A Day in the Life

[St. Louis]

As I've slowly migrated & retrofitted the bungalow back to the late 1930s, I've been thinking a great deal about how I would actually have lived back then. I ask because I've really enjoyed the whole experience, and in fact many of the retrofits have been quite beneficial (e.g., not replacing modern appliances, such as the microwave and my popcorn popper, once they've gone kaput.)

Yet I can't seem to find any books on the small details of daily life. So I thought I'd ask you fine people.

If you imagine a day in the life of a middle-class woman of the late 1930s, what would her ordinary tasks and chores look like? And how far would you go to reproduce them?

I'll start off with some of my own morning routines. I have a 1939 repop alarm clock, which I don't need b/c the cats wake me before the crack of dawn; then slip into a 1939 chenille bathrobe I made from an original pattern; brush teeth and so on (I use Pears soap but can't find period correct toothpaste ... !) Then I grind the coffee, though I try to remember to do that at night or ahead of time; percolate or drip it; toast a couple of slices of bread on a flap toaster; maybe boil an egg or cook some oatmeal. The breakfast is mostly cooked in period enamel or granite ware.

At this point, how do you cope with your daily hairdo? This always has me in a quandary, because I can't manage pin curls on a regular basis. I usually just shove a couple of combs in, pin up the back or roll it over a rat, and call it a day. Would 1930s / 1940s women have had an easier time of it because of permanents? Or did they roll up their hair every night?

Anyway, if you get my drift, how would the rest of your day go? Assume that you live in the mid-century and that you work either at home or out of the house.

The question that goes along with that, of course, is how much of the daily life of the era you can or want to reproduce. For example, I'm actually in the process of replacing containers & labels to at least mimic golden era brands, if I can't find ones that are still being produced. I just learned that Ipana toothpaste, for example, is only available in Turkey.

Your thoughts?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't know what a middle-class woman would do, because all the women I knew who lived in the thirties were working class. Their routine might have been different, but it would've gone something like this:

1. Wake up about 6 am to the clanging of a cheap wind-up alarm. Leaving boudior cap and hairnet in place, throw on old corduroy bathrobe and go immediately to kitchen and light the kerosene stove. This required pumping an oil valve, lifting a stovelid, and dropping a lit piece of newspaper into the hole, hoping it would catch the wick. If not, repeat until it does. If it's winter, go into the living room and repeat the process with the living room stove -- central heating was all but non-existent in Maine in the thirties.

2. Put the kettle or coffee pot on the stove, and while the stove heats, bring in the milk from the back porch. Check the ice in the icebox, and if it's low, put the ice card in the front window with the correct number -- 25, 50, 75, or 100 -- turned to face the top, denoting the size of the ice block wanted. Check the drip pan under the ice box, empty if needed. Let the cat in, feed her some of the cream from the milk.

3. Make breakfast. Scramble an egg or two or boil some cornmeal in salted water to make mush.

4. After breakfast, brush teeth and get dressed. If doing housework or going to factory job, tie hair up in headcloth, if going to office job, comb out.

5. If doing housework, do basic tasks -- making beds, doing dishes, sweeping, making up shopping lists, then follow weekly routine: Monday, washing and hanging out washing, Tuesday ironing, Wednesday mending, Thursday heavy cleaning, Friday shopping for non-perishable goods. Shopping for perishables is done daily, usually in the afternoon, and only enough is purchased for one day at a time -- an icebox doesn't keep things well. Saturday is devoted to miscellaneous chores, and Sunday is church in the morning and a family supper in the late afternoon.

6. If working at a a factory job, walk or carpool to job site. Workday -- assuming a day shift -- begins with the ringing of a bell or blowing of a whistle at 730 am. All employees must be at their workbenches when the bell sounds. The bell or whistle sounds again at noon for half an hour's unpaid lunch break. The signal sounds again at 12:30 and the workday continues until 5:30pm with no further breaks.

The lunch is generally carried to the factory in a dinnerpail or a brown paper bag. There is no employee kitchen or break room -- employees eat on benches on the factory floor or outdoors. By the late thirties, there may be a vending machine selling cold drinks, but otherwise you either bring a thermos containing your own beverage or drink from a paper cup filled at at a water cooler.

There is a half-day's work on Saturday, ending at noon, and the factory is closed on Sunday.

