In
1949, my parents moved into a house in Northern Indiana with my two older sisters. Mom and Dad were raised during the Great Depression, but reached adulthood during World War II. They grew up hard and they grew up fast. That pretty much explains THEIR generation!
Our house was a teeny, one story, two bedroom, house. A breezeway connected the house to a one car garage. I was born in 1951. When my brother Freddy came along in 1955 the breezeway was converted to a third bedroom for the three girls. There was no dining room, all action took place in the kitchen. The living room was not sacrosanct, the house being too small for a show room. Showy front rooms were for rich people who somehow managed to produce well-mannered children! How did they do that, by the way? We lived loud and large in our living room, with the large wooden TV cabinet serving as focal point.
Our street was located in a newly constructed housing development filled with identical “starter” homes. Scads of similar neighborhoods were quickly built after WWII to accommodate returning veterans and their families. Everyone on the block was like us; traditional families headed by hard drinking, blue-collar workingmen with religious homemaker wives and lots of sugar charged children, all approximately the same ages.
The 1950's were a great time to be a child. Since houses were too small for adventure, our mothers made us play outside. A lot. We ran hog wild when we were home from school. No one worried about pedophiles or creepy predators. Our mothers did not shuttle us to extracurricular activities, our "schedules" were wide open. We came and went as we pleased, and the world was our playground.
I am not one of those people who thinks "the old ways" are a superior child raising strategy to today's helicopter parenting, it was just historically different. Benign neglect in our formative years may explain my generation's subsequent hijinks. Our war traumatized parents were so busy drinking, smoking, and trying to approximate normal that they hardly noticed us baby boomers were sentient beings. Little did they know we were plotting to take over the world.
I cannot remember any of the families on the block having more than one car. If the mother needed the car she drove the father back and forth to work, otherwise she stayed home. Protestant kids walked to the nearest school. The Catholic kids took a city bus back and forth en masse. I remember it cost a dime each way.
Our house was heated by a large coal burning furnace located in the basement. It was a big, potbellied, fire-breathing monstrosity. I was convinced it was the Devil. Once a year the coal man would come to the house and drop enough coal down the “chute” into the basement coal bin to get us through the winter. Now THAT was a lively racket! It was exciting for us children when the coal man came. The whole process was loud, dirty, and disruptive of normal routine - all excellent things to a child.
Families did not need a second car because industry came to us. We had an egg man who brought us eggs, a milk man who left dairy products outside the front door, and a bread delivery man. The Fuller Brush man supplied us with interesting things like carbolic salve, my mother’s go-to healing potion. The insurance man came to the house to update policies, and the Avon Lady was often calling with her cute little lipstick samples. I REALLY wanted those but Mom wouldn't share. Once a year a traveling photographer arrived to take family photos in our house.
We had a mailman and a paperboy. Except for the Avon Lady, all these salespeople were men. The mailman walked from porch to porch carrying a big brown satchel filled with mail. He usually had the same route for years, so families knew their mailman by name. In those days before credit cards, the paperboy stopped by his customer's houses weekly to collect cash payments. It always embarrassed me to answer the knock and find the paper boy staring at me from the other side of the door. Aack, a young boy at the door wanting money! I wouldn’t speak to him and he certainly didn't speak to me. I would yell “Ma, the paper boy is here!” and then leave him standing outside while I made a quick getaway.
Kid World was a separate society. Adults were weird, except for grandparents who took us to the Dairy Queen for a phosphate or a Dilly Bar. Grandparents were okay. They knew we were sentient and they thought we were cute.
This house still exists, though quite a bit worse for wear. I often wonder if there is any trace to be found of the original occupants?
What was the first house you can remember living in?
Our house was a teeny, one story, two bedroom, house. A breezeway connected the house to a one car garage. I was born in 1951. When my brother Freddy came along in 1955 the breezeway was converted to a third bedroom for the three girls. There was no dining room, all action took place in the kitchen. The living room was not sacrosanct, the house being too small for a show room. Showy front rooms were for rich people who somehow managed to produce well-mannered children! How did they do that, by the way? We lived loud and large in our living room, with the large wooden TV cabinet serving as focal point.
Our street was located in a newly constructed housing development filled with identical “starter” homes. Scads of similar neighborhoods were quickly built after WWII to accommodate returning veterans and their families. Everyone on the block was like us; traditional families headed by hard drinking, blue-collar workingmen with religious homemaker wives and lots of sugar charged children, all approximately the same ages.
