Today’s guest post was written by Betty King.
In the Piedmont of North Carolina we used chipped, cracked and sometimes a good brick as door stops. Most people would decorate them by sewing material from feed bags around the brick. This was just a little “poor persons” way of adding some decoration and color to their home. The ladies would sew a tube with this material (fabric) and sew one of the ends also. Then slide the brick into it and then sew the remaining end up. I have seen these sold at auctions of older people’s estates.
We would open all the windows and doors in the house and let Mother Nature draw (pull) a draft through the house to cool things off. Before the houses built in the ranch style, houses were built with windows and doors across from each other and hallways between them to create the draft that would cool the house and in the Winter the rooms and halls could be closed (shut off) to keep the heat in the room that the stove/heater was in. Even the bungalow houses built in the early 1900’s were built so the draft would keep the houses cool.
Even today when it is below 90 degrees, I will leave my windows and doors closed until the afternoon and then open them up when it begins to feel warm in the house and in about 30 minutes the inside of the house will be cool and I am only using fans in each room and not using my air conditioning. I live in a 2-story house and leave the upstairs windows open all summer and the hot air rises and goes out the windows and the lower floor of the house is cool. When houses before the end of WWII were built, they had either front and back porches or wrap around porches that helped to prevent the sun light from entering the rooms through the windows. Also, the halls in between rooms with doors at both ends allow a good air flow. Many of those houses also had a kitchen with a breeze way that was not closed in which allowed the heat from the kitchen to not enter the rest of the house. I have even been told by older people that in the summer when it was so hot and they only had wood cook stoves that the women would cook outside to prevent the house from getting so hot. I can also only imagine how hot these ladies would get in those long dresses cooking in a kitchen with a wood fired cook stove.
Today we do not build houses to aid with the heating and air usage. We also often have narrow halls that are only used to walk from one end of the house to the other. In the houses built before the end of WWII the hall was large enough to hold furniture and often had a Christmas Tree placed in it. The stairs to the 2nd-floor would most often come down into the hall also. The furniture in the halls were Hall Racks used to hold coats, hats, and umbrellas for the family and guests and had a large mirror on them. Also, the halls are where trunks and linen press or chest on chest to store quilts and bed linen, table cloths and napkins and the drapes and curtains for the off season were stored. China cabinets near the door of the dining room if the dining room did not have room enough for all the furniture.
The off season was when people used to have thick drapery for the windows in the winter to help keep the heat in and the cold out. Then in the Spring when they did their spring cleaning, they would change the draperies to lace curtains to allow more daylight and the cooler air to enter the rooms.
We also would in the Spring remove the coal or wood heater to allow more space in the rooms. In the hot summer on the tobacco farm of my childhood in the 1950’s my parents would make a pallet from homemade quilts and lay them in the hallway with the doors open and the draft air coming through so it was cool. That is where children would take an afternoon nap because we did not “mess up” the beds once they were “made up” in the morning.
Another interesting thing done in my past that I no longer see is the use of old cooking enameled or aluminum pots, pans, kettles or bowls as flower pots on the back porch (and some people put them on the front porch). The pots and bowls would have gotten a hole in them from years of use and most of the time the woman of the house would have mended the hole with a Mended Kit and if it still leaked or the hole got bigger then it was used as a flower pot. I have also seen people use a large coffee can and put a hole in the bottom for the drainage and plant flowers in it.
I remember using some of these pots, pans and kettles in my Play House when I was pretending to cook for my dolls. My sister and I would prepare and play for hours and hours outdoors in a Play House that we had worked to play in. It was not a building but instead it may be in the woods in the middle of a circle of 4 or 5 trees and we would rake the leaves and pine needles from the center and that would be the walls and sometimes we would tie tobacco string about the trees and that would be our walls. We used rocks for our furniture and we had tea parties with our dolls. If my brothers came to the Play House we would tell them they had to come through the door which was just a place between 2 rocks without the leaves and pine needles or string used for our walls. We would go to the junk pile near the edge of the woods and look for anything we could use in our Play House. Everyone had a junk pile which was very small because people did not have all the things to throw away then. We took pieces of broken plates and cups from the junk pile and they would be our dishes in our play. Sometimes we might find an old medicine bottle and then we could play doctor and nurse with our dolls. We would pick weeds and wild flowers to put in jelly jars and fruit jars (canning jars) and put on our rock table or maybe it might be a table made out of a piece of fire wood from the wood shed that had not been used during the Winter for heating or cooking. This was our playing outside in the Spring, Summer and Autumn.