7. If working at an office job, the schedule is usually 8 am to 5pm with half an hour for lunch on weekdays, and a half-day from 8 to noon on Saturday. Lunch is usually eaten at a drugstore counter or a cheap "one arm" lunch room. Eating at your desk is not permitted.

8. When you return home, you prepare your supper -- usually something simple out of a can, unless you have children or a roommate to help with the cooking. After eating, do the dishes, read or listen to the radio for an hour or so, and then get ready for bed. Put the empty milk bottle out on the back doorstep with a note for the milkman. Check the icebox again and empty the pan. Hair rolled up under a hair net and boudoir cap, inexpensive cotton or rayon nightgown. Don't forget to turn down the stoves before shutting the house for the night, kerosene costs money. Sleep with a bedroom window open because fresh air is good for you.

9. If it's Saturday night, take a bath and wash your hair.

 

[St. Louis]

This is fantastic -- exactly what I was hoping to learn. Thank you! I suppose I was picturing my own life here, in a bungalow that would have had hot water, electricity, and gas for the stove. That would have been common in a city like St. Louis, which in those days was a fairly important metropolis. But in the thirties my farm-bred grandmother was cooking on a cast-iron stove which I believe she fed with wood or coals. I don't know how hard that would have been to light early in the morning. (She used it until at least the late 1960s.)

One reason this has all begun to interest me is that I've been gathering information about my neighborhood. Evidently there were little shops on most of the corners. Almost all of those little businesses have now been converted to private residences. I'm sure that the residents would have been able to walk to most of their errands. The fellow who fixes my fans told me that there would have been fan-repair or maintenance shops everywhere, for example. These steel fans needed to be oiled and maintained every year, and it was just part of everyday routine to take your fans in to be taken care of. So, on that free Saturday afternoon, maybe I'd have walked to the grocery store, the post office, and wherever else.

One other thing I've noticed in my neighborhood -- lots of concrete boxes in the back of most houses that I imagine would have been used for ashes? I've been wondering about that, because my neighborhood didn't exist before 1900; I think most of the houses were built about the same time as mine (1929.) Yet as far as I know, most of the houses around here don't really have functional fireplaces. Where would the ashes have accumulated? Or am I wrong about the concrete boxes? I can't picture them being used for trash. (Didn't people put their trash out in galvanized tin cans?)

 

[LizzieMaine]

If the concrete boxes look like this --

-- they'd be backyard garbage incinerators. Nothing fancy, just a fireproof shell to contain the trash and usually some kind of lid made of scrap metal to keep sparks from flying. Around here we used 55-gallon oil drums for the same purpose right up thru the '70s.

So far as electricty goes, it would have been common in city neighborhoods such as yours, but it was still common in small towns for there to be houses without power, and not just farms. My grandparents got electricity in 1941, and they lived in an in-town neighborhood.

Kerosene or coal stoves remained common here for heat into the seventies. My grandparents never had any other sort of heating system -- their house had a mud cellar, which wasn't suitable for any kind of a furnace -- and the place could be brutal on cold winter mornings. When it was really chilly out they'd leave the kitchen stove burning overnight, but the living room stove was always shut off, and since the heat traveled upstairs thru a grate in the ceiling, that part of the house was all but unlivable in the winter.

Ash disposal was a big issue for people who burned coal, either in a stove or in a furnace. Most houses with central heating in the thirties burned coal, which required regular ash disposal. The house I live in had small coal stoves in the kitchen, living room, and one of the upstairs bedrooms, and the ashes were simply raked out and dumped in the backyard -- as a result there are sections of my yard where, to this day, nothing grows but moss.

Neighborhoods, in both cities and small towns, were much more close-knit and territorial. You went to a neighborhood church, sent your kids to a neighborhood school, often worked at a neighborhood job, shopped in a neighborhood grocery store, went at night to a neighborhood theatre, and your overall life tended to be focused on the community of your neighborhood. Suburbia existed, but was far less influential than it would become during the fifties and onward.

 

[Stray Cat]

Put the kettle or coffee pot on the stove, and while the stove heats.

Exactly what I do - but I do wake up a bit earlier, around 5:30 AM.
There is no lighting up a fire, since the fire does not get lightened up until the rest of the family gets woken up. That means, if it's winter - "brave it out" (wearing a large sweater does the trick for me)

Let the cat in, feed her some of the cream from the milk.

