poems. I remember this poem from grade four.
| The Elf and the Dormouse |
Under a toadstool crept a wee Elf,
Out of the rain to shelter himself.
Under the toadstool, sound asleep,
Sat a big Dormouse all in a heap.
Trembled the wee Elf, frightened, and yet
Fearing to fly away lest he get wet.
To the next shelter--maybe a mile!
Sudden the wee Elf smiled a wee smile,
Tugged till the toadstool toppled in two.
Holding it over him, gaily he flew.
Soon he was safe home, dry as could be.
Soon woke the Dormouse--"Good gracious me!
Where is my toadstool?" loud he lamented.
--And that's how umbrellas first were invented.
As kids, we girls wore waists with garters to hold up long brown stockings.
Then we wore big white bloomers with elastic at waist and legs to keep us warm. All of these tended to sag.On our feet were the all present gum-rubber boots, usually down at the heal and well worn.
Girls had to wear skirts or dresses, but in winter, we all, boys and girls, wore woolen pants over our clothes for playing in the snow.
We wore knitted woollen mittens, woollen hats and socks, so we were all nubby with snow in no time and dragged the weight of our snow-laden clothes uphill to slide down on our sleds or on cardboard.
Boys wore union suits, long woollen underwear with a trap door on the back, both winter and summer. They often slept in them too.
Army pants and coats were wore for warmth.
Of course we were never really in style, as that took money, but we came by cast-offs and made them do. Saddle shoes, bobby socks, crinoline's, flared skirts, cinch belts, neckerchief's, and penny loafers as well as reversible plaid skirts were to die for.
Sock hops were popular at school with boys and girls dressed very much as in the above picture. On Sadie Hawkins Day, the girls could ask the boys to dance.
Well turned out teens.
Boys wore slacks and shirts and sweaters and girls wore flared or straight skirts, blouses or sweater sets. The lucky ones got to hang out and drink coke...we in country amused ourselves with dreams and wishes. Sometimes we got lucky and went out to Dog and Suds in a speedy 57 Chevie driven by a boy with an Elvis hair cut.
Then came A and W and Dairy Queen...banana splits...ummmm
I remember having a precious straight skirt and sweater set, bought with money I earned on weekends at The United Store uptown, where the manager squeezed us in places he should have not touched. Then came the Hula Hoop...heaven.
In the 60's we girls wore high-heeled(spike) shoes with pointy toes...murder on the feet but beautiful for the legs.
The boys sported duck-tail Elvis hair styles slick with Brill Cream or crew-cutts and the girls traded their 50's pony tails and page-boys for backcombed, short, big hair stiffened with hairspray. Panty girdles, hair-curlers, itchy crinolins and pointed shoes with spikes for heals left little comfort to the girls. They relaxed at home in baby doll pj's...all net and no warmth.
We had the magic of radio..swing music and war tunes were my favourites and an old phonograph but never had new little portable on which girls played Elvis.
We played as kids with simple toys, with jack-in-the box, roly-poly, pedal-cars, dolls, doll carriages, six-shooters, marbles, skipping ropes, down in the ankle skates, all black, Slinky's, colouring books and crayons, cut-out paper dolls, doll dishes, tops, knitting needles and yarn, spool-of thread made into a weaving tool with tacks, comic books, story books, BB guns, 22 rifles and air rifles, fishing rods, usually made of a stick, home made bows and arrows and sling shots, hand axes to cut trees for camps, pails and shovels, tin cans for mud pies, for targets and for kicking, cracker-jack prize toys, yo-yos, bicycles, tiddly-winks, playing cards, ink transfers, magnifying glasses for setting fires, matches...the same, dynamite, fire-crackers, caps and cap guns, roller skates, checkers and imagination......
In marbles we had big ones called crockies, glass fish eyes, and black pretties and many more...we carved a pot into the ground, brushed the earth clean with our hands, and shot at the pot, closest one got to shoot in until he missed, last marble in won the pot..if playing for keepsies.
Some favourite pop and a precious and fragile toy, the pin-wheel.
Robbins Soda Fountain was a little bit of fantasy for a kid taken to town. Ice-cream soda....wow.
Some favourites
Roller skates I won in a colouring contest...not much use on a dirt road.
Fire-crackers and More favourites of childhood
Christmas was lean and magical......candy, a tree, ornaments, tinsel made of lead, old socks hung up, a Christmas apple, an orange, some nuts, and a doll or a toy gun....we polished the oil cloth floor in the fromt room with our wool socks and put up the cold and fragrant wild fir tree with excitement and joy.
Barley toys and ribbon candy lasted forever in our sticky hands , faces and clothees.
We knitted all the time, making our own mitts, even the boys knitted. We made a knitting tool from a spool to make long knitted tubes to sew into mini rugs. We washed our doll clothes on our toy wash-board.