In the Winter it would be cold here in the Piedmont area of North Carolina and we would play Paper Dolls in the house. We did have some “store bought” paper dolls but we also made them by cutting out the people in the Sears and Roebuck, Montgomery Ward and J. C. Penney catalogs that arrived once or twice a year through our Rural Federal Delivery Mail. We would cut them out and have a Daddy, Mama and children from the pages of these catalogs. We would take the pages in these catalogs that had all the ordering instructions and cut them into 2″ strips to make seats for the people to ride in the cars we made from the top of shoe boxes. We would fold these pages and make chairs and tables for them also. At the end of the “play like” time we would put all of this in the shoe box and put the top and save for the next time we played. Also, we would fold the people at their waist so they could sit down in the seats in the cars made from the tops of the shoe boxes. We spent as much time cutting and preparing as we did playing.
I remember in the Winter using the stairs going to the second story of the house as a school bus and lining up my dolls and “play like” I was driving a school bus and taking them to school. My Daddy use to say he could not get upstairs to go to bed for all these dolls I left on the steps. I did not want to remove them because I was going to play with them the next day. I remember my Mama and Daddy made me a rocking cradle for my dolls and painted it pink and this was my Christmas present when I was a child. I wish I still had it but my Mama saw no need to save things like that once they were no longer used. I am the opposite of her and more like my Daddy and save most things just in case I may need them or just for a keepsake.
I always thought that the Mended Kit was such an interesting thing. It was a little pasteboard with a few little round aluminum circles (because aluminum was soft and could be made to fit the shape of the items to be mended and a few tiny screws. It also had a little triangle that was used like a screw driver to twist the screw that would fit in the little circles of aluminum to plug the hole. Of course, this was only done if the hole in the item was very small. The little round piece was put in the inside of the pot/pan then the screw was put on the outside of the pot/pan and tightened with the little triangle wrench (this left the pot/pan in between the little round piece and the screw). There was not a nut put on the end, it just stayed in place because it was tightened. This would stop up the hole so it could still be used.
I hope you enjoyed Betty’s post as much as I do. Even though she did not grow up in the mountains and was a child in a different time than me so much of what she wrote reminded me of my childhood.
I loved my playhouses and my favorite one is between here and Granny’s house. Sometimes as I walk down the hill I look at it and wonder at the little girl who used to claim the area as her own.
My cousins and I had a good playhouse at Granny Gazzies and we even had them at the old Martins Creek School. Another thing Betty reminded me of from my Martins Creek Days was building houses out of grass clippings. When the large grassy areas were mowed we would make elaborate houses outlined with grass—right down to the potty!
I’ve never heard of mend a kits, but what a wonderful invention. I can’t imagine how many people it helped continue to use a pot or bowl. I believe fixing was better than tossing and rebuying.
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This sounds like she is describing my childhood & present life. I actually go rooting around in our farm dump & have brought back several enameled pots/pails that have a hole in them & plant flowers in them & coffee cans, too. Although, it is getting harder to find metal coffee cans these days. We had play houses & raked the maple leaves in the fall into fox & goose games & play houses.
As for the house, our house, although lacking a central hall, was designed for maximum coolness in the summer. There used to be shade trees in a square around the entire yard (they have mostly died of old age & only 3-4 are left). A porch blocked the southern side (that got ripped off & not replaced, unfortunately). The windows & doors are all lined up – open two, instant air conditioning. They had a wood cook stove in the kitchen & alot of country folks up here just hang out in the kitchen. they would put a bed as a type of couch along a wall and often some kind of comfy chair. When we go visiting around here, we don’t sit in peoples’ living rooms – we visit around the kitchen table. Is that common by you folks? This is a good way to keep warm in a drafty old house in the winter. Seems like people just used to be smarter back then or better at using what they had available to them & then it organically benefitted them.
Hi Patty,
It sounds like you had some wonderful times as a child. They do make lovely memories and stories to tell. Those old pots and pans are now being sold as antiques and people put them in their homes for display. Isn’t it funny they were once called junk.