The 1950's were a great time to be a child. Since houses were too small for adventure, our mothers made us play outside. A lot. We ran hog wild when we were home from school. No one worried about pedophiles or creepy predators. Our mothers did not shuttle us to extracurricular activities, our "schedules" were wide open. We came and went as we pleased, and the world was our playground.
I am not one of those people who thinks "the old ways" are a superior child raising strategy to today's helicopter parenting, it was just historically different. Benign neglect in our formative years may explain my generation's subsequent hijinks. Our war traumatized parents were so busy drinking, smoking, and trying to approximate normal that they hardly noticed us baby boomers were sentient beings. Little did they know we were plotting to take over the world.
I cannot remember any of the families on the block having more than one car. If the mother needed the car she drove the father back and forth to work, otherwise she stayed home. Protestant kids walked to the nearest school. The Catholic kids took a city bus back and forth en masse. I remember it cost a dime each way.
Our house was heated by a large coal burning furnace located in the basement. It was a big, potbellied, fire-breathing monstrosity. I was convinced it was the Devil. Once a year the coal man would come to the house and drop enough coal down the “chute” into the basement coal bin to get us through the winter. Now THAT was a lively racket! It was exciting for us children when the coal man came. The whole process was loud, dirty, and disruptive of normal routine - all excellent things to a child.
Families did not need a second car because industry came to us. We had an egg man who brought us eggs, a milk man who left dairy products outside the front door, and a bread delivery man. The Fuller Brush man supplied us with interesting things like carbolic salve, my mother’s go-to healing potion. The insurance man came to the house to update policies, and the Avon Lady was often calling with her cute little lipstick samples. I REALLY wanted those but Mom wouldn't share. Once a year a traveling photographer arrived to take family photos in our house.
We had a mailman and a paperboy. Except for the Avon Lady, all these salespeople were men. The mailman walked from porch to porch carrying a big brown satchel filled with mail. He usually had the same route for years, so families knew their mailman by name. In those days before credit cards, the paperboy stopped by his customer's houses weekly to collect cash payments. It always embarrassed me to answer the knock and find the paper boy staring at me from the other side of the door. Aack, a young boy at the door wanting money! I wouldn’t speak to him and he certainly didn't speak to me. I would yell “Ma, the paper boy is here!” and then leave him standing outside while I made a quick getaway.
Kid World was a separate society. Adults were weird, except for grandparents who took us to the Dairy Queen for a phosphate or a Dilly Bar. Grandparents were okay. They knew we were sentient and they thought we were cute.
This house still exists, though quite a bit worse for wear. I often wonder if there is any trace to be found of the original occupants?
What was the first house you can remember living in?
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| My first home, circa 1958 |
I was thinking, just yesterday, of how sad my childhood home has become, slipping down and down the scale of blue collar. The neighborhood now values gun possession over college funds. But in my childhood it was all you describe. My house came from a Sears catalog, after the turn of that century, and my parents bought it from the widow of the man who built it. My dad enclosed the front porch to accommodate a growing family. We grew up outside, or in the living room, sitting around the radio, waiting for The Long Ranger (until we realized it was "Lone"). Bedtime was eight all year round, with some treat late nights in the summer. We really functioned as independent units within the confines of parental expectations.
ReplyDeleteGreat memories. I know those Sears catalog kit houses - my maternal grandparents bought and built one in 1925. I LOVE them. Those grandparents had a dining room! The "Long Ranger," Ha! I'm younger than you by a few years, so I was more TV than radio. I would love to hear more about your youth in the radio years.
DeleteWe had a dining room, too, with a bay window and a window seat where my dad overwintered his geraniums. Barely brush a geranium leaf and they release a stench. I hate geraniums to this day, and have never grown one.
Delete".... trying to approximate normal that they hardly noticed us baby boomers were sentient beings. Little did they know we were plotting to take over the world."
ReplyDeleteSo true (-:
The first home I remember was an apartment in San Mateo, California, where we lived until I was 4 years old and my middle sister was 3 years old. I believe we lived on the second floor because I remember my father carrying me up the stairs when I pretended to be asleep one night.
The apartments are still there. Here's a photo:
http://archives.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=119923
Thank you for writing about your first home and memories. I was born in 1949. My middle sister was born in 1951 and my youngest sister in 1954.
697 units! Wow. I loved to pretend I was asleep so my Dad would carry me into the house. My 4 year old grandson does that now. It never fails to make me smile.