We had many skipping rhymes...here are some..
On the word pepper, turn the rope fast, to make the jumper miss!
Mabel, Mabel, set the table.
Just as fast as you are able.
Don’t forget the salt, sugar, vinegar, mustard
And red-hot PEPPER!
Mother sent me to the store.
This is what she sent me for:
To get some coffee, tea and PEPPER!
I am a little Dutch girl dressed in blue.
Here are the things I like to do:
Salute to the captain, bow to the queen
Turn my back on the submarine.
I can do the tap dance, I can do the split.
I can do the hoka polka just like this.
Spanish dancer do the splits, splits, splits.
Spanish dancer do the kicks, kicks, kicks.
Spanish dancer turn around, 'round, 'round.
Spanish dancer jump up and down, down, down.
Spanish dancer get out of town. (run out)
Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, show your shoe.
Teddy bear, teddy, bear, that will do.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, go upstairs
Teddy bear, teddy bear, say your prayers
Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn out the light
Teddy bear, teddy, bear, say goodnight.
Benjamin Franklin went to France
To teach the ladies how to dance.
First the heel, then the toe,
Spin around and out you go !
Two little dickie birds sitting' on the wall
(the two players jump in)
One named Peter, one named Paul
(each player waves at their name)
Fly away, Peter, fly away, Paul
(the player exits the rope as name is called)
Don't you come back 'till your birthday's called
January, February - - -December
(player returns when their month is called)
Now fly away, fly away, fly away all
(players both exit the rope)
"I am a Girl Guide" I am a Girl Guide dressed in blue,
These are the actions I must do,
Salute to the Captain,
Bow to the Queen,
And turn my back ,
To the boy in green
HOPSCOTCH was another game that cost nothing and was hours of outdoor fun.
Kids brought along their imagination.
We pumped water and watched TV..cowboys, Don Messer, Plouf Family, Jackie Gleason, and listened to Time for Juniors on the Radio and Boston Blackie and The Lone Ranger too.
The outhouse was an institution. We put wood ashes down the hole to cut the smell. Old catalogues made toilet paper...not very effective.
Best Books
We could not afford Nancy Drew books so Mom found "The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew "on sale and after many tears I read it and fell in love with it. Another favourite was Fog Magic, about a little Maritime girl that plays around an old foundation on sunny days, but in foggy days, the old house is there with it's long-ago family.
Fog Magic by Julia L. Sauer Greta had always loved the fog—the soft gray mist that rolled in from the sea and drifted over the village. The fog seemed to have a secret to tell her. One foggy day on the old Post Road, Greta notices the outline of a house where no house has been for a hundred years. Greta was walking in the woods and the mist was closing in when she saw the dark outline of a stone house against the spruce trees—a house where only an old cellar hole should have been. Then she saw a surrey come by, carrying a lady dressed in plum- coloured silk. The woman beckoned for Greta to join her, and soon Greta found herself launched on an adventure that would take her back to a past that existed only through the magic of the fog. Greta travels back in time to a mystical, long- gone village. I warmly recall this book as a favourite from my childhood.
We worked too...helping with the wash with wash-tub and scrub-board or wringer washer (Beatty brand). We ironed clothes with cast irons heated on the wood stove and later with electric irons with big heavy cords, and we toasted bread over hot coals in the stove or on our new toaster, where you opened the little door and turned the bread.
Hot irons were tricky...sometimes burns resulted.
Wringers were murder on long hair.
We hung our clothes outside summer and winter, in sun and in freezing cold, and inside on kitchen lines on rainy days.
There is so much to remember...not all of it good, so I must record here the terrible use of poisons to kill flies in houses and barns and schools and stores...everywhere kids lived and ate and played.