Cats must be fed (but there's a rule "no cat indoors" - mom is allergic)

Make breakfast. Scramble an egg or two or boil some cornmeal in salted water to make mush.

Yes!
My breakfast. :nod:
Some days I have just plain oatmeal (I do put pepper in mine, it's spicier and freshens me up)
Some days, good old "mush" is my go-to food: tsp lard + tbsp flour, let sizzle, add 1 glass water and stir until thickened. Add salt, and when it's nearly done, throw in a egg. A meal made by many previous generations of my family.

After breakfast, brush teeth and get dressed. ...if going to office job, comb out.

Exactly.

If working at an office job, the schedule is usually 8 am to 5pm with half an hour for lunch on weekdays, and a half-day from 8 to noon on Saturday. Lunch is usually eaten at a drugstore counter or a cheap "one arm" lunch room. Eating at your desk is not permitted.

Walking to work (if it's winter - more vigorous the walk, less you feel the cold).
Work starts at 7:00 AM, and last until 3:00 PM.
Eating at desk is required, and the 30 minute break starts at 8:30. Most of folks nowadays have their breakfast then, and it's usually something from the bakery. But, if breakfast was taken at 6:00 AM, than at that time one takes her apples.

When you return home, you prepare your supper -- usually something simple out of a can, unless you have children or a roommate to help with the cooking. After eating, do the dishes, read or listen to the radio for an hour or so, and then get ready for bed. Put the empty milk bottle out on the back doorstep with a note for the milkman. Check the icebox again and empty the pan. Hair rolled up under a hair net and boudoir cap, inexpensive cotton or rayon nightgown. Don't forget to turn down the stoves before shutting the house for the night, kerosene costs money. Sleep with a bedroom window open because fresh air is good for you.

Now, there's the difference.
I have a "third party" cooking our meals (mother), therefore, after arrival: dinner, than into the garden for couple more hours of planting, pruning, seeding, weeding and/or watering.
Supper is at 18:30.
Reading a book, listening to the radio. Or, if feeling for it: watching a Pre-Code film. Usually, after a day of previous activities, film is out of the question, so letter-writing comes as second best.

Saturday: morning is for grocery shopping, then gardening, then cleaning the house. I not tired one may indulge herself by paying a visit to an acquittance (who fails to realize that there are people who can't stay up until 3:00 AM).

Sunday: rest (for those who attend - church sermon is in the morning)

...
What I've just written is the way my family lived 100 years ago, 50 years ago.. and today. Not much has changed, except: older members of the family tend to watch TV in the evening (and there's no knitting, due to my mother's poor eyesight)

 

[sheeplady]

This is fantastic -- exactly what I was hoping to learn. Thank you! I suppose I was picturing my own life here, in a bungalow that would have had hot water, electricity, and gas for the stove. That would have been common in a city like St. Louis, which in those days was a fairly important metropolis. But in the thirties my farm-bred grandmother was cooking on a cast-iron stove which I believe she fed with wood or coals. I don't know how hard that would have been to light early in the morning. (She used it until at least the late 1960s.)

She may have kept a low fire going because it would have been a source of hot water, so just stoking would have brought it back. Cook stoves have interesting engineering, because they are meant to be so multifaceted- oven, cooktop, heater, water warmer, breadwarmer, etc. They are designed to "hold" the coals for a long time so that cooking and baking (hot water heating, too) can take place over a long time.

On the other hand, if it died, people back then were experts at lighting fires. I grew up cooking for several years on wood heat in a farm house. I have a reputation of being able to start a fire with a wet stick as wood while in a down pour as a result. (I'm not quite that good, but I have lit many a fire that people thought was beyond help.)

 

[DecoDame]

Ready for a long one? Again, not urban or suburban or middle class, but pretty typical of country living though much of the period...

My family come from rural Kentucky, and my maternal grandparents (who I knew the best) were still living very near to how they lived in the 30s when I would visit as a child in the 60s and 70s (they started to “modernize” more by the 80s).

It was a fortunate glimpse of the Golden Age rural norm, as I would live that way of life when we would visit, so while it was novel compared to my Ohio suburban life, it’s not exotic or unimaginable to live like that. I loved it.

