About gDonna
The photo is my son and myself. Now days you can get a photo made to look old like this one. This photo was taken when this was the new look.

Harry S Truman was president when I was born and world war II had ended. I grew up in a time when lunch was put in a brown paper bag and a sandwich was wrapped with wax paper. There was no such thing as pantyhose, we wore stockings that attached to the rubbery clippy things that attached to the girdle. Convenience stores were not common and when we took a trip we packed a picnic basket because many places did not have fast food. Highways had places to pull over and stop, some with picnic tables. Read more ....
 

Donna's Diary Posts

My Favorite Blog and Books
Recent Posts

The Old Days

April 20, 2016

Many of my visitors to this website enjoy the old posts and they email me to tell me how they enjoy the posts about the old days. 

Recently one of my visitors posted how her Grandparents lived in a very frugal way and had no waste as we do now and she asked,  I often wonder what other people remember of times past and if we share common memories, what do you think?

So I told her I would ask all of you. Do you have memories of the old days, your parents or Grandparents?  Something you would like to share?

I asked her if she would be the first to send a post so here is a post from Judi.

Hi Donna, 

We are from Australia and I live in a town called Culcairn now but grew up with my family in a town that is called Wodonga. It was a lovely place to grow up with big tree lined streets and not a very big population but it is very different now and is 3 times bigger than it was in my day. 

This is about my precious Grandma, she was born 4th April 1900 and grew up seeing both world wars and the great depression. One of the first things I learned with my Gran was that nothing ever got wasted. Everything we purchased when I was little came wrapped in brown paper or butchers white paper