She's 88 years old today.
Just think: when she was born some people still had gas or kerosene lighting in their homes. Some vehicles were mechanized, but there were still horses on the street pulling milk wagons, ice wagons, the rag man's cart, etc. Rich folks still had carriages and funeral hearses were pulled by dark horses with black plumes on their heads. (There were a lot of funerals: Children died in infancy. People died of pneumonia, tuberculosis, typhoid, rheumatic fever, scarlet fever--even measles and chicken pox.) People had iceboxes rather than refrigerators. Most folks had wood or coal ranges and their homes were heated with wood or coal. Back then you put a sign in the window to show the iceman how much ice to deliver or how much coal you needed.
The only "modern" entertainment was the movies, and they were silent; you saw Charlie Chaplin and Ben Turpin and Mabel Normand and the Keystone Kops. Some folks went to the vaudeville theatres the way we go to movies. Kids then had chores to do, but when the chores were done they played outside, happy noisy games like baseball and stickball, hopscotch, tag, potsy, kick the can, "johnny on a pony." They made go carts out of scraps, played dolls using bushes for homes and rocks for furniture.
The boys wore knickers or short pants and often shoes with reinforced toes. Girls wore skirts and high button shoes. Everyone wore long stockings held up with garters. (There were even garters made for babies to hold up their stockings.) For treats they had popcorn and toffees and caramels and the very first Hershey bars. Some kids were lucky enough to own books, but the rest of them patronized the libraries and read romantic tales like The Prisoner of Zenda and If I Were King and magazines like St. Nicholas and the Youth's Companion.
In school you wore your best clothes (boys had to wear ties to school then) and sat up straight and dipped your pen in the inkwell when you needed to write. When the teacher called on you, you stood up to "recite." Memorization of "pieces" (poems or orations) and mental arithmetic were popular. You walked home for a hot lunch with your mother, who had probably just finished ironing (her irons heated on the stovetop) or scrubbing the wooden floor with Fels Naphtha soap and a big scrub brush.
A big treat was going to the drugstore for penny candy or a dime ice cream soda. If you were lucky, one Sunday papa and mama would take you to the ice cream parlour for a big cone of ice cream. If a summer Sunday was particularly hot, you might pay your nickel and ride the trolley to the nearest beach, or lake, or park, and cool off under a tree or in the water--no air conditioning to relieve the heat them! In the winter, clad in long underwear under your clothes, you built snow forts and had snowball fights and coasted down the hill on a sled or even a garbage can lid or part of a box.
While Mom was still in her cradle America joined the ongoing fray in Europe and young men marched off to "make the world safe for democracy." As always in wars, many of them didn't come home.
She grew up during a century of change: she went to school, survived the Depression and yet another world war, married, had a child, ran a home and went to work, lost a husband. In the end she is still at war herself, against cancer, and in that she's the bravest person I know. I could only hope and pray to be so courageous.
Love you, Mom.
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