Lets go back a bit

[Pastor Gary]

Lets go back a bit

We have a nice thread going concerning Laundry Detergent and those postings have now gone back in our family history a bit as to what doing laundry was like several generations ago.

Let's get a thread going as to what the rest of those years gone by held for us, our parents, our grand parents and our great grand parents.

I'll get things going by just mentioning that when I was a child, steam driven railroad engines were still in use for passenger service. I can remember going to Chicago with my parents to visit relatives in the early 1950's. The train ticket cost less than the taxi ride to uncle's house.

The smell of the coal smoke, the sound of the steam whistle at crossings, the feel of the horse hair seat covers and the wonderfull dinner smells coming from the dining car were all taken for granted. These days, youngsters can only see steam railroad equipment in small private museums and if they are very lucky, volunteers have restored the fire breathing, steam belching beasts and a short ride around the grounds may be available to let the kids know how it was long ago.

Some parts of the world still have active 100 year old steam engines pulling passenger coaches... but the days of steam are nearly over.

Now it's time for others to post their stories. I'll do one later on about the family history of the logging industry in the late 1860's...

 

[Dusty]

Well to go back in time..... Hmmm... What I remember is the milk man delivering milk to the door but not in an automoble but in a horse drawn cart. The milk would have the cream at the top of the bottle so we would have to shake it to distribute it.

I also remember we had an" ice box " not a fridge and the ice man would come every day and deliver our block of ice to go inside.

We did not have a TV and when we got one it was a black and white one with probably 2 channels so it wasn't too interesting. We used to listen to the radio all the time for the news and any thing else of interest. We read a lot of books and had more family time.playing board games and such.

I could go. on and on but will let some one else have a go.
Wow, when I think how far we have progressed. But to tell you the truth I think we as kids had more fun.

 

[BreathOfGod]

I don't know that I would have much to contribute to this thread, but I do have a question that maybe someone here can answer. I was wondering around what year the following type of fuse panels were used, and around what year were they replaced?

http://www.heimer.com/photographs/images/electrical_service/fuse-panel-3.jpg

I have been trying unsuccessfully to find the information on-line. I figured this "Let's go back a bit" thread would be a good place to find out.

 

[Pastor Gary]

Dusty - That is part of what I wanted to see in this thread... how the family has changed over the years and how we, as individuals have changed as well.

In the 1930's, 40's and early 50's, entertainment for kids was to take a dime ( 10 cents ) and walk a couple miles to a Saturday morning cartoon matinee or serial Western at the movie theatre downtown. Then everyone sat down at the same dinner table, thanked God for the meal and actually talked as a family. Today, kids sit in their rooms playing XBox games and only see the rest of the family occasionally if mom and dad aren't too busy or tired from working two jobs each, to add to their material wealth.

In the 30's, 40's and 50's, kids did listen to the radio networks for their favorite story telling programs and news broadcasts. The AM broadcast dial in those days was open to long distance reception and a person in Denver could easilly listen to a direct broadcast from New York after sunset. Listening to the radio shows sparked imagination in children because there was no video screen - only audio, so they had to create the pictures of what was happening in their minds... this also reinforced artistic creativity in children. Unfortunately, not so today.

But enough of why the family has degraded into what it is today... let's add more posts as to how things were back then and think about how much the family meant to each other and how the family values formed God loving adults out of children with the discipline and love they received from within the family.

May God bless.

 

[Pastor Gary]

I don't know that I would have much to contribute to this thread, but I do have a question that maybe someone here can answer. I was wondering around what year the following type of fuse panels were used, and around what year were they replaced?

http://www.heimer.com/photographs/images/electrical_service/fuse-panel-3.jpg

I have been trying unsuccessfully to find the information on-line. I figured this "Let's go back a bit" thread would be a good place to find out.

That is a 'Bussman' electrical panel with snap-in and bolt-in cartridge fuses. The vintage is approximately 1945 to 1965 and are still around in some urban buildings today. These were not only used for branch circuit protection, but were used in many commercial buildings to protect Otis elevator circuits.

You can find out much more about Bussman fuses and panel accessories here:

Cooper Bussmann ® - Cartridge Fuses and Accessories

 

[BreathOfGod]

But enough of why the family has degraded into what it is today... let's add more posts as to how things were back then and think about how much the family meant to each other and how the family values formed God loving adults out of children with the discipline and love they received from within the family.

May God bless.

My mom and I were talking the other day about how children used to go outside and play games together. Both when I was a child and when she was a child. Kids these days don't do that. They want to sit around inside playing video games or being entertained. We used to go out and play organized games, sports, cowboys and indians/ cops and robbers, etc.

Where we moved to is taking us back in time a lot. Living here is like going 50 years into the past. It's a lot like living in Mayberry.

 

[Dusty]

My mom and I were talking the other day about how children used to go outside and play games together. Both when I was a child and when she was a child. Kids these days don't do that. They want to sit around inside playing video games or being entertained. We used to go out and play organized games, sports, cowboys and indians/ cops and robbers, etc.

