At Home in the 1940s

[EDITORIAL NOTE: I will be traveling for the rest of this week and for the next three days I am posting some stories that were originally published at Blogher. This one, written in December 2006, is a rare indulgence in nostalgia.]

At year end, many people step back and take a look at the year past – what happened, what didn’t happened, what was gained and what was lost. But at my age, the years go by so quickly that it feels like I just did that.

What I found myself thinking more about this year is how much daily living has changed in my 65 years. Here are a few ways of life from the 1940s and ‘50s younger readers may not know about. Some things have gotten better; some have not.

When I was kid, my mother had a wringer washing machine. It washed on its own, but she had to then run the dripping clothes through a ringer – two hand-cranked rollers - to get out the excess water before dragging the heavy basket of wet clothes outside to hang on the line.

Our refrigerator was an icebox. The iceman cometh-ed once a week to haul in a hundred pounds of ice to keep perishables cool if not cold. There was a drip pan on the floor that had to be carefully emptied every day so not to spill over and we planned overnight trips toward the end of the ice cycle so it wouldn’t flood the kitchen while we were gone.

Milk, butter, eggs, cream, cottage cheese and other dairy products were delivered. There was a box on the front porch where the milkman picked up empty bottles when he delivered the week’s order. The bottle stoppers were cardboard disks and in winter, if I didn’t bring in the milk early enough it froze, rising in a solid cylinder out of the top of the bottle.

About once a month, the tinkerer came by to sharpen knives on the spot with his foot-powered grinding wheel, and repair pots and pans too. The throw-away society had not yet developed.

Twice a week, the vegetable man came down our alley, the back of his open truck filled with tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, turnips, parsnips and every other sort of veggie depending on the time of year. He rang his bell and all the women on the block gathered around to make their purchases and gossip.

There were hardly any convenience foods. My mother cooked everything from scratch. If there were to be cookies or cake, they had to be baked. I spent a lot of time in my childhood shelling peas and walnuts, removing strings from beans, sitting on a high stool stirring soups and puddings for my mother and helping her can vegetables and make jam.

There was no frozen food until I was about 10 or 12 years old and I remember the first I ever ate were peas. I still like how they pop in my mouth and - they don’t need shelling.

Penny candy really did cost a penny. When I went to the movies on Saturday afternoons, my dad gave me a quarter for the admission price and 10 cents for candy. A lot of it was two or three or even four for a penny, so I could get more than enough of a sugar high for a dime.

Movies were always double features plus a whole lot more: previews, the newsreel, four or five cartoons, the serial (sometimes two) and then two movies. No adults went to these matinees and I’m betting they loved having Saturday afternoon – four or five hours – free of the kids.

We walked to school in those days and yes, sometimes a long, long way. No one had to worry about child predators back then, and there were no drugs, alcohol or guns at school. The worst that happened – entailing a trip, if you were caught, to the principal’s office which we all feared – was spitballs. The only time we ever saw a police officer was once a year when he came to lecture us about crossing streets safely.

There was one summer when it was believed that swimming might cause polio so none of us kids were allowed to go to the community pool that year. Every fall when we returned to school, one or two kids were missing, either dead or in an iron lung. When the oral polio vaccine was developed in the mid-1950s, the entire population of the United States was inoculated on the same day, gathering at local schools where sugar cubes with the vaccine were handed out to everyone.

Before television, there was radio – not just music, and no call-in shows yet. Instead there were dramas and mysteries: Inner Sanctum, The Shadow, Lux Radio Theater, Mr. District Attorney and Radio City Playhouse produced shortened audio versions of current movies with the original film stars. In fact, I own a CD of Casablanca from that show starring Humphrey Bogart and it is remarkably compelling as audio only.

And that’s about all the nostalgia I can tolerate in one day. They were simpler times, but a lot of drudgery, especially for women who rarely worked out of the home. I have often entertained the idea that labor-saving devices are what made the women’s movement of the 1960s possible.

[EDITORIAL NOTE: Today, Leah Aronoff joins the growing list of fine storytellers at The Elder Storytelling Place with a piece titled Chasing My Childhood.]

Comments

[ian]

Wasn't the first Polio vaccination a jab? Mine certainly was. If I recall it wasn't until the 1960s that the sugar lump cam in - in the UK at least.

[Ronni Bennett]

Ian: I don't remember if the Salk or Sabin (one was on sugar cubes, the other a shot) vaccine was first, but when I was in high school in 1956 or 1957, the entire U.S. was innoculated on one weekend day (I think there was a make-up day a week or two later) using sugar cubes.

I have vague memories of a follow-up or booster vaccine a year or more later with my doctor that was a shot.

[tamarika]

I had the sugar cubes when I was a child in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)!

[Kay Dennison]

Salk was first and it was a shot. In Toledo, they herded us on buses, took us to the Health Department & we lined up like in the Army. It was okay to cry if you were a girl. As a tomboy type, I lost some of my "street cred" cause I cried after the 2nd (and biggest) one.