| Popular Insecticide The Sensation Of 1948 Why household insecticide is considered controversial has to do with 2 of the era’s most effective bug killers--- the infamous “D.D.T.” and “Chlordane.” Although these 2 insecticides did its job in killing insect pests, they were also considered dangerous to the environment--- and in D.D.T.’s case, lethal to the population of the American Bald Eagle. For their trouble, D.D.T. and Chlordane were eventually banned from further use (for the record, D.D.T. was banned in 1973; Chlordane in 1988). Now you know the bad side of D.D.T. and Chlordane, let’s go back to the year 1948. Back then, D.D.T. and Chlordane were seen in a completely different light. They were the most effective and popular insecticides in the elimination of annoying insect pests. Many bug killer brands in 1948 included either insecticide in their respected formulas. Black Flag Super Insect Spray contained both of them. Black Flag was the most effective insecticide ever made for home use. Black Flag Super Insect Spray contained 5 different insecticides in one blue can. They were Lethane, Pyrethrum, Piperonyl Butoxide, and of course, D.D.T. and Chlordane. Since Black Flag Super Insect Spray contained 5 different insecticides, it did away with just about any insect pest known to mankind. It was sprayed with the handy Black Flag Sprayer both in the air and on a surface, wherever the bug problem originated. In a matter of seconds, insects within the immediate area were kicking the bucket with astonishing speed. It didn’t matter if the insects flew, crawled, or stood on their heads, Black Flag Super Insect Spray was an equal opportunity bug killer. It took great delight in killing them all. If the insects thought Black Flag Super Insect Spray wore off over a short period of time, they were in for a little surprise. Once it was sprayed, Black Flag kept on killing bugs. For those insects entering a sprayed area long after it was originally applied, they also met with their doom. With dead insects all over the place, the people who used Black Flag Super Insect Spray enjoyed the summer months free of insect pests. However, they may need a broom and dustpan to clean up the dead bugs. Black Flag was made in 3 different forms--- liquid, powder, and a new device known as the aerosol can. Instead of mixing and/or pouring into the Black Flag Sprayer, Black Flag in the aerosol can was ready to spray. Fleming also mentioned Black Flag was safe to use--- provided it was used as directed on the can. (********) The grim realities of D.D.T. and Chlordane stirred up a hornet’s nest long in the future, and goes on, even today, destroying the health of us kids who were sprayed along with the bugs.  |
Our sprayer had a glass container.A DDT powder was also used for fleas in animals, beds, baseboards etc....and most of it floated into the air to be breathed in by kids.
The coal man brought us bags of dusty black coal and we burned the ends of wood.
What did we eat and what did we crave......
Pancakes and molasses cooked on cast iron griddle on cast iron cook stove.
New ideas were coming in and some people who had the money rushed out to buy crome sets and to toss out old wooden furniture...not us, thanks to empty pockets.
We ate mashed potatoes and turnip and drank powered skim milk. We craved all manner of things from whole milk to ice cream that came in blocks to pop and jello and on and on ...we were active...we were hungry.
Mothers made lots of homemade pickles and jams, beets, mince meat made with venison, pumpkin and lemon preserves and cloud or bog berry sauce. Chow chow and strawberry rhubarb jam were the best.
The best fun was to pick berries and then eat strawberry shortcake with Mashed Berries, warm form the oven and blueberry dumplings out of the pot.
The mothers hooked rugs from rags and made quilts from scraps and the Dads took kids in the old car on Sunday to visit Ganny and Gampie on the farm.
My brother had a Model A ford............
Our house had a dug out cellar with a crawl space. It was cool down there so that's where we kept milk cold until we got an ice box. The ice-man brought the block of ice , using big iron tongs to carry it. Later, when we got a fridge, we used aluminum ice cube trays.
We played on our cellar door and sang the rhyme constantly. Hollering down a rainbarrel made a fantastic echo.
I don't want to play in your yard,
I don't like you anymore,
You'll be sorry when you see me,
Sliding down our cellar door,
You can't holler down our rainbarrel,
You can't climb our apple tree,
I don't want to play in your yard,
If you won't be good to me.
Another black eye on the times was asbestos. It was everywhere...we had a panel behind the stove, frayed around the edges....we also painted up our old place all the time with lead paint and used a pressed sawdust wall board called tin-test where today people use gyp-rock. Tin-test was very flammable and very soft.
Home remedies for sick kids included ginger in hot milk for stomach ache...works instantly, Rawleigh medicated ointment and mustard plasters for chest colds, sulfer and molasses as a tonic, and cod liver oil pills for health.
MEMORY IS WHAT WE ARE.... and in school we memorized poems never to be forgotten
"
Someone came knocking
At my wee small door.
Someone came knocking,
I'm sure, sure, sure.
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But nought there was a-stirring
In the still, dark, night.
Only the busy beetle,
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest,
The screech-owl's call
Only the cricket whistling
While the dew-drops fall,
So I know nought who came knocking,
At all. at. all. at all."
And so, with these simple poems in school, I learned to see magic in the world.
SILVER
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon:
This way, and that, she peers and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
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| Anonymous | Memories of the '50's and '60's~ | 1 | Sep 8 2010, 11:37 AM EDT by blackriverrosi | ||
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Thread started: Sep 8 2010, 11:09 AM EDT
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I remember May Day Festivals. They were usually held on the last day of school. We would dress up in our finest dresses, hair done nice with ribbons and head out to school with such anticipated excitement.
Parents would come and set in the seats set up on the school lawn. Old Brownie cameras were held ready. Maypoles were danced around, classes sang "Bingo" and "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly" and Jack Lalane's workout song of "Push Ups Every Morning, 10 Times!" was played as a class did the PE routine to it. Ahhh....those were the days!
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