Ellis and Geneva were subsistence farmers in a holler (hollow between mountains) about 30 minutes east of Berea, Kentucky. They lived in a modest but solid single story with 2 bedrooms, living room and kitchen (and outhouse) that my Pap-pa didn’t build, but improved upon. It had a tin roof and I believe asphalt siding into the 60s. Linoleum floor. He always wore overalls with a dress shirt and work boots and a fedora. She wore print dresses, aprons and sensible shoes.

My memory of how their day went: Both would both wake well before dawn (no alarms needed that I recall). Pap-pa would head for the barn to milk their cows and let the chickens out of their coop and check the other livestock while Mam-ma would stoke the pot belly stove in the living room (when cold outside) and get the wood cook stove in the kitchen going again (for warmth if cold, and for cooking either way).

She made a big breakfast: Eggs, homemade gravy, sausage or other pork, “drop” biscuits made every morning (from “Martha White” flour) or cornbread, fried apples (just what it sounds like: sliced apples cooked down in a cast iron skillet till soft), buttermilk, coffee and butter and molasses for the biscuits. No juice, no cereal.

Pap-pa would come back in from his morning chores and they (and we) would all eat breakfast.

Mam-ma had really long hair (I rarely saw it down, but it was at least waist length). She would make 2 long side braids and then pile it on the top of her head and pin it down. Looking back it reminds me of German braids (though they were Scots/Irish, English mostly). She didn’t fuss with it, but was proud of its length. There was a small medicine cabinet and mirror in a kitchen corner that Pap-pa would shave by with a basin.

When it was cold out, they would have **** pots (chamber pots) that would be emptied in the mornings by tossing its contents in the grassy part of the yard off the back porch. That saved a chilly walk to the outhouse overnight, which was about 75 feet away from the house (a two seater which was fine to use – toilet paper, no sears roebuck - but would be a haven for mud dobbers (wasps) and I always hated dodging them. They were mean.

They had only well water early on and we kids loved the job of fetching it. We’d take 2 white enameled pails up the small hill to the well. That was a 6” pipe into the ground with cover/lid on it. Over it was a small roof on posts and and pulley system under it’s rafters that held a long galvanized “well bucket” (Lehman’s still sells them). It was just a long silver pipe and the bottom would open to fill with water and close when you pulled it back up. We’d haul it up the pulley and position it over the pail and work the lever on top and it would come gushing out to into the pail. We thought it was a gas. You could peer down the pipe and see the reflection of the water about 12 feet down and hear the echo if you shouted down it. The filled buckets would sit on the kitchen counter with an enameled ladle that you used to take a drink. Still the best water I’ve ever tasted.

We also got to take kitchen scraps and cracked corn out to the chickens. We were good free labor while we were there. lol

What my grandparents did during the day would vary according to season. But Mam-ma would work the vegetable garden near the house while Pap-pa would tend to the cash crop (tobacco) on the lower sides of the surrounding hill. He worked a team of 2 large mules (which we weren’t allowed near) to plow, well into the early 80s. The mules grazed the grassy hillsides when not employed.

Besides the usual daily making of beds (with chenille bed spreads), cleaning house, washing dishes (with water heated on the wood stove), Mam-ma would sew, wash clothes (manual washer on back porch) or can foods, quilt or crochet, or make butter (she used a tall wooden churn that she would sit between her legs and sing a song to keep time and amuse herself. Her lower arms were like a steelworkers!). They had a refrigerator by then.

Pap-pa would tend to the tobacco, make repairs and maintain the out buildings. He had a smoke house, corn crib (up on large stilts to deter rodents), a tobacco barn that also housed his flat bed truck and garden tools, a root cellar and the stall barn (for the mules and cows). They had a pig or two in the 60s and he had some Coon Dogs until the late 70s. The farm was well tended and organized. They took a lot of pride in how they kept it up and anyone who was a lay-about in the community was looked down upon. A good work ethic was highly valued.

At mid-day they would have dinner (lunch). I don’t remember it being large, though. It was usually leftovers from breakfast. Biscuits with molasses. Cornbread broken up into a glass of buttermilk.

