I Remember...

[ninj]

There can great pleasure in recollecting the things, places and pastimes from bygone years. Inspired by Room for All", here's a nostalgia thread. I'm just hoping anyone will have thoughts and memories to share of our homes and daily life in days past.

For example, having a single bathroom for a larger family was normal. You had to announce your intention so others could go or just wait your turn instead of banging on the door. We also shared bathwater. At least for the two youngest. We were not poor, but we had only one of everything. Car, scissors, can opener etc. Lots of home deliveries because there was usually someone at home without a car.

 

[paradox3]

One Barbie and one Skipper doll, too. Little girls today have multiples of Barbie dolls. Barbie's dream house has become exponentially bigger as well.

 

[ninj]

One Barbie and one Skipper doll, too. Little girls today have multiples of Barbie dolls. Barbie's dream house has become exponentially bigger as well.

To this old woman, the sheer amount of stuff in general given to kids is unbelievable.

 

[paradox3]

I grew up in a 3 bedroom bungalow with one bathroom. It was 1950's ranch style and more spacious than other bungalows on our street. There were a few side splits and they were posh!

One thing I remember about that house is very small closets. People owned less clothing in those days.

We had a good sized kitchen with a "dinette". No actual dining room. Dining rooms have cycled in and out of fashion a few times since.

 

[KayTheCurler]

One Barbie and one Skipper doll, too. Little girls today have multiples of Barbie dolls. Barbie's dream house has become exponentially bigger as well.

Never heard of Barbie or all the things that go with her,. Our dream items were bikes and skates. We traded jigsaw puzzles and comics if we were lucky enough to have any. The kid with the ball was expected to share it.

 

[Mendalla]

GI Joe being a full sized doll similar to a Barbie with a variety of possible adventures including exploration, not just military. The smaller, heavily militaristic Joes came along in the eighties. We did have a pretty good set, at least my middle brother and I. Younger brother (6 years after middle brother) came along just as they were going away, IIRC.

One car garages. Back when only one spouse worked (you know which one), there was less need for multiple cars so our neighbourhood (built mid 50s-mid 60s) had almost no two car garages. Some even just had a "carport", i.e. no door, just a shelter at the side of the house for the car. The new neighbourhoods around me in London all have at least double garages, some are even triple.

I grew up in a 3 bedroom bungalow with one bathroom. It was 1950's ranch style and more spacious than other bungalows on our street. There were a few side splits and they were posh!

One thing I remember about that house is very small closets. People owned less clothing in those days.

We had a good sized kitchen with a "dinette". No actual dining room. Dining rooms have cycled in and out of fashion a few times since.

Our bungalow was a officially a three plus a "den" or "parlour" or whatever but my parents treated it as a fourth bedroom since they had three kids. Still only one bathroom. We did have a dining room which was open concept to the kitchen. There was also space in the kitchen for a dinette which is where we normally ate. Dining room was mostly for larger gatherings like birthday parties or visits from relatives. Our saving grace spacewise was a partly finished basement with a walkout. That was our "rec room" where we watched TV and played.

 

[paradox3]

For Christmas we decorated a tree, had lights outside & hung up all the cards. That was it. None of the coordinated decor we see nowadays.

Angel chimes and stockings came out on Christmas Eve.

For Halloween we carved a pumpkin. Again, that was it.

Stores right now are filled with both Halloween and Christmas decor items.

 

[ninj]

For Christmas we decorated a tree, had lights outside & hung up all the cards. That was it. None of the coordinated decor we see nowadays.

Angel chimes and stockings came out on Christmas Eve.

For Halloween we carved a pumpkin. Again, that was it.

Stores right now are filled with both Halloween and Christmas decor items.

It's clear consumerism rules the show. The marketing window has widened to the point of absurdity. I remember it being chic to have a metallic tree with all blue decorations. Or all blue outdoor lights.
We just had the decor we had the year before, including the penny sale ones. The two window wreaths were bought in the forties. Light cords and plugs were old and kind of scary looking.
Halloween was a perfect storm of awfulness that everyone looked forward too, complete with homemade treats given out by strangers and rampant racism and sexism added to the mix.

 

[Mendalla]

For Christmas we decorated a tree, had lights outside & hung up all the cards. That was it. None of the coordinated decor we see nowadays.

We did have some other stuff, e.g. a cute cardboard fake fireplace for hanging stockings, but otherwise similar. Mom had these neat felt "racks" (for lack of a better word) to hang the cards on. Probably homemade.

Halloween was a perfect storm of awfulness that everyone looked forward too, complete with homemade treats given out by strangers and rampant racism and sexism added to the mix.

Yeah, there was definitely some dicey costumes back then but I am more concerned by the fact that some of them still happen today when we ostensibly know better. Otherwise, I remain rather fond of celebrating Hallowe'en in some form. These days, it's mostly pulling out some favourite ghost stories to read (M. R. James works beautifully).

