July 2006
Dear Friends,
I’ve had many requests for a print version of my Online Letters. I’m pleased to announce the first volume of Laurie’s Online Letters is ready! This 38-page book contains the first year and a half of Online Letters from June 2004 – December 2005. I’ve added a handy index so you can easily find recipes, household tips, etc. Lovely teacups grace the pages and a ribbon marker is attached to help you keep your place.
Click here for more information.
Be sure to get the recipe for
Frozen Chocolate Bananas posted on our new
Discount Cookbooks page. Here you’ll find my cookbook reviews with a link to purchase them at a discount. In a few weeks I will review Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls – a real classic from 1957. It was my first cookbook as a child and I have many fond memories of learning to cook from that book. I was delighted to find that Betty Crocker has reissued the book, exactly as it appeared in 1957. What a special gift it was for our granddaughter’s 5th birthday this year.
Last summer I wrote about
growing up during the 1950’s and shared some of the things children did then in the age before computers and video games. Many of you told me how much you enjoyed that Online Letter and wanted to hear more about growing up “back then.”
This time, we’ll go back even farther to the
early 1900’s. I asked my wonderful
94 year old mother-in-law what children did for fun in “her day” and what life was like when she was a girl. I was fascinated and I think you will be, too.
Born in 1911, she had one older sister and six brothers.
“One of my favorite things to do with my girlfriend was to cut pictures out of the Sears catalog and make paper dolls. We cut out a picture of a person and then backed it with cardboard and those were our dolls. Then we’d cut out pictures of clothes and pin them to the dolls we made. We enjoyed dressing the dolls with the clothes we had cut out.
“We also cut out pictures of rooms and furniture and made an entire house. We spread everything out on the stairs in our house. Whenever someone wanted to come upstairs, we’d have to move over because we had blocked the way.
“We made our own fun; it did not cost a dime to make our dolls and doll house. One day we’d play at our house, and then the next day we’d go to my friend’s house.
“There was a Sears catalog in our two-seater outhouse, too, because we didn’t have toilet paper.
“Besides the paper dolls I made, I had one real doll that one of my mother’s friends brought back for me from Europe. I was 5 years old and I remember that doll very well. I took very good care of it and took the doll on the trolley one time to visit my mother’s friend. I sewed clothes for the doll and my mother helped me. I enjoyed playing with my doll and pretending to be a housewife.
“My mother had a Singer treadle sewing machine. Mother made all of our clothes, sometimes from hand-me-downs. She would remake them to fit us. And she made clothes for my doll, too. We did not have patterns like we do now. We had one generic pattern that could be made into a coat, or a dress, but you had to adapt it for what you wanted to make.
“My mother would go to fashion shows and sketch the clothes, then come home and make them. Someone had given us a horse skin and my mother made a coat out of it for me. But it was too stiff to wear, so she made the top of the coat out of wool and put the horse hair “fur” on the bottom. She made a coat for me and one for my sister.
“Outdoors, we played tag, and hopscotch and jumped rope a lot. We picked fruit and climbed up the trees just like the boys. But there were no bikes for girls. Bikes were for boys, not girls. We walked. Once in the while I’d ride one of my brother’s bikes when they let me.
“Everyone had a garden and each of us had a small plot in our garden. We grew cucumbers, carrots and I had one tomato plant. My brothers did a lot of the gardening because mother didn’t have time to do much of it.
“She was very busy; there was a lot of work to do for a large family. Doing the laundry was no picnic! The two laundry tubs that were kept in the cellar were brought up to the kitchen on laundry day. We had running water but only cold water. So mother heated water on the woodstove and poured that into the washtub. She shaved pieces from a bar of Fels Naptha soap and scrubbed all of the clothes on a washboard, wrung them out, rinsed them and wrung them again, and then hung them out to dry.
“Of course, there were no disposable diapers then nor were there any sanitary napkins. Mother bought strips of flannel for us to use and I think she must have been glad she only had two daughters! We rinsed out the flannel strips and put them in a bucket mother kept in the bathroom for that purpose. Then on washday she washed them.
“My household job was to dust all the woodwork once a week – the baseboards and all that. My sister had to dust all the furniture.
“In the summer, we’d have watermelons for a treat. We never got any candy. We made homemade ice cream though. The milkman came every day except Sunday and delivered our milk.”
