I Remember When......
Recalling Memories of My Childhood
(I am getting ahead of the schedule here,
as I am away some days the coming week)
Recalling Memories of My Childhood
(I am getting ahead of the schedule here,
as I am away some days the coming week)
What was your KITCHEN like at home, growing up - a small galley style only fit for one person at a time, or the epitome of the large farmshouse style kitchen as the busy hub of the family? 
Our back garden with the solid back door to the kitchen
Labour saving devices even in the 1950's were scarce. Washing (always on a Monday when my mother donned a cross-over overall and put her hair in a turban), was done by hand and then put through a mangle to dry either outside on the clothes line or on an overhead pulley. The only other alternative was a steaming clothes horse around the open fire.
We later moved and my mother had a Raeburn solid fuel cooker (a bit like an Aga) and this was her pride and joy. A spin dryer followed to ease wash day and then a twin tub, before the luxury of an automatic washing machine.
Getting a fridge in the late 1950's was another luxury - we could make ice cubes! The icebox was tiny - in no way a freezer, but it meant we could buy ice-cream to eat at teatime.
Another kitchen memory was of me sitting on the draining board and Mum teaching me how to KNIT - a dishcloth of all things to inspire me! I then moved on to knitting a scarf and a pixie hood for myself or my many dolls. I kept this craft up, knitting my school pullovers and later jumpers for my husband - until it became far cheaper to buy knitwear, than spend money on wool and the time on knitting it up.
Still the skill came in useful - here a brownie doll I knitted for my daughter.
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Onto L for Libraries
In Case You Missed.....
A-Z Challenge 2016 Theme Revealed:
I Remember......Memories of Childhood
I Remember......Memories of Childhood
in Case You Missed.....
A-Z Challenge 2016 Theme Revealed:
I Remember......Memories of Childhood
I Remember......Memories of Childhood
Copyright © 2016 - Susan Donaldson. All Rights Reserved
Sue, thanks for sharing your memories which have rekindled mine. I grew up in houses with tiny kitchens but for the past 40 odd years have always had a big kitchen/hub in our homes.
ReplyDeleteMy Dad built our house and we had a nice size functional kitchen with counter dividing the dining room. I remember our first fridge was really old, one up from an ice box. We had no dryer and Mom hung our clothes on the line, een in winter. I remember the sheets standing up by themselves in the mudroom.
ReplyDeleteMom taught me to knit also, and 2 of my daughters knit now. I made lots of sweaters that never got finished because some were boring and also I hate sewing them together. Now I do dishclothes, its all the rage here! And I knit dolls for the kids. I made 3 dinosaurs and 3 cavemen for my grandson.
Looking forward to L to see what I will remember then!
We live rather primitively for many years in a house with a tiny kitche no electricity or running water and a privy. But we did have a gas stove and the luxury of a kerosene refrigerator. Those years remain among our fondest memories. Mom called it "glorified camping." I'm a visiting minion with the Joyful Brigade. Happy to meet you!
ReplyDeleteI started to write about kitchens and probably should have. My pictures of the kitchen I grew up in are not very good. I can't even remember what color it was, but I remember when Momma wallpapered it. It was her first time wallpapering, and she continued to do all her own wallpapering after that. Then I learned from her and we helped each other wallpaper our kitchens, dining rooms, and bathrooms. My last wallpaper job, I hired a pro.
ReplyDeleteThank you all for your memories. I too have no photographs of our kitchens, and my mother was the decorator of the household. She followed the trend of having one feature wall in a room, but so,disliked the wallpaper she had chosen, when it was up, that she changed it quickly.
ReplyDeleteOur kitchens were a good size until we moved into flats and then they were not big enough to eat in but there was a breakfast room right next to them that we ate in. I don't remember a time before we had a refigerator because we got one before I was 2. I remember our wringer washer but it was electric. No dryer until I left home. Mostly we hung the clothes in the basement. Finding Eliza
ReplyDeleteOur kitchen in my childhood was a decent size and we always are round the table, except on special occasions in the dining room. We had a fridge (sub-tropical) but no hot water for a long time so the kettle had to be boiled. Mum was very fussy about how the washing up was done! Our laundry was downstairs (typical Queensland high-set house) but we too had a mangle but also a copper in which the clothes, sheets etc were boiled and washed. Clothes were hung outside in the sun on a Hills Hoist unless it was rainy when the clothes went under the house.
ReplyDelete