My family and most people I know in the country and small towns still sit in the Kitchen at the table and talk. I think the Kitchen needs to be the larges room in the house. I have thought about this often because I remember when poor people like I come from, would not have the nice Living Room Suits and the find Rockers and Recliner. We had “straight chairs” (do you know what they are?) and the Living Room furniture may or may not be a matching suit.
If you think about it, sitting at a table is much more comfortable to be able to see each other’s face and even reach across the table to take some one’s hand when the urge leads you to do this. Besides when the Radio and TV was invented that was where all the chairs were placed to faced instead of across the room looking at each other.
I remember reading a very old newspaper article and the editor was concerned that the invention of the Radio would make people stop sitting on their front porch and talking to each other and greeting their neighbors and friends as they walked and drove down the streets and roads. He was concerned that people were beginning to miss church services in the evening because of the programs on the Radio. The social and civic clubs were having problems determining when they could meet because of the programs. Well, I would love for that man to see how we live today with each family member in sperate “Their Rooms” with a TV at big as a refrigerator, a laptop computer with ear phones and a cell phone that is always on and within arm reach, used to talk with the family members sitting in the room next door. I have even been told by some women I know that their children will call them on their cell phone from “Their Room” and ask if Dinner (not Supper, like us country people still call the last meal of the day served in the evening.) is ready. Of course, then they just come and fix a plate and go back to “Their Room” and do not even sit at the expensive Dinning Room table they have. This is so sad to me.
I did not want to marry and did not want to have children but I was once a child and I can tell you this is not the way for a family to live. The cell phones, laptop, TV, Radios all need to be CUT OFF, UNPLUGGED or THROWN out the window (after you let the window up) and the family needs to sit down at the table and eat and then go sit on the porch or in the Den/Living room and just talk to each other. I know lots of children that do not know where they work or what their parents do for a living. How sad.
The cell phone on all the time is not necessary. Most of us are not that important to the events of the world and if the person wants to talk to you bad enough then they will come to visit you. I see mostly women also have a nervous breakdown when the cell phone starts its jiggle and the number on the screen is their child. they are over reacting and expecting horrible news every time a call come through. Why is this? Are things that out of control in the households of their children that they would not just be getting a regular call about nothing that is an emergency? Also, if I visit someone and they stay on the phone or leave the TV on, I just leave and never go back. I do not want to interrupt what they are interested in because it is obvious to me they do not want to talk with or listen to me. This would be like you going to someone’s house and they start reading a book or the newspaper. Do not even mention taking a cell phone to the table at home or in a restaurant. I have seen people of all ages do this. I would just walk out and leave the person sitting there. I just do not think most people have any manners at all and certainly not have what my Mama called “good country manners”. I have been in church, at funerals, at business, civil and social meetings and cell phones start up what ever the jiggle it has will start going off. I once attended a historical speech given by a man that re-enacts the part of Thomas Jefferson. He just stopped and looked around and ask us if that was some rare type of bird we had in our area because he had never hear this before. Of course, we all laughed and the person with the cell phone jiggling or twitting or what ever it was doing felt like a fool and they should have. Those things do have an OFF on them.
The preachers at funeral will ask the people attending to “please turn off your phones” and wait a few monument for this to be done and almost every time when the funerals starts I will heard those foreign birds that Thomas Jefferson heard start making their noise. They are usually in a pocket or purse or in the hands of someone who is so surprised at the noise like it has NEVER happened before. This will be the same person at the church, civil and social meeting yesterday or last week that found the same noise maker in the same pocket, purse or their hand. They will fumble around and cannot remember how to CUT it OFF. I was once in a meeting and a woman’s phone was just jiggling and she was hard of hearing and just kept sitting there looking at the speaker until the person next to her pointed and yelled to CUT your phone OFF. I was also in a genealogy meeting and the speaker had not arrived and an older women was telling at a very high pitch that she had just gotten new earing aids. Well, the speaker comes into the room and is ready to speak and the woman is still talking and people are trying to tell her to stop because the speaker has arrived. We knew then those “wonderful new hearing aids” were not worth a penny because she could not hear all those people telling here to stop talking or maybe she was just coming to try and be the speaker that night.