(This was still true in the 1950’s and many homes built before 1960 still have milk chutes, although most have been nailed shut. A small door opened from inside the
house and there was a door on the outside as well. We rinsed out the glass milk bottles and put them in the chute for the milkman to pick up the next day. He left our order for milk, cream, butter and some other dairy products. Because he started his route by
4:30 every morning, the milk was in the chute in time for breakfast every day. Our family had a standing order, so he knew how many bottles to leave. If we needed anything else, we’d leave a note. Sometimes in the Wisconsin winter, the milk would freeze and rise out of the top of the milk bottle, pushing the frozen milk several inches out the top! I don’t remember anyone buying their milk in a store. The milk had a thick layer of cream on top that could be poured off and used for whipping cream.)
“We did make fudge. My sister would invite her girlfriends and about six boys from the nearby boarding school to our house on a Sunday afternoon and they’d make fudge. One time they forgot to butter the platter. They poured the fudge into the platter and when it cooled, it stuck and they could not get it off. So they broke the platter to get the fudge off! It was an English china platter and my mother was really angry about that!
“We had a piano so someone would play and everyone would dance the Charleston. My father went down in the basement. He said he had to watch the pipes to be sure they didn’t break from all the dancing upstairs! I wasn’t allowed to mix with that bunch; they were older than me. I just watched. The boys had to return to the Catholic boarding school by 4:30 or 5 o’clock so they would be back in time for Vespers.
“During the school year we didn’t have much time to play. I had to be at school at 7:30 to practice piano for half an hour every day until 8 o’clock. Then school went until 4:00 and we walked home. When we got home, we had homework to do. One of my mother’s brothers usually lived with us and he’d help us with our homework and check it. He’d mark it with a red pencil and then we’d have to do it all over again.
“From 7th grade on, I did a lot of babysitting for 15 cents an hour. I gave the money to my mother who would give me some for spending money and keep the rest. When I needed clothes we would go to buy some fabric and I’d pay for it from my babysitting money. I wanted to buy some nail polish but my mother would not allow it because she said I was too young for that sort of thing. I used the money to go to the movies with my sister on a Saturday; it cost 10 cents each. I would buy popcorn and if I had an extra dime, I took the trolley. There were not many cars around in those days so we had to walk everywhere, or take a trolley when we had the money. No one was overweight!
“The whole family walked to church every Sunday. It was a long way from our house. Mother was very strict; we could make no noise in church. We had to sit still and be quiet. The Mass was in Latin then so I didn’t understand much of it. The sermon was in French because we were in a French parish. We spoke French at home.
“My father was very strict, too. Once a year he would call each of us kids to him and we had to confess everything we had done wrong that year. Then he would give each of us his blessing.
“My dad cut leather for shoes in a shoe factory. He brought home shoe samples and they were always size 4B. I needed a size 5 shoe, but I wore 4B for a long time because that’s what he had and we didn’t have much money. Everyone learned to make do with what they had.
“At the dinner table everyone had an opportunity to say something. I had to raise my hand to talk. If there was anything we needed to ask mom or dad, this was the time to do it because during the day they were busy and we did not disturb them. So, at dinner, we each had a turn. It might be to ask if we could go to the show with someone, or that sort of thing, but we could ask anything. We had a big family dinner every night with 8 kids plus the adults (often including one of my uncles). But when company came, the kids were not allowed to talk!”
* * * *
My, my, how times have changed! One of the things my mother-in-law laments is that most mothers are not at home today to supervise their children. She has seen many changes over 94 years, lived through the Depression and two World Wars, and raised six boys, one of whom I am blessed to have as my husband. But the biggest problem she sees facing society today is the lack of mothers at home. She worked outside the home before marriage and then not until after her youngest left for college. Mothers, never underestimate the importance of your role at home!
Sometimes I know the laundry seems endless, the meals get eaten in a snap, and the housework never seems to end. Well, ladies, at least we are not scrubbing diapers on a washboard in a tub, or cooking dinner for ten every night over a woodstove! We have so much to be thankful for. As my mother-in-law always reminds me, “Count your blessings, dear.” Wise advice!
Until next time ~
Copyright, 2006, Laurie Latour.
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