grandmothersmusings July 1, 2006
My purpose for writing grandmothersmusings is to let my grandchildren know what my life was like when I was growing up. In this electronic age, I'm sure it is hard to imagine what life was like without all the modern electronics they are used to. Had they not seen Little House On The Prairie which was an era before my time, I don't think they would have much of an idea of what life was like for me as a child.

I was born In Cleveland,Ohio in 1927. My Birth Cerificate says that my parents were living at 9690 Bessemer Ave. In an intersting coincidence, that was the street that eleven years later we would move to upon our return to Cleveland from my dad's hometown of Freemont Ohio where we had lived for seven years, during my ages 4 through 11.

My earliest memories of Cleveland were when my dad was absent from our home, We lived upstairs next to a church. I don't know exactly how long my dad was gone but know he left when my sister was a baby. The ealiest clear memory of my dad was him coming home on Christmas Day, but do have a hazy memory of standing in front of a door on a downstairs porch which was where he evidently lived before returning to the family.

My family consisted of my mother Irene, my dad Walter & a younger sister Virginia. We had an older half brother Leslie, my mom's son who lost his father when he was around 2 or 3 from the very bad flu which killed so many people in 1918. I also lost a cousin I never knew who was 8 monthes old at the time. Other family memmbers were sick with it but survived.

I will be writing more of that time of growing up during the great depression. It was a time when people learned to make do. I can never remember ever going hungry. Mom was an expert of making tasty dishes from simple things. Her Baked beans were much in demand at family get togethers. She though ,a city girl born & bred, learned how to can food in glass Mason jars, probably learning that from my dad's mom. I remember her making pickles & I'm not sure how to spell this, saurekraut in a large granite container.

These were days of doing without, and making do as it was called. I remember mom putting cardboard in my shoes when the soles had worn through. That didn't work too well if it rained. If the shoes still fit, they were taken to the shoemaker to have them "half soled" A process which involved putting new soles on them in the front of the shoe, sometimes adding a new heals in the back as well. Clothing was passed down from the oldest to the youngest child. Works great except when the younger child gets taller than the older sibling.

We were survivors. We had to be because we did not have the modern childhood preventative shots that our children have now.

I'll write more about that at a later time. You name it we caught it, brought it home to share with our siblings.
It was also the time when doctors actually made house calls. We had a wonderful family doctor who came when we were really sick. Otherwise home remedies were used, some of them very icky like mustard plasters.
I've survivied all these years so some of them must have worked.