This separate room living is why parents are so shocked when their children and grandchildren get involved in things and they know nothing about what is happening. They are telling the truth when they say “I did not know”. Why would they know what these young people are doing because everyone lives ALONE in the same house with the others.
I worked in a prison for young 18-24 years old men and I learned more there by working not with the inmates, I worked with the families, parents, grandparents and siblings of these inmates for 20 years. Before working there I work at a big tech company and thought I was learning something then. I did but not what would help me understand so much about what is happening all over the world today.
I just do not live with a phone plastered to my head and hands all the time. If someone needs to talk with me they can just call back later.
Betty Jean King
Growing up in San Diego, we had a backyard that was full of grass and fruit trees that was directly behind the house. Behind it was an even bigger backyard that was all dirt. That’s where we rode our bikes, and our swing set was. To the right of that was another big area my parents had their vegetable garden in. In the big dirt yard, us girls would use the heel of our shoes and draw a house in the dirt for each of us (I have two sisters and three brothers, one of my brothers has been in heaven since birth). My sisters and I would draw furniture in each of our dirt houses, and pretend we were keeping house – cleaning and cooking, etc. We would even take our children (dolls) and go to each other’s houses to visit. My mom has since turned that very backyard into something out of Better Homes and Garden. She always says that gardening is her “therapy”. She has built brick walkways meandering around arches full of trailing flowers, flower beds everywhere, trees, benches to sit on, etc.. When you go in my parents house and yell “Mom?!”, and you don’t get an answer, you know she is out in one of the yards pulling weeds, moving plants around, or just sitting and enjoying the oasis she has made for herself. I enjoyed this post very much! Both your’s and Betty King’s memories were wonderful to read! Thank you!
Donna. : )
We have an 83 year old house designed with cross ventilation, and you open all the windows and the breeze is wonderful. It is a two story house with the same cross ventilation upstairs. With the use of ceiling fans, we often don’t turn on the AC until the end of May or early June, depending on how soon it gets hot. I like having the windows open, but when the humidity creeps up and the highs are in the 90s and lows in the 70s, I don’t have much choice but to use the AC.
Hi Cynthia,
I am glad you have both and can stay cool in these really HOT days we are having. The older I get the less I can tolerate the heat. I remember hearing older people say that when I was young and now I understand. I know people who never open their windows. I enjoy the nights sleeping when there is a cool breeze coming in the window and you just need a little cover. You go to sleep hearing the rain falling and in the morning you wake up to the birds singing. It just cannot get better than that.
Betty Jean King
In my area the kits were called Mend It Kits, Mom used a many of them, I remember them like it was yesterday.
Hi Bill,
I am so glad you remember them because I have asked people my age and they do not remember them. But, I do find so often that some people just do not remember the same things I do. I was always alert and asking questions until I understood what was going on around me.
Betty Jean King
I remember the mending kits! I’ve got the same set of pots & pans I have had for nearly fifty years and none of them have got any holes in the bottom. I do have an old aluminum dishpan that looks like it might get a hole as it is really banged up. I wonder what the old pans were made out of. I have never used the enameled stuff as Mama always said it might chip off & kill us!
Hello Wanda,
I am laughing about what your Mama said. I had never heard that before but I did hear older people say they would not use aluminum pots because they did not know if it that was safe to cook with. I do know there has been concern of some diseases that researchers are studying to see if aluminum may be linked to them. Aluminum and Enamel were the only pots I heard of being repaired with the Mend it Kits. Cast Iron pans and pots cannot be repaired with them and that is what people used before Aluminum and Enamel was invented.
Betty Jean King
This was a very interesting post. I especially liked the description of how homes were built to aid in keeping either warm or cool. We need to start doing that again so we can save on fuel costs.
Hi Paula,
You are correct and we may just see the day soon when our use of fuel may have to change.
Betty Jean King
Like others here have posted, Betty’s post is a sketch of my childhood in many ways. As boys, our play was different but the same in being outside. The way of life was, as you mention Tipper, much the same. Betty really gave me new insight into house designs. As we think we have overcome nature, we think we can ignore those common sense skills but as events often prove we are not being very wise to do so.