Where we moved to is taking us back in time a lot. Living here is like going 50 years into the past. It's a lot like living in Mayberry.

Right on . I can remember in the summer holidays playing monopoly for days with my neibour friends, or pick - up sticks or marbles ..or skipping rope or hopscotch. Any one remember that ?

Oh, and we used to go to the local park and play baseball. and in the winter every one had a skating rink in their back yard.

 

[Boanerges(Inactive)]

When I was young I had to walk to school - uphill- both ways!


Apologies to Bill Cosby!

 

[chili]

I was born in 58. I remember when I was bout 4-5 my Dad had a hand crank movie movie camera that he took baby movies of me and my sister. Still viewable to this day. We had B/W tv and I used to watch the Outer Limits which scared the dickens out of me. I used to have a Tyco pro train set bout the size of match box cars.....O ya I had those too. We lived out in the country so I was always bringing some kind of critter home to Ma. O she would get so mad. I remember my first snake I caught was 6 feet long "Gopher snake" i brought it in to Ma n said LOOK!! She screamed get that thing outta hereLOL so I went up stairs n put it in a box, went back out to play"I was 6 @ the time". Came in at supper time n went up stairs to look at my prize It was gone. Didn't find him till 6 months later when me n my sister were watching tv n it came crawling out from under the couch and across here legs. That was a scary moment n funny too. Everybody in the house was hollerin. I picked it up n set it outside n cried as it slithered away.
Thanks for helpin me to remember my child hood. I got alot more!!
Next!

 

[Chris.H]

im not really that old only 22 but i remember when i was a kid (5-9ish) me and my brother along with the other kids were allways running through the forest right by our house (wich has since been cust down for a housing complex ) there used to be a HUGE rock (or so we thought then lol) that we would climb on all day long and pretend it was our castle or what ever else came to mind. then there was the first pair of roller blades i got i was going down a big hill and a car was coming up behind me so i moved over on to the side of the road and ended up wiping out because of the loose gravel. i went home got my dad to dig the gravel out of my kees and arms clean it out with peroxide (i still cringe every time i see a bottle of that stuff lol) and went back out to play some more. one winter there was an old chair sitting out side and me and my brother and our friends wanted to go sledding but we only had two crazy carpets and 1 GT at the time so we pulled the back of the chair off and used that and i think that was WAY more fun than the crazy carpets or the GT hmmm those were the days

 

[Rumely]

When I was a kid, I played in the trainyard, sometimes on the tracks. I also enjoyed playing with fire. We used to run all over the neighborhood day and night with no supervision. Nowdays, I still get nervous at the idea of my daughter crossing the street, and she's 18! Now she gets to play with hand grenades and an M-16.

We used to hang those no-pest strips from the ceiling. Soon, the floor would be littered with dead bugs. Then, they changed the formula, so they didn't work very well anymore. Something about concerns regarding toxicity of the originals. So, we just fogged our bedrooms with Raid when we went to bed.

Sunscreen? Pfft! Never heard of it. Tanning oil for basting oneself while tanning, yes; but sunSCREEN? What will they think of next?

We're only going to town for the evening, why would we want to lock our doors?

 

[autumn_angel65]

How time flies when you're having fun...and looking through all your postings was like a trip down memory lane...when time was slower and so care free....without the hassels of adult life. I can remember when I was small like 7 or 8 ...on wet days at school.. always I'd see my mum walking into the school grounds with my lunch in one hand and her umbrella in the other...she'd always have my favourite.... a mince pie, fresh cream filled donut and a bottle of coka cola...and the price of each thing too... was like for the donut 5 cents the mince pie 15 cents and the coka cola 20 cents...hmmm good memories...times when you could walk anywhere as a child without the fear of strangers doing you harm...playing with friends in the freah air...going down to the stream down the back of our house and playing for hours, catching fresh water crawlies....going to pick mushrooms in the farmers paddocks...picking blackberries..eating more than was going into the bucket...riding my bicycle in the country for hours in spring time looking at the sheep and lambs, cows and their young..always feeling safe...time when it was safe to do these things...now...I wouldn't even dream of letting my own child do these things cause it's just not safe on the streets. Oh I want so much for the days of my youth when times then you were safe and could do anything within reason and be safe doing them...those times I'd love for my own child to experience..to have those safe enviroments for them.

 

[Jasher]

You want old? I've got tons of it. Guess I’m "The last of the old timers."

