Friday, January 20, 2012

A View of the Past

Mary Nelson Groe sent along, by way of Marilyn Weidler Ulve, this photo show from the Denver Post, and though the archives are mostly before our time, they are still of our time.  Spend some time - there are 70 of them.
Mary Nelson Groe in 2007


Even better - her comments about the era:  I remember wearing shirts made of chicken feed sacks. Never wearing shoes in summer except to funerals or church. No shoes, no shirt,no service was never heard of.  Child labor law??? Took bath once a week. Made dirt roads to play with toy cars. Most adult men smoked or chewed but tobacco was not laced with chemicals. What was an inside toilet? This was fun viewing my past.


Add to the list long-sleeved shirts worn to school to start the year that became short-sleeved in the spring.  Sisters whose mother would sew dresses from feed sacks.  Mud squishing up between the toes after a good rain - or even in the barnyard.  Animals on every farm including the duke's mixture of cattle, hogs, chicken.  Child labor?  Free, and expected.  Baths?  Early on, in a dishpan.  Tobacco?  Practically every man and few women.

Send along your thoughts to nkhs62@gmail.com.

2 comments:

  1. #42 - using sticks for guns - a common strategy. About 20 years ago our paperboy, who had a lot of visions while delivering, came slowly up the street and into the cul-de-sac on one very cold winter day. He found a long icicle somewhere in a snowbank, or maybe he took it off a neighbor's porch, and delayed his deliveries while he pointed it into the air, shooting imaginary birds.

    #48 - 49 - 53 - think of Mike Roh and Dirty Jobs. The difference is that in those days pictured, there was no protective clothing, no thought to protect the lungs, and certainly no workman's comp to collect if things turned out badly.

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  2. Oops. My bad. It's Mike Rowe. And be sure to check Photo #70 - I thought I've had some lousy jobs . . .

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