We who have lived long enough come to realize the paradox that as we “progress” and gain in material ways, it comes at the price of regress and lose in intangible ways. And on the whole, as a society, we are not able to find the balance. That has to be done in individual lives. The bible sums it up, I believe, with “godliness with contentment is great gain.”
I think maybe Betty should write a book.
I feel the way you do about the common sense skills, Ron. You have lots of people panicking about the possibility of pwr outages in the south & ‘how will they run their AC’???? We need to get back to using the natural materials in your individual region to keep cool/warm. We need to build houses that are designed for keeping warm/cool & not keeping up with the Jones’ who have a prefab McMansion that is made out of sheetrock that molds in 98% humidity. Why have we gotten so ‘dumb’. Pa Ingalls, in the Little House books, talked about how he ‘loved’ progress & was willing to use any invention that made life easier, but it was a double edged sword because it took away your ability to do things the old way & one could become awful dependent on it! That was back in the 1880’s that he was expressing that thought. Our society as a whole is a very discontent one – that is where the drive to ‘be like everyone else’ comes from, I think. The Bible also has a lot to say about coveting, doesn’t it? Its the intangible things I miss the most!
Hi Patty,
You said this so well. Thank you.
Betty Jean King
Hi Ron,
I am glad you enjoyed my story. I am not much of a writer but I can tell a pretty good story. I had 3 brothers and I remember them building forts, farms and once they tried to build a raft out of green pines and used my Daddy’s mule plow lines (without permission of course) to tied the poles together and thought they could float it in Tar River which was on the backside of our farm. Well, just in case you do not know this, green poles are heavy and they will SINK and take the plow lines with them to the bottom of the river. Lucky for my brother the river was not to deep and they got the plow lines lose and left the pine poles in Tar River to float away. They did have to explain to Daddy why the plow lines were wet when they came into the farmyard with them and got caught.
When I was a child I learned to entertain myself and when I got grown I learned to be content with what I had and not be concerned with what others had and what they were doing because I was happy with what I had and what I was doing. I would suggest to people to think about this and maybe they will be more satisfied with themselves. What do we hear today? After we have spent about 50 years working and buying THINGS then we need to DOWNSIZE and get rid of all those THINGS. Most of us, including me need to get a little smarter.
I was once asked who my favorite person was and I replied ‘Myself”. The man asking me this question then told me he thought that was so self centered. I replied no it is not, you see I have to live with me everyday all day long so I need to like and love myself. His response was don’t you think you have faults and I said “yes” and I work to correct them because I have to live with myself and like and love myself. He did not understand what I was talking about. So we parted company.
Betty Jean King
The story and posts have my thoughts scattered. I have wonderful memories of summertime play in the mountains of Wyo. We built logging camps out of the tall weed patches, with roads for our Tonka trucks and a sawmill. we rode horses and would be gone all day chasing bad guys up and down the hills around the town. The weather was cooler, so we didn’t need a lot of ventilation in the summer, but you could see the back door from the front door, so there was a draft.
There is so much to be said for rural life, it’s filled with friendly, intelligent, resourceful hardworking people.
Hi Pat,
It sounds like you had a wonderful childhood. Having horses is one of the things I wanted as a child but I never did, so when I got grown that was one of the first things I did was get me a horse. They give so much pleasure and enjoyment and require just to be loved. I have never been to Wyoming. but the pictures are beautiful. We did play Cowboys and Indians and had tobacco sticks for horses and yes, we would tie them to a tree so they would not run away. HA HA So many children living on a farm used sticks or small tree limbs as a horse because we want one so bad and did not have one.
Betty Jean King
What a awesome story…only the imagination of a child…I love it!!!!!
Hi Karen,
We all have so many wonderful and magical stories and we need to tell the children and grandchildren about them. I have been working on my family genealogy for 56 years this month and also historical stories and information about living in North Carolina and the South. Everyone I have spoken with would start out telling me they did not know much or anything at all and before I finished talking with them they had told me things that you will never find in a book any place. I tell people to write or record these stories so the next generation will have a record of how we lived and what we enjoyed doing.