My parents weren't big on taking us to the doctor but when, smack in the middle of Polio season, I woke up with my legs aching so badly I could hardly walk, I was taken to the doctor and diagnosed as severe growing pains. I missed almost a week of school.

I remember that I was worried that I'd miss learning fractions, so my mom got my dad's old math book from 3rd grade from the attic and taught me fractions. I still can do fractions really well. Mom was a demanding teacher!

Thinking back, our mothers were Wonder Woman!!!!

[Mother of the Bride]

I was a post-war baby in England - I remember having to wear a hat to Sunday school; having to take a candle to light the outside lavatory after dark (I was scared of spiders); shelling broad beans as well as peas; making paper firelighters for coal fires; playing skipping games in the street (there were no cars); helping my mother to dust, mop the lino and shake the rugs every day.

[Aged One]

Nice posting, Ronni; but, I'm wondering what color the sky is in your world. "No one had to worry about child predators back then...."

I'm betting there have been child predators as long as there have been two sexes. I'm a few years older than you and I can tell you tales of men who tried to take advantage of me--and of my younger brother (I shudder to think what would have happened to young, trusting him had I not been around!) Predators are around in small communities and large cities. I was abducted at gun point in 1957, for heaven's sake!! Oh, well, it didn't affect me...affect me...affect me....

[M Sinclair Stevens]

"No adults went to these matinees and I’m betting they loved having Saturday afternoon – four or five hours – free of the kids."

Now parents use the TV, or video games, or the internet as a babysitter and everyone worries that kids aren't outside playing.

[Kim]

I remember that day as well. I was in an orphanage in, of all places, Gilroy, California! They herded the whole school into busses and lined us up at some facility. I remember because it was the very first "air hypo" type shot I'd ever seen! Yup, they brought in the military to handle it. Dunno why. I was only about 6 at the time. But I recall thinking this was very odd, nobody spoke (god forbid you open your mouth or you got punishment both in school and back at the Home. >.< ) I'm sure we had a few snifflers, but I think I was more intimidated than frightened.

It's one of those odd ball memories I have from back then; along with atom-bomb drills. haha

[janinsanfran]

About the polio vacine: my school was in the trials. No parents kept their kids out that I remember -- they trusted the doctors/scientists. I think I got the placebo of the Sabin stuff, then later the real thing.

About predators: I think the difference was that our parents' generation was innocent of terror of serious molestation. At least my parents were. There was a park nearby (1950s/urban) where I was forbidden to go because "i might meet some dirty man there." Of course I did go -- what kid wouldn't? In fact, some jerk exposed himself to me -- a scary event that I could not report since I would have been in trouble for being in the park. What did I learn? That I had to deal with sexual threat myself! I don't think my parents really feared anything much worse -- though certainly such things did happen. But they were happy and confident and they gave that to me. It was an easier time for large swatches of the US population.

[Candace]

A bit before my time but great to hear a day in the life...

I just found a place (Inernet ARchives) where you can go listen to actual radio broadcasts from the 40's...even, all the episodes of THE SHADOW, something I have never actually heard...but heard about my whole life.

THAT part of current life, this access possible to wonderful things of another era because of the internet is so much better. The very first thing I looked up online was a translation of the dead sea scrolls....(and there was plenty of sex in them!)

Molesters? Yeah, they were there...they always have been, lucky you did not experience one. We just talk about it more openly now and worry about it more. I nearly escaped about three times in my childhood...from three different men, and not because of anything anyone ever told me, but, because of my own gut instincts, and I was fine in the end, and wiser to the reality of the danger.

[kenju]

I had shots for the polio vaccine. I don't remember sugar cubes until I was much older. we had a wringer washer too, but we had an electric refrigerator (at least as far back as I can remember).

[chrissoup]

My mother was a public-school teacher in the 50's and had to sign an anti-Communist loyalty oath to get a job (so did I--in 1968).

I got *all* my vaccinations at school.

Almost all the stores were closed in the evening and on Sunday. The bank was open 10-3 on weekdays except on Friday, when it stayed open until 5.

Cars didn't have seat belts. When we drove at night, my parents would bed me down on the wide ledge under the window behind the back seat.

Men wore nice felt hats to work, and women wore hats when they got dressed up. Some of the women's hats had little veils. You dressed up to go to the movies or downtown, or to travel. I have a photo of myself at age 8 in 1954 as I was about to board a plane. I was wearing a dress, white gloves, and a hat.

It was OK to make jokes about the stupidity of women.

The only place with air-conditioning was the movie theater.

[travelinoma]

We had a car that didn't have a back seat, and we three kids would stand the whole way!