DeleteWhat a fantastic post! We had the milk man too and the paper boy. My brother was one and I remember folding the papers with him and how disappointed he would be if he went to collect the money at the end of the week and the people said "come back next week". The Avon lady, the Fuller brush man (my mother always bought some tiny plastic kitchen utensil from him because she felt sorry for him - even though sometimes we didn't have much money for food) and the World Book Encyclopedia man. I was so jealous when a neighbor got one, you bought them by the volume.
ReplyDeleteOur first house was a log cabin and I remember my father and uncle putting up a huge antenna in the backyard so that we could watch the Ed Sullivan show and Edward R. Murrow show. I remember laying in the front yard under a big red umbrella and trying to pick out rabbits and birds in the cloud formations. I remember us 4 kids laying on the floor in our pajamas listening to the radio at Christmas time, waiting for Santa to come on and say our names because we had sent a letter to him.
It looks like a crack house now, very sad and dilapidated. But the memories stay. Thanks for reminding me.
My mother bought our encyclopedia one volume at a time, but at the grocery store. It was a Funk and Wagnalls. I did the same thing years ago. I only got rid of them when we moved.
DeleteGreat post! I kept thinking of US tv series we watched in the 1960s, from alien mysterious country where everything is possible.
ReplyDeleteIt made me remember lots of stuff last night while I couldn't go to sleep (because the neighbour across the street sat on his balcony skyping to someone foreign until 2 am). Now I think I must write it all down somehow.
Wish you would, I'd love to read what you were thinking about.
DeleteI am not sure how I found your blog but I really enjoyed reading your memories and the comments. I did not know Avon was already known then, and I have never heard of a “phosphate” – does not sound too good. Since you asked – I was born in 1940 and until 4 years old lived in Provence with my grand-parents who had come down from Paris because of the war (my mother was working and my father had been battle injured.) Then when my father got out of hospital we lived in a 6-floor up apartment in Paris, near Montmartre. I still remember going down the stairs at night in the dark (with my dog-toy and our real pet dog) when there were alerts that German planes were coming over Paris. It was noisy and scary. We had to keep all the windows totally dark at night (but the Gestapo did come in once.) My father had a car, but it was in a garage, to be used only on week-ends, we used the bus or the metro in Paris. We had no TV until I was 13 years old, but we listened to the radio. It is not the same as your memories.
ReplyDeleteNo, not the same. Thrilling to hear about, though. These are the stories that need to be shared. I look forward to perusing your blog.
DeleteMy memories are pretty much the same (my dad smoked, but my mom did not). I grew up in the house my grandfather built in NY, but in 1959, we moved to Levittown, PA where we had our beautiful 1000 sq.ft. dream house. We were all given freedom to run around and play without supervision and to make mistakes and learn from them. We were always aware that the worst thing we could do was to disrespect our parents or elders. Then we turned 18 and we were expected to be and act like adults. Most of us succeeded.
ReplyDeleteGood point, 18 was that magic age when you were expected to start your own life. It seems so young now, but we managed. So that my Mom's ghost won't haunt me, I should say I was speaking generally about the smoking and drinking. My Mom did neither. My Dad was another story...
DeleteSuch a great descriptive post of a truly bygone era. My first eight years were spent in Newark, NJ in a two-bedroom apartment. We were a family of six! My three siblings and I shared a bedroom. Then, in 1960 my parents bought a house in the suburbs of NJ. Three bedrooms, dining room, living room, family room. Yikes it was large! I do remember having all the freedom to roam, to play in the streets until almost-dark, to walk to and from school, a life truly unsupervised. It was great. My parents both worked full time. Yes to mailman, newspaper boy, milk delivery, and various salespeople at the door. Those were the days!
ReplyDeleteIt must have been so exciting to move from that small apartment to such a spacious house.
DeleteMy experience was very similar although we could not afford milk delivery. Saturday was the day everyone piled into the family car to do the shopping and other errands.
ReplyDeleteI don't necessary agree that our parents suffered from benign neglect. I think the world was perceived as much safer than it is today. Today's parents are constantly marinated in bad news so it's no wonder that everything is now scheduled and controlled and chaperoned. Kind of sad really.
One of my strangest memories is in the summer the "bug man" used to drive around in a truck straying out a huge cloud of pesticides for mosquito control. We kids used to hop on our bikes, the challenge being to stay in the cloud as long as possible. Yeah, and we wonder why there is so much cancer today. Innocent times - both good and bad.
My husband tells similar stories of him and his buddies on their bikes, but chasing the small plane spraying pesticides in the farmlands of Southern Michigan.
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