Betty Jean King
You answered a question I’ve had for many years. I’m 76 and when I was in my 20’s, it was popular to go to ‘junk’ stores to find old furniture to refinish and decorate your home. I found an old, small child’s oak, roll-top desk once for $5 and had it restored. They used newspaper on the back of the roll-top so I know it was at least made before 1920. One coveted item that I was never able to find (at a reasonable price) was called a Hall Tree. Well now this post helped me understand why it was called that. I understood the tree part since it usually had many hooks to hang things on but why Hall? Most halls were way too small to hold it until I read this. My grandmothers home in SC had a wrap around porch and huge hall. Now I understand why. She kept her treadle sewing machine at the ready there along with the giant pile of jig saw puzzles and at the front door was the hall tree. It also gave her plenty of room to hang the many, many shadow boxes of ‘pinned’ butterflies from her collection. How I wish I had them now and wonder what species are no longer around. Maw was a naturalist for sure. She had a tiny pond in the back yard filled with guppies. When it got too full, she brought some in to live in mayonnaise jars that surrounded her bedroom walls. Pretty sight for a child. She just couldn’t let them die. I have to tell you a story that happened to my Mom when she was little. One night while sleeping she was awoken by heavy footsteps outside her bedroom window (wrap around porch) and low groans and a bell clanging. Terrified, she ran to her parents room and Papa investigated – the neighbors cow had climbed up the steps and was trying to find a way back down. It still makes me laugh.
Hello Mary,
I am so glad you enjoyed my story. I like that your family also would take old items that other people had disguarded and repair and use them. Have you also heard the Hall Tree called a Hall Rack? We called the piece of furniture a Hall Rack with the mirror and the hooks on both sides and ours has a little trunk that was a seat at the bottom so you could sit down and put on rubber boots during bad weather. We just put some linen in the trunk so I am not sure what that really was made for. A Hall Tree was the straight piece of wood with the hooks on all 4 sides.
I never lived in a house with a wrap around porch but I have always wanted too. They are so useful and pretty.
I enjoyed the stories of the shadow boxes and the guppies also.
The cow on the porch trying to get off is so funny. I can just see that now with the bell around her neck ringing and everyone in the house wondering what in the world is happening. My Mama told me when she was a child they did not have screen wire on the windows and one night my Granddaddy had put a temporary fence around the house and put the mule in it to eat the grass because there were not lawn mowers in those days or at least not in the country. The mule stuck it’s head in the girls bedroom window and snored and scared the girls to death.
Betty Jean King
Betty’s post reminded me of my own childhood. I have no idea where we got the idea to place moss on the floor of our playhouse to simulate carpet. We had never seen carpet in the homes we visited much less feeling it between our toes. Paper dolls were played with during the winter after we read our Nancy Drew Mystery Books and looked through the Sears catalog a hundred times. The rest of the year would find us making mud pies, chasing June bugs, or playing on the homemade jump board and see-saw. Regardless of how we spent our day, it was always spent outside unless it was bitter cold or raining.
H Shirl,
I am glad my story reminded you of your playhouse with the moss used for carpet. I use to hate pulling up the moss because it was so pretty under the trees and at the end of the day I would plant it back and water it so it might live.
We also loved the Sears catalog and would look at it until it would come apart especially the Christmas catalog with all the pages of toys.
Betty Jean King
I am 74 and I covered a brick with an old sock that was pretty heavy and colorful. Used that as a door stop for years. Never read or heard that was an idea from the past.
Hi Nancy,
What a good idea for covering a brick door stop. I would not have thought of this. You could use a sock that the match is worn out or if the sock no longer fits. If you wanted to you could embroidery some flowers or designs on the top and sides and make it so pretty. I just may try this. Thanks for the idea.
Do you remember the monkeys that were made from the brown and white socks with the red heel and toe?
Betty Jean King
Betty’s description of the house is a perfect description of my grandparent’s (Kirby) home. In the summer there would always be a cool breeze bowing through the hall. It would be my grandaddy taking a nap either in the hallway or on the front porch. I had to go back home during his nap time and could go back when he got back up. He would be up before daylight and would always take about an hours nap after eating his dinner- lunch to city folks. I also remember the enamel pot and pans but do not remember the repair kits.. Grandmother loved flowers and would use the ones with holes in them for flower pots. I also remember the cobbler pies grandmother made in a deep sided ( at least 5-6 inches deep) enamel pot. They would be just a little bit juicy and have clumps of dough in them that we called dumplings. I was talking to one of my cousins a few days ago about these pies and she remembered her grandmother making cobbler pies like that. While today’s cobbler pies are good, they are not the same. So many times I think of this memories of the past, especially of my wife, and wish there was a way of going back.