For Halloween we carved a pumpkin. Again, that was it.

I think that's all we did, too. And sometimes Mom roasted the seeds, too.

 

[ninj]

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5337856

My SIL is from Nfld, and when she was a kid, they carved turnips instead of pumpkins. Lots of work, but quite sinister

 

[Waterfall]

Oh my gosh, some of the memories.
I remember everything I did that cost money I had to find and gather empty pop bottles and cash them in. (2 cents a bottle) That's how I would get to go see the movies with my friends, a double feature for 25 cents, on Saturday afternoon with previews of the coming shows too. I would have to take my own popcorn that my Mom would make, otherwise Id have no popcorn to throw over the balcony at the other kids below us, lol.
Some of my friends thought we were rich because we had an huge old two story manse beside the church....we had two bathrooms.....and two kitchens ...two staircases...wow huh? Turns out it used to be a duplex turned into a house for the minister (my Dad,)with four kids. We were not rich!
When we went out for dinner...about once a year...my parents ordered two hamburger deluxes with four plates for us kids to split.
My mother never worked or drove a car...I learned later that it was a sign of extreme poverty if your wife had to work....

 

[ninj]

I grew up in a 3 bedroom bungalow with one bathroom. It was 1950's ranch style and more spacious than other bungalows on our street. There were a few side splits and they were posh!

One thing I remember about that house is very small closets. People owned less clothing in those days.

We had a good sized kitchen with a "dinette". No actual dining room. Dining rooms have cycled in and out of fashion a few times since.

Sounds like our "new" house Three bed one bath and a kitchen/dinette. Did you also have a fireplace that never got used? Ours didn't draw properly and sent smoke billowing into the living room.

It's true about fewer clothes. A disposable wardrobe was unheard of. While I was growing, I had maybe three coats at once. Spring and winter plus an old one. Same with shoes. My mum had even fewer things. She was never without a bottle of classy perfume though.
She would never leave the house without powdering her nose and putting on lipstick.

 

[ninj]

@Waterfall
We ate out so seldom I probably remember each time. No drive throughs (Except A&w). My aunt and mother occasionally met at a local restaurant for tea and either a bran muffin or butter tart.

 

[Waterfall]

It's true about fewer clothes. A disposable wardrobe was unheard of. While I was growing, I had maybe three coats at once. Spring and winter plus an old one. Same with shoes. My mum had even fewer things. She was never without a bottle of classy perfume though.
She would never leave the house without powdering her nose and putting on lipstick.

We also had an endless amount of hand me downs....my older sister was 10 years older than me, so I was definitely not up to date....until I started to work after school and bought a new pair of vinyl Go Go boots. I was making $1.35/hr.
My Mom always had a bottle of Tweed and always wore dresses...even around the house

 

[ninj]

My mother was a knitter and sewed some of my clothes occasionally. She knit a Mary Maxim sweater for me with a pink bunny on it. She made skirts and jumpers (straight sleeveless dresses). She did a beautiful plaid skirt with perfectly aligned pattern. Quite skilled. I didn't inherit that.

 

[ninj]

My mum didn't wear pants until the 60's. A housedress with pockets was her usual daywear.

 

[ninj]

We also had an endless amount of hand me downs....my older sister was 10 years older than me, so I was definitely not up to date....until I started to work after school and bought a new pair of vinyl Go Go boots. I was making $1.35/hr.
My Mom always had a bottle of Tweed and always wore dresses...even around the house

I'm retroactively jealous of the gogo boots. I wanted a pair really bad, but didn't have a job yet and my mother hated them

 

[Mrs.Anteater]

Remember when you had to get up to change the volume on the TV?
Not sure when the remote control was invented.
My mother would knit sweaters- those were ok. She also had a knitting machine, but I don’t think she used it very often. I hated the pants she would sew for us. And when the pant legs were too short from growing too fast, she would add a couple of inches of a border to it.
The wallpaper in the hallway was green and the carpet was orange. We only had pop on birthdays, and one bottle was enough to go around. Otherwise, we had water with raspberry sirup to give it a taste. Same with potato chips- a big bag for New Years eve, that was it.

 

[paradox3]

Sounds like our "new" house Three bed one bath and a kitchen/dinette. Did you also have a fireplace that never got used? Ours didn't draw properly and sent smoke billowing into the living room.

No. No fireplace.

 

[Mendalla]

Not sure when the remote control was invented

The earliest "remote control" I recall was a cable box we had in (I think) the seventies. It was a large brown box with a button for each channel and it was connected to the set top box by a long wire. You still had to change the volume the old way, though. Wireless remotes came in the eighties, though maybe that's just when we finally got a TV with one.