Supper (dinner) in the evening would be chicken or pork, veg all from the garden, fresh if in season or canned otherwise, beans – green or shucked (dried), corn, tomatoes, cornbread, milk, homemade pie if we were lucky.

They would take surplus of eggs and such to a small market in the nearest town. They would barter with their neighbors for things they didn’t raise. What little cash was generated was spent on clothes and staples (flour, sugar, coffee) and taxes/electricity. Everything else they made or grew or did without.

They had a party line phone well into the late 70s. They had electricity in the 60s but still liked to use kerosene lamps for supplemental lights, especially at night before bed. I don’t remember them listening to the radio during the day (just the Opry at night) and they had a b/w TV and later on Mam-ma would have some Soaps on while she worked, but early on I don’t remember it being on till evening for a few hours after dinner. TV definitely affected their sleep even then, keeping them up much later than they would have before. I remember them liking Johnny Carson’s monologues.

Their life had a distinct resemblance to the Waltons, actually, minus the TV, which is why it was one of our family’s favorite shows growing up.

It was a busy often physically demanding life, but they had time to rest and sit on the porch and rock and watch the pines across the road sway and visits with extended family and friends and they had support. They were loath to ask for help, but knew if they did people would be there without fail. They were religious in a quiet way (an infamously popular portrait of Jesus was on the wall) and family bible on the LR table, but they didn’t preach. Neither went to church much - a bit of a distance away and too busy - until Pap-pa got older and worked less and he actually had time to spare.

If anyone is interested further, a good book reference to this way of life is “Food and Everyday Life on Kentucky Family Farms 1920-1950” by John Van Willigen and Anne Van Willegan.

As to what I’m bringing into my own life? Some of it’s superficial perhaps: Metal bed with chenille spreads, enameled water buckets and pails, cast iron cookware. But I hope to also bring in that self sufficiency into my life. Cut out the middle man of going to a job to make money to buy food and instead raise as much of it as I can directly. We’re working on having a productive cottage garden and plan on having chickens as well soon. And I want to learn to lay up (can) food, a skill that got lost between my Mom and me. We capture and filter rain water (I can bring in drinking water in an enameled pail once again). And hardest so far is getting back into the early morning/early evening cycle, but I want that too. I’ve become an urban modern sleep deprived “night owl” and it makes me very unhappy, despite how entrenched a habit it has become. And (ironically) I also want to curb my tech use. It tends to suck time better spent and it makes me jittery like I’m too caffeinated.

Thanks for giving me an excuse to reminisce.

 

[sheeplady]

Ready for a long one? Again, not urban or suburban or middle class, but pretty typical of country living though much of the period...

This was great. It reminded me a lot of my childhood. We didn't have a septic, running water, or an electric stove for periods of time.

As far as resetting your clock- getting rid of electronics and electric helps. Let the house get dark naturally. You'll find yourself sleepy at the right time. A few days of no lights, no TV, and no cell phone in the evening will totally reset you- you'll be up and down the sun. Unfortunately, if you start using them again you'll find you drift back to old habits. But it is good as a reset every once in awhile.

 

[Barbigirl]

Very intriguing thread, I am enjoying the details very much. It turns out growing up in the 70's in southern CA and Nevada was much more modern and similar to today. I'm not sorry I never experienced out houses an every day way of life but I know my Dad did in rural Ohio.

 

[Stray Cat]

First off: wonderful post, DecoDame! :thumb:

They had a party line phone well into the late 70s. They had electricity in the 60s but still liked to use kerosene lamps for supplemental lights, especially at night before bed. I don’t remember them listening to the radio during the day .

Mine also didn't manage to get electricity for quite some time after WWII, and TV was not needed. But, Grandpa loved the radio. I remember him turning up the volume so he can hear it outside, in the yard - he loved listening the football games.

But I hope to also bring in that self sufficiency into my life. Cut out the middle man of going to a job to make money to buy food and instead raise as much of it as I can directly. We’re working on having a productive cottage garden and plan on having chickens as well soon. And I want to learn to lay up (can) food, a skill that got lost between my Mom and me. We capture and filter rain water (I can bring in drinking water in an enameled pail once again).