Hi Randy,
You have some wonderful memories to tell. I enjoyed the story of your Granddaddy taking a nap on the front porch. Yes, people use to do that because it was cool and there is something so comforting about sleeping outdoors. Also, yes it was hard as a child with all of our energy to take a nap and be quite so the older people to take their noon day naps. Also, we call that meal at noon Dinner and Supper is the meal in the evening. Lunch was what you ate at school.
There is a famous artist, Bob Timberlake from NC that painted so many beautiful pictures of old enamel pot with flowers in them. Please take a few minutes and look his paintings up online.
I can almost taste that cobbler with the home made dumplings in it. We may not be able to go back but we can find other people that enjoy talking and remembering the events, places and things we do and it gives us a loving happy feeling to know others are doing the same thing we do.
Betty Jean King
Oh I remember those EZ Mendrs! Back then patches weren’t a sign of poverty or shame. They were badges to show how thrifty we are!
Hello JC,
Yes, people were not wasteful when I was a child and I am still like that. If and when I throw something away it is beyond repair and can not be used. If I no longer need it, I will give it away or take it to the Salvation Army, Thrift store or Good Will but I do not throw anything away.
I do not let the Shame Game keep me from making the right decision and all of us are in poverty in one way or the other. Some people have lots of things and also have lots of debts to pay. Some of us have less things and try not to have debts.
Betty Jean King
Wonderful memories for Betty and such detail that I could see it all so clearly in my mind. Funny thing is I also remember some of the things she talked about. Windows open in spring and summer with fans to circulate the air, paper doll, playing with old pots and pans, and building playhouses or forts in the nearby wooded areas. Yes, today’s post was a good one and reminded me and I’m sure a lot of other readers of their own similar childhoods.
Hi Christine,
I am glad you enjoyed my story and you also have wonderful memories of hot summer days with cool air coming in the windows. Also, of playing paper dolls and with pots and pans, making forts and just being a happy child.
Betty Jean King
Oh I loved the part about Paper Dolls! Does anyone play with paper dolls anymore? That was one of my favorite things as a child. I would play for hours with mine. Of course, mine were store-bought!
Hello Donna,
I am glad you enjoyed by story and I have wondered if little girls play paper dolls any more. I like you spend hours and it was so much fun.
Betty Jean King
What great memories. I remember my aunts and my grandma using those big enamel bowls. I never knew about the Mended Kit, but how helpful. I don’t remember them giving things away at all, so they must have kept everything, just in case. One of my aunts did not have an indoor bathroom until 1975 and then her adult son built her a new house. I always missed the old house. One summer when I was staying with them in the old house and they were hanging onions on the front poor to dry. Well, the porch fell. My cousin had to reinforce the porch and then he re-hung the onions. I really hate that they are all gone now. I miss them and childhood on the Cumberland Plateau was magical and at times terrifying. The reason I said that is because I was scared of cows.
Hi Donna,
I enjoyed the story of the front porch falling down and the dried onion be hung. I grew up without a bathroom, running water, heat and air condition. We did always have electricity and an automobile, which my parents remembered not have those two conveniences.
When I was 6 we lived in a house a long ways from the highway and I had a long path to walk to meet the school bus. One afternoon when I got off the bus and was walking down that long path I met a hugh bull that had gotten out of a neighbors pasture and was wanting to visit our milk cow. I was so afraid that I climbed into our pasture with our milk cow that I was not as afraid of but not so comfortable with and started crying and calling for help. My little sister heard me told my Mama and she came and got me out of the pasture. I can tell you, my Daddy had a little talk with the owner of the bull about what happened and it never happened again.
