Olden Days!

"What was it like in the olden days, mother?  You know, like when your were a little girl," asked our eleven year old Miss Curiosity Shop.  "Did they drive cars?  Did they have super markets?"

"Now must a minute, young lady," I replied, "I am not THAT old!  Yes, there were cars in those days, not as sleek and shiny as today's, but there were still cars.  And as for super markets, yes, there were a few, but they weren't as super as the ones of today."

So I proceed to give my young daughter, Nancy Lisa, a history lesson ... and after thinking about it for a bit, decided that my childhood experiences were indeed different from hers, just as my mother's childhood experiences were foreign to me.  Time to slip back into the "olden days".  

Running to the little neighborhood store to get a loaf of bread or quart of milk (in glass bottles) was my job in the "olden days". 

  

"Neighborhood grocery stores," I explained, "were often combined with a gasoline station and were the favorite shopping spot for families in those days, because that meant that fuel for the body and car could be taken care of all at one time.  Little mom and pop neighborhood grocery stores were common.  Since families could afford only one car, including ours, that meant your grandmother Strahl and I would have to walk to the nearest store during the day and purchase only what we could carry in our arms or tote in a wagon.  Did I mention that when your grandmother and grandfather moved to La Crosse in 1937, they both worked at the Knudson Texaco station, grandpa pumping gas and doing repairs and grandma doling out groceries and manning the cash register.  Grandpa sometimes filled in on those jobs also, though grandma never pumped gas ... that was the men's job" 

"There weren't any food laden aisles to wander down in those grocery stores," I continued, "nor shopping carts to nudge along.  Everything was neatly stocked on shelves behind a counter.  The grocery man waited on each and every customer, picking out the various cans of food as they were read from the list.  There wasn't any label reading in those days nor very many brands from which to choose.  You didn't quibble over price, either."

"Bakery items like doughnuts and long johns, my passion as a child, were stored in tall, glass cases with pull out trays.  Meat was kept in meat cases much like the ones that you see in butcher shops today, but the back room where the meat was cut up was often small and unsanitary.  One often wondered whether the man who pumped the gas washed his hands before weighing up the meat."

"If the store could afford one, a hand operated adding machine totaled up the purchases before they were rung up on a cash register, a stately, brass bell ringing object which would fall into the antique relic classification today.   If there were no adding machines, purchases were itemized on a sales slip and added up in the head and rechecked by the customer before payment made.  It was common to just charge it"

Above Photo is of my mother and father taken by the main door to the grocery area.  To the right were the gasoline pumps.  Notice the grocery part was IGA.  The gasoline was Texaco.  My father was 37 years old and mother was 32.  

Cooking was simple, out of a can, fresh, or home canned.  No frozen or packaged foods or convenience foods like cake and cookie mixes.  Pork and beans were the closest to a meal-in-a-can that could come to a homemaker's rescue in an emergency.  Potatoes were a mainstay of each meal with pasta dishes coming second.  No instant mashed potatoes, just wash, peel, and boil. 

If a homemaker was inclined, home baked cakes, cookies and pies along with sliced banana drowned in Jello were the desserts of choice.   No store bought cakes or pies in those days though there were packaged cookies.  My mother cooked over a kerosine stove, and I held a slice of bread skewered on a fork over the burner for toast.  It wasn't until I was about twelve years old, that mother got an electric stove and refrigerator.  Until then, foods needing to be kept cool were stored in an ice box.  Did we mind?  No, that is just the way it was. 

Nancy Lisa is about 8 years old in this photo.  She took ballet lessons.  Now her girls can ask her what it was like in her "olden days!"