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I think the fifties were a simpler time on the avenues. At least for myself growing up. My mom would listen to soap operas on the kitchen radio while washing clothes every Saturday morning. That old washing machine had wheels and it was stored in the shack behind the kitchen. To this day when I am in a certain mood and I hear soap opera music, I'll smell laundry detergent. Very weird but for a nanosecond I relive a taste of my childhood in Verdun. Hope the URL opens for you, and look for the washing machine if you will.
Bill
http://www.skweezer.com/s.aspx/-/www~billsretroworld~com/RETROLIFE~HTM
Bill
http://www.skweezer.com/s.aspx/-/www~billsretroworld~com/RETROLIFE~HTM
14 comments:
Great stuff - love all the pics - thanks
great stuff - love all the pics - thanks
Bill. You lived on the bottom flat so you were lucky to have a back "yard" We share the same experiences. We lived on the 2nd story, and we stored the green ringer washing machine in the cupboard under the stairs. Saturday morning was great. The washing machine was going swish swish swish, and the Purex smelled thru the house. I dit and it was so relaxing. Once a week laundry. when it was done washing we would put it thru the ringer into the bathtub to rinse. Then thru the ringer agian and out to the line outside.....summer and winter... Good memories indeed. Much Aloha Bill....Winston
Hi Winston, recall the lanes on washing day? It was a laundry extravaganza with hundreds flapping wet clothes, sheets and pillow cases stretched across from flat to telephone poles from the Acky to the river. Maybe a little exaggeration in my 68 year old mind, but I'm sure you get the idea.
Bill
Yes bill. I remember it all. We are both the same age lived a couple of streets apart, went to the same school, and had the same grade seven teacher at the same time. Who could forget walking thru the lanes on the avenues and watching all the whites (so it seemed) flapping in the breeze. What a joy to remember all that!!!!
When my mother did the laundry, she used 2 outdoor clothes lines and strung a line down the hall to hang some of the smaller items on. In the winter this caused a lot of humidity to be in the house and my glasses would immediately fog up when I came in. The house smelled really nice too. Clothes smell better when hung to dry rather than coming out of a drier.
A clothesline was always strung across the kitchen in the winter, the warmest place in the house! Otherwise, laundry was strung across the laneway if there was any sunshine. I remember big pipes running along the ceiling of the hallway as a young child...don't know what they were for, heating maybe? They were eventually removed, but a hot water heater still stood in a corner in the kitchen next to the shed door. Had to be heated up for the bath time, which was a big deep porcelain monster on legs. Life was probably much harder for our parents then, but much simpler and adventurous for the kids of the times....Diane
In the winter the landry would freeze on the line and I can remember us girls dancing around with a frozen pair of my fathers one piece long johns.That was a big joke.
All day Tuesday my mother ironed all the white shirts and our school blouses and everything else that needed to be ironed. I'm sure that gave her a ticket straight to heaven. Thanks Mom, Pauline
Jeez! You guys must have been rich to have a washing machine! My Mom had only the bath tub to do her clothes washing. They were hung out on a clothesline (third floor) to a pole shared by a few other neighbors, all the way down to the first floor. Winter time was a hoot when the long johns were hung out to "dry", then brought in when they were frozen stiff to stand up behind the coke stove. Had to keep an eye on them so they didn't fall against the stove as they thawed. However, they sure felt real comfy when you put them on in the cold morning.
A "great job" with the coke stove was to take the ashes from the stove out to the shed, and sift them to save any pieces big enough to use again! That shed also contained our "ice box" which kept things cool in the summer. It created another "great job". Emptying the pan under the ice box, at least once a day, which caught the drops of water as the ice melted. If you forgot, the neighbour down stairs would be mad as hell having all that water drip into his shed!
You guys have sure opened a whole new train of remembrances here!...Thanks, Art
We seem to have the same memories. With the frozen clothes, sifting the coals, and emptying the pan under the ice box. I am willing to bet that you were not the icemans favorite, living on the 3rd floor!!! My mother always told us to be on the lookout for any wood that might be out in the streets or the back lanes.... So we would have something to burn...
The local women would hang out to watch the "buffed up" ice delivery guys. They did not need gyms to get muscular having to lug fifty pound ice blocks up three fights of rickety shed stairs.
I am sure that many of these guys ended up delivering "the heat" as well as the ice.
We had "modern day" (then anyway) oil fired stoves with 5 gallon bottles hanging in the kitchen and hallway with overhead stovepipes. They were filled about every other day by a 55 gallon drum in the back shed. A little stinky but a great source of ready solvent for car work.
Jeez Art & Winston...you guys must have been poor! Never had a coke stove and we did have a washing machine and a fridge with a freezer that held about 2 pints of ice cream! I do remember the iceman calling out "Iccce" and helping my friend look for wood and we'd pile it up on his wagon. Same wagon we used to make deliveries of groceries from Steinberg's for a whole 5 or 10 cents!...Diane
Jeez Art & Winston...you guys must have been poor! Never had a coke stove and we did have a washing machine and a fridge with a freezer that held about 2 pints of ice cream! I do remember the iceman calling out "Iccce" and helping my friend look for wood and we'd pile it up on his wagon. Same wagon we used to make deliveries of groceries from Steinberg's for a whole 5 or 10 cents!...Diane
What a memory the kitchen stove is, ours was half oil to heat and the other part was gas that you cooked on and made sure that the pilot light stayed on. It was a gathering place. Someone was always leaning against it to get warm and after skating putting your feet in the oven to unthaw them after the long skate home from Brown Blvd. Rink. Coming home from school, on days that a pot of soup was cooking. A five gallon glass bottle of oil was used to fill it up. Pauline
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