Betty Jean King
Loved reading the memories. It made me think back to my childhood and the different games my sister and I would play before we had our ponies. After the ponies arrived, I spent my days horseback riding up until I was in my early 20’s. My time was consumed riding the hills and hollers where I grew up. Where we lived we knew our neighbors and I also had an Aunt and Uncle who lived close by. They owned over 300 acres between 2 farms down the road from each other and they ran cattle and horses on the properties. I was the lucky girl when I was old enough to leave the property and they allowed me to roam over their farms on my pony or horse. Uncle David said to always lock the gates which I did and I could go wherever on the property I wanted. And he also said to watch out for his bull, but being on horseback, the bull was never a problem. Those were the days and I miss them!
Hello Denise,
I am glad you enjoyed by story and I also enjoyed reading your story. I wanted a pony so bad when I was a child but I never had one so when I got grown the first thing I bought was a Palomino colored horse, just like Trigger that Roy Rogers had. I named her My Fancy Lady and had her for 26 years until she got so old and got down and was having so many problems with her bad knee and I had to put her to sleep. That broke my heart but it was for her not to be in pain and get down and not be able to get up that I did that. I know you had so much fun riding all over the farms as a child.
Betty Jean King
Wow…this posting reminded me of soooo many memories of my childhood. We called the houses with the rooms on each side and a hall down the middle and ‘shotgun’ house and I always wondered why til it was explained to me. I also remember the ‘mending’ kit and thought that was cool. Keep finding those writings you are sharing, they are wonderful to hear. Also, who is Granny Gazzie to you. I hear you referring to family members and am not quite sure who is who. God Bless you and yours Tipper.
Glenda-glad you enjoyed it! Granny Gazzie is Granny’s mother 🙂
Hi Glenda,
I am glad you enjoyed by story and I was glad you told about the “shotgun houses”. I lived in one and it was easy to keep cool and warm because of the way it was built.
Betty Jean King
I think I may have posted this before. When I was little we used to “play house” making our walls and rooms with pine needles we gathered from under the pine tree in the yard. Lster when we were old enough to think about school we used the needles for a school and class room. Mu momma’s house is hone now, but I remember the almost floor to ceiling windows in the bedrooms and living room. No a/c or heat either just those little round kerosene heaters that were probably emitting dangerous fumes and an open oven door to get dressed in front of. Dadfy finally put in central heat, but never a/c
Hi Sheryl,
It is so nice to read about others who enjoyed the “play house” also. Those pine needles made a nice wall for us. I remember playing school and had cousins that would rather play school and everyone wanted to be the teacher and make the rest of us spell and do math and if you made a mistake you did have to stand in the corner. So much fun.
Thanks for comments on my story.
Betty Jean King
Wow, beautiful memories from a childhood past. Children will always find/invent a playhouse of some kind. Kids can be very inventive. I loved marbles as a child and played with them often. I think it was the pretty colors and the smooth surface that attracted me to them. I can also remember finding a vein of clay in the creek. It was wonderful fun to gather it up and rinse all the dirt out of it then I made all sorts of things from my newfound clay.
Childhood is a magical time, before reality sets in.
Miss Cindy,
I love vintage marbles. I lived in a 1920s home in Minneapolis many years go and in the spring I would often find old marbles in the grass just on the edge of the cement walk. They would have been lost in the crack between the cement and the grass decades ago, and the expansion of the earth in spring would pop them out. I kept every one I found.
There is a circle of pines at my parents’ house in Minnesota that has clearly been used as a “Play House” in the past. You can tell by the smooth flat rocks around the trees that would have no natural reason to be there (the pines are in the middle of the lawn). Before the current house was built in the mid-fifties, there was an earlier house on the site that was built in the twenties. I always think of the many girls and boys who played there when I walk by.
I’m so glad I live in an older home built the way the author describes and can open all the windows and doors and enjoy those cross breezes. Texas mosquitoes are a bit of a downside, though!
Hi Cindy and Melissa,
I am glad you enjoyed my story and I also enjoyed reading about your adventures with marbles. I am sure some children searched for those marbles but they are still treasures for you to enjoy. Do you remember in the 1950[70’s when we girls used to take marbles and place then on a baking sheet and on a low temperature in the oven and then drop them in cold water to get the inside to crack? Then we would buy this little piece at the craft shop (making crafts was very popular then to glue it like a pendant and it had a circle for a necklace chain to run through. These had to be the “cat eye” type marbles. The solid would not have shown the cracking of the inside which was so pretty.
Thanks again,
Betty Jean King