Like Dusty, my grandmother had a wooden ice box (1940's) (see pix) with the square card in the front window that you rotated to let the ice man know how large a chunk of ice you wanted that day. She had a kerosene kitchen stove with a glug jug, (see pix) which by gravity fed the stove. She made her own soap out of cooking fat. Added banner lye and cooked it in a large flat double boiler. Cut it up into bars for use. I went to the corner store carrying silver certificates (not the fiat money we have today since we went off of the gold and silver standard) and ration tickets for certain things. The streets were often trod by scrap collectors collecting metal or other things for the war effort. She had an RCA crank record player that I used occasionally. My mother bought a brand new modern 78 rpm record player with a superheterodyne AM receiver. We took the bus to town every Saturday to go to the movies and had a steady diet of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and often the three stooges. And then there was Fox Movie Tone news reels of the war effort - and usually a Warner Brothers cartoon. My Grandmother took me shopping once per week - took the bus to town and carried everything home - I don't know how she did it.

I saw the last of the kerosene lamps as my father had electricity installed in the old house we moved into in the late 40's in rural Pa. Water was hand pumped out of a 4 foot dia. stone lined dug well. We burned wood that I chopped and coal in a kitchen range. We had an outhouse until I left home at age 22. Farming back then was a lot of work. Wheat was cut with a Mc Cormick reaper (see pix), which cut and tied it into bundles. The bundles were stacked or shocked by hand so that they could dry before they were hand loaded into a wagon and taken to the Frick thrashing machine (see pix). The bundles of wheat were put into a high conveyor and fed into this stationary machine which was powered by a twisted wide leather belt to the PTO of a tractor. The straw was blown out of a long pipe onto a large heap. That is where I used to play making tunnels in the straw - until I was old enough to work, which was about age seven.

I started school at the age of five and went to two different one room schoolhouses for grades 1-6. Grades 1-3 we all walked to school year round in all kinds of weather - rain, snowdrifts (always took shortcut across the fields) some kids had to walk a couple miles - it never hurt us to do so. The school had six grades and the classes would rotate and I was learning all the upper-class students material. The teacher said she wanted to skip me a grade, but didn’t because I had started a year early. As a school project the teacher had us all write to companies that made food products and request empty containers. She built a little store in the back with a counter and shelves and each of us had a turn at being the storekeeper adding up the “customers” purchases and making change for same. The school was heated by a large round stove and potatoes were regularly baked in the landing inside of the furnace door. Guys would put live ammunition in the fire and enjoy the result. They also brought real guns to school and hid them out in the brush. One day one older boy brought a pistol into school and said he was going to shoot me - I cried, it was terrorizing because when you are a five year old child you tend to believe older people and you don’t know what the limits are. There were three out buildings, a coal shed and two outhouses. Back then people had more time it seemed and the big school social events of the year were the “Home and School League” meetings which happened two or three times in the school year. Christmas for example: All the parents and kids would meet at the school after hours and have a grand old time. The kids would draw names and exchange gifts. Everyone brought a ton of food. The whole group would sing Christmas Carols around the piano. The kids would put on a school play and dress up for the parts. Curtains were strung on the front stage. They would have a cakewalk - the place was jammed and there were fond memories of those casual days of yesteryear. An era also gone with the wind. In the fifties they pictured the future 1980’s as cities with bubbles around them to control the weather and cars flying around in the skies. People would only work three days a week and have plenty of leisure time on their hands. It was a utopian dream for sure - one that still awaits us in the future?

Entertainment was radio, records, and an occasional movie in the grade school years. Saw “Gone with the wind” in 1949 - took two nights as it was so long. It came out originally in 1938 I think. Come home from school and listen to all the radio shows in the evening all week long - great entertainment for sure as you have to use your imagination.

Well, that’s enough for today - sure brings back memories.

Larry II


Mc Cormick binder

Ice Box



Kerosene cooking stove




Frick Thrashing machine


Hand water pump

 

[Boanerges(Inactive)]

Very cool indeed Larry! I really enjoy those pictures!

 

[Jasher]

Old Time Radio MP3 - Source: OTRCAT (Public Domain)

Bing Crosby December 30th 1943 W/Cass Daley

Burns & Allen May 29th 1940 “Sweeping into Office”

Captain Midnight November 23 1939 Episode 28

Charlie Chan April 1951 “The case of the Marching Ants”

Cisco Kid July 14th 1953 “War at Oak Pass”

Bob Hope December 24th 1942 “Christmas Special”

Fibber Magee December 30th 1941 “Fix-it-Magee”

Gildersleeve October 31st 1943 “Halloween Party”

Glen Miller July 10th 1940 - Died on 12/15/44- plane crash

Gun smoke “The Imposter”

Inner Sanctum September 25th 1949 “Lonely Sleep”

Jack Benny February 1st 1948 Jack & Mary see Coleman’s Movie

Life of Riley January 3rd 1948 “Two dates for Junior”

Lone Ranger December 7th 1938 “The origin of Tonto”

Marx Brothers W/ Bing Crosby “Attorney at law”

Mel Blanc November 19th 1946 “The Astrologer”

Our Miss Brooks January 16th 1949 “Student Government Day”

Ozzie and Harriet “Randolph’s Party”

Tarzan December 20th 1951 “Congo Christmas”