How Did We Live Without Computers?

This year, Grampie and I will have our 71st birthdays. Now, to clear the air, I should say my birthday comes FIRST. According to your grandfather, that makes me WAY older than he. And when I say "five months", he replies, "5 months and THREE days". Oh, well! I am not going to live that down. So maybe I should embrace it and tell him I am older AND wiser. What do you think?

What was life like, growing up in the 1940s and 1950s? How could we have had any fun without computers, televisions, and very few battery operated toys? What did kids do in the "olden days", anyway? You must wonder. So I'll give you a brief tour of life for us "back then".

First of all, I remember when my grandparents had NO electricity in their home. Their lights were mostly oil burning lamps which gave out enough light to do evening chores. It was hard to read by their light, though. They cooked their food on a wood burning stove that had a tank on the side for warming water. And, speaking of water, they had a cast iron hand pump installed by their sink and so they were able to pump water from the well by pumping up and down on the handle. It worked quite well.

With no electricity, what did they do to keep their food from spoiling? Well, they had an icebox in the shed (an unfinished room off the kitchen). In the winter, they would go to the lake and cut out blocks of ice for use in the icebox. So how did they keep the blocks of ice frozen from one winter to the next? They stacked the blocks on the ground and covered them with a thick covering of sawdust. The sawdust pile was always wet from melting ice, but the cold ice blocks kept it cold under the sawdust that insulated them from most of the warmth of the spring, summer, and fall air.

They canned (or jarred) most of our food from the garden and some of our meat. This lined shelves in the basement for use year-round.

In my earliest years, most of our food was home grown. I can still remember the big barrel of molasses, the sacks of flour, and the sacks of sugar my grandfather carried in. The flour and sugar sacks were made of cloth and that cloth was used to make aprons, back quilt blocks, or to make other clothing. Nothing was wasted. It was always too hard to get. Besides, there was no dump accessible to us back then, so things were recycled as much as possible. What little that was discarded was burned in the back yard in a 50 gallon drum or dumped in a heap in a back field or in the woods.

And what about taking a shower? They didn't have one. Every day we had warm water, soap, a wash cloth, and a towel. We washed up and then threw the water out the back door or down the sink -- but the sink drained out back anyway so if it was easier to throw it out the back door than go to the sink, that is what we did! On Saturday night we took a bath in order to be extra clean for going to Church the next morning. We had galvanized steel tubs that sat on the kitchen floor near the wood stove. Hot water was taken from the tank on the wood stove and poured into the tub. This was usually too hot for a bath, so it was adjusted with cold water from the hand pump at the sink. The curtains were pulled in the room for privacy and everyone stayed out of the kitchen until it was their turn. Everybody used the same water and when it started to cool off, a little more water was taken from the tank on the stove and poured into the tub. If the tub was too full, some water was dipped out before the warmer water was added. After the bath, the water was dipped out and thrown away until the tub was not too heavy to carry and then the rest was taken outside to be dumped.

And laundry? They did it by hand. There was a "scrub board" that sat in the wash tub for rubbing off dirt. A boiler of water with some bleach was on the wood stove for the "whites". After they were in the very hot water, they were fished out with a large wooden tool used for that purpose. Washed clothes were put in a tub of cold water for rinsing and then they were put through a wringer. This consisted of two rubber rollers a foot or more long and a handle for cranking. The clothing was fed in between the rollers and the excess water fell on a drip pan and back into the tub. Once wrung out, the clothes were put into a basket and carried outside to the clothes line. There was a wooden clothes rack to stand near the stove on freezing and rainy days and a folding rack attached to the wall over the stove. On those days, wet clothes could dry inside. We liked the smell of our sheets after they dried outside. And towels? Before the day of the electric (or gas) dryer, towels and face cloths were rough.

I don't think they had time for computers or TV. And this is only the beginning.

Thus ends chapter ONE.