Amazing plan!
We do most of what you have listed, and it was always our family way "to be self-sufficient" in order to be safe (in case who-knows-what happens)
Rain water is used for watering the plants (and I must say, we save money, lot of money, that way).
Poultry is a great thing - not only that you know your eggs are safe and fresh, but you can also feed the chicks with the food you mix yourself, so you can give your family a decent chicken-meat. :nod:

 

[DecoDame]

Thanks, ladies. It's nice to share that story with people who can appreciate it. Usually I get looks of horror. "No bathroom?! No running water?! No wifi?!" lol

I'm grateful it has made me aware of how much we can get along without, without panicking. Several hours without power seems to freak our neighbors out. They're appalled as it is, that we just use fans in the summer instead of putting ourselves on ice all season with the A/C (I can't stand that anymore).

I always say, Stray Cat, that if things go south, I know how to fish and I have experience skinning a squirrel, so we won't starve. Life skills to keep on living. Short of a zombie apocalypse, I know we'll be okay, or at least won't be helpless.

Sheeplady, I've had those same thoughts about resetting our internal clocks. I'm trying to at least cut out any computer time after dark. It seems to mess me up the most. During the winter we had a plan to bring out and only use my grandmother's keresone lights after dark, or candles. It was great and very soothing. But after-dark obligations got us off track and we never got back on. We don't really use our clunker TV with no cable (by design) and no cell after work, so we're ahead of the game there. Our achilles heel is watching movies with our projector, but it still doesn't seem to bother us as much as the other electronics, just keeps us up later than we should. Reminds me tho, of that book by Jerry Mander "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" and where he talks about the light of the TV going directly into your eyes, as opposed to the projector lit from behind you, and what a difference that makes.

Oh, something else Golden Age I'm bringing back into our daily lives: We've gotten a reel mower to use instead of a gas powered. That's a work out! Sometimes the lawn looks like it's gotten a bad haircut, but now those perfectly sheered to 1" lawns look unreal to me.

And we used our wood stove for the majority of heat last year. What a difference. It warms you right through to the bone. But our gas blown furnace just makes me feel colder somehow (and certainly more dried out).

 

[St. Louis]

These stories and details are really wonderful. When I was growing up I lived with my grandmother for a few years; she only had electricity and cold running water in her kitchen, and nowhere else in the house. I don't recall ever being bothered by any of it. She had a radio, but she rarely turned it on--though my uncles listened to their news and music. After I grew up and left, the house was modernized quite a bit, but just didn't have the same charm for me.

One thing we still do in this neighborhood: on summer evenings, many of my neighbors sit out on their porches and wave to each other. Sometimes I'll go for walks with neighbors and their dogs. I'm also very grateful that all the backyards are so tiny that no one needs to use one of those horrendously loud leafblowers in the autumn. Most of my neighbors do use rotary mowers, thank goodness.

 

[Stray Cat]

Short of a zombie apocalypse, I know we'll be okay, or at least won't be helpless.

Ah, yes!
Some folk like to joke around and say:2 don't worry about Zombies, we'll handle that". Some basic knowledge are not to be forgotten: making soap, preserving meat and fruit, building a shelter...

Tone of those horrendously loud leafblowers

Damn those! :rage:
They tend to interrupt the nicest day.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I use Nature's Leafblower -- the wind. It blows all the leaves up against the side of the house, where they form natural insulation for the cellar thru the winter.

The people who bought my grandparents' house in the '80s completely remuddled it -- and they demolished the old henhouse and cut down the apple tree in the backyard. I've not been inside since all this was done, but my mother was invited in to look at it not long ago, and was deeply traumatized. All the dark-stained woodwork and wallpaper was gone, the kerosene stoves were gone, the interior doors were gone, and everything was replaced by stark, ugly white. She cried for two days after seeing all that.

 

[Stray Cat]

She cried for two days after seeing all that.

I believe I would act the same way - since I've never left this home of mine. What would it be like; leaving and then coming back to see Someone Else living im home that is no longer mine.. and does not look like it. Yup, I'd surely weep. :nod:

 

[DecoDame]

I'm happy to rake the leaves for precious compost, noise free. But yeah, never fails that someone within hearing range cranks up some kind of motor just as we settle on the porch to listen to birds and breeze.