[Marian Van Eyk McCain]

I enjoyed that, Ronni. I don't indulge in nostalgis much either, but every now and then it is fun to play the 'Do you Remember?' game with people my own age and marvel yet again at how much change we have witnessed in our lifetimes.
When the BBC was compiling its huge archive of stories about WW2 called 'The People's War' I submitted my memories of being a child in wartime England. If anyone's interested, my contribution, which I entitled A Strange Kind of Normal.

[Cop Car]

Polio vaccines: I took the shot version while my kids took sugar cubes on a Saturday at the local high school.

As to molestation: Kansas City MO abounded in dirty old men. One lived across the street from us (although my parents never knew), but most were strangers to me. Fortunately, my parents and teachers gave us good advice on how to handle such situations--but--they were never given any feed back on how well the tactics worked. (Too embarrassing to talk about!) Relatives were the ones we really had to watch out for, though--uncles and great-grandfathers!

[Oceanwve]

Your story brought back so many memories. I, too, remember the vegetable man and the knife sharpener. How exciting it was when they came. We also had a rag man who came by periodically. And the 25 cent movies were a Saturday MUST! You didn't need to come in at the beginning of the movie; we came in whenever we wanted and just left when we got to that part later.

And, Travelinoma, we, too, slept on the back window ledge on long trips. My little sister slept there and I slept on the floor of the backseat where my father built in a removable plywood platform to go over the hump.

Elementary schools didn't have cafeterias because we all walked home for lunch. And those few that couldn't go home gathered in one classroom to eat together.

Your story sparked some remembering between my sister and me.
Thanks,
Ocean

[Darlene]

I am in the middle of writing the second version of my memoirs and I am on page 5 and am still in the 1930's. I was a child when the polio epidemic hit and my best friends little sister and my half-sister both contacted it. The odd thing about it was that both girls were the healthiest of the four of us. My half-sister was lucky because it only left her with the calf of one leg smaller, but my best friend's sister was paralyzed.

If you couldn't go to the movies on Saturday afternoon there was radio. Before TV I was chastised for not playing outside because I wanted to hear, "Let's Pretend", "Jack Armstrong - All American Boy", "Little Orphan Annie", etc.

Just like "A Tale Of Two Cities" it was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

[Betsy Devine]

The 1950s may have been naive about stranger danger, but the modern age errs with opposite sign. Most pedophiles go after kids in their own families--or at least in their circle of acquaintance: http://www.childmolestationprevention.org/pdfs/study.pdf

My family did have a "secret safety word" to use if someone tried to pick us up with a car. If our mom actually asked someone to do this, she told us, she would tell them the secret safety code -- "Aunt Mary." I used the same trick with my own kids--and our secret code was "Grandma Mary."

[LeslieT]

Loved this article, thanks! Brings back great memories (I'm 60.)

And don't forget, people smoked everywhere. You couldn't go to a movie or eat at a restaurant without breathing in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

I actually had 3 rounds of polio vaccines. The first was one I was in 2nd grade in (I think) 1952. This was an early trial version of the Salk vaccine that was only provided in certain areas. I got a button that said I was a "Polio Pioneer" - wish I'd saved it.

I remember coming home crying one day because a neighbor kid told me that if I got the shots I would get polio. My parents had to spend hours calming me down and convincing me it would be okay. Actually, I believe it was a series of 3 shots.

A few years later, they came out with the "real" Salk vaccine that they were giving to everyone. The dosage had been adjusted higher, so those of us who had had the earlier round had to get it again. I felt really pissed that I had to do it twice.

The Sabin vaccine came out when I was in high school, I believe, perhaps in 1962. That was the version on sugar cubes. So I got that version also. Piece of cake compared to the shots.

The primary thing I remember about polio was my young Home Economics teacher contracted a severe form of it and died suddenly. Don't know if I ever received the vacine, but I sure have my small pox vacination scar. Mom had it put on my thigh rather than my arm, thinking it would never show. Little did she know that bathing suits would become so daring and revealing.

As for child molesters, they were out there. The last data I read said most cases occur with someone known to the child, rather than a "Mr. Stranger Danger."

[Joared]

Don't remember receiving a polio vaccine but suppose I did. I do recall my young Home Economics teacher contracting a strong virulent form of polio, dying suddenly from it.

I recall a scar from a smallpox vaccination.

As for child molesters, am sure they were out there. The last I read the data shows most incidents occur with someone known to the child rather than a "Mr. Stranger Danger."

[JMan]

I had to laugh. My wife has her vaccination scar on her left hip/butt-cheek. The family lore I heard was that her pediatrician told my mother-in-law he would vaccinate her "there", and if her vaccination scar could could ever be seen, she simply would not be wearing enough clothes! This was mid 1950s. Fast forward to 1980s when my wife bought a new bathing suit (no, not a thong!) and when my MIL saw her wearing it, she noticed her vaccination scar just barely peeking out of the edge of the suit and remarked, "I can see your vaccination scar. You aren't wearing enough clothes!" So everyone had a good laugh.