Remuddles are one of the saddest things around. I know our home is more reproduction than restoration, since it was a hollow shell when purchased, but we've used salvaged and rescued materials (real, solid doors for instance). I've said numerous times: If whoever buys this joint after we're compost puts in flimsy hollow doors and granite top and stainless steel, I'm definitely haunting their ***es.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I believe I would act the same way - since I've never left this home of mine. What would it be like; leaving and then coming back to see Someone Else living im home that is no longer mine.. and does not look like it. Yup, I'd surely weep. :nod:

I wouldn't go in and look even if they invited me -- it's hard enough just to drive by there. I spent the happiest times of my childhood in that house, and I can close my eyes and see every chip and scratch and smell the kerosene and hear the way the toilet groaned. As far as I'm concerned it still exists exactly as I remember it, and actually going inside would take that away from me. No thanks.

 

[St. Louis]

Well, there you go. That's exactly why I'm so interested in recreating a day in the life of a 1930s or 1940s woman. It's not that I lived during those decades, but those are, to my mind, the last decades when things were made of natural materials--and I count bakelite & lucite in that category. I'm not so much talking about the sleek art moderne or art deco designs, but rather the older revivals or craftsman styles. As sheeplady suggested earlier, I really have discovered a more natural rhythm to the day and a slower pace since I stopped replacing my modern appliances (which break or self-destruct with amazing alacrity) and have quit bringing plastic or stylish crap into my house.

I don't think I've even seen the inside of a shopping mall more than twice in the past four or five years. Don't miss it. I've stopped worrying about modern fashions (they'd look stupid on me anyway) and refuse to get involved with modern fashion magazine-engendered self-loathing.

I'm not bragging in the least, I'm just reporting on the success of my experiment.

The one thing (obviously) I haven't given up is my computer, but I think it is possible to stay reasonable with that.

One other thing I might mention, back to the topic at hand: I was weeding out in the garden today & wearing a 1930s cotton dress. It was so much more comfy than jeans or sweats, because I didn't drag the hems in the mud & was able to bend over without giving the neighbors a show.

 

[sheeplady]

Well, there you go. That's exactly why I'm so interested in recreating a day in the life of a 1930s or 1940s woman. It's not that I lived during those decades, but those are, to my mind, the last decades when things were made of natural materials--and I count bakelite & lucite in that category. I'm not so much talking about the sleek art moderne or art deco designs, but rather the older revivals or craftsman styles. As sheeplady suggested earlier, I really have discovered a more natural rhythm to the day and a slower pace since I stopped replacing my modern appliances (which break or self-destruct with amazing alacrity) and have quit bringing plastic or stylish crap into my house.

We live very close to a Target- we're talking I can walk there in 20 minutes and drive there in under 5. I was talking to someone and they mentioned that they were jealous we live so close and could walk there because they go to target every week.

I don't think I've been in a Target since last year.

Unless you get your groceries there, how can you go to a target once a week? Why would you ever do that?

I actually need to go to buy my daughter a bike helmet, but since I am never in there, I have been putting it off.

(Target is a low to mid-level department store that has a small grocery, pharmacy, etc.)

 

[Stray Cat]

I spent the happiest times of my childhood in that house

True. :nod:
I have spent my entire life (so far) over here. That's almost half of a human lifetime. Everything I can remember has a place in my home. No, I could not manage to come back and see others (non-family members).. :nono:

I really have discovered a more natural rhythm to the day and a slower pace

That is what I'm most grateful for: my parents have decided to keep the "old" lifestyle, and I have grown up surrounded by much more serenity than majority of my generation.

I've stopped worrying about modern fashions ... and refuse to get involved with modern fashion magazine-engendered self-loathing.

:thumb:
I have no idea what's "modern" today. I have been asked by my mom "Is that modern?" when she sees me in my wardrobe. What to say, other than "I don't know".

I don't think I've been in a Target since last year.
Unless you get your groceries there, how can you go to a target once a week? Why would you ever do that?
(Target is a low to mid-level department store that has a small grocery, pharmacy, etc.)

Thank you for the explanation (I do know what "Target" is, since I've seen it's website while ago) - that thing we don't have here (yet).
We do have those *grand* shopping-malls, non in my town, since it's way to small of it (and I'm eternally grateful for that fact). I do have a friend, just like yourself, who loves strolling in the mall. Personally, I find it useless; strolling is much better done in nature: clear air, great colors, maybe even some flowers to pick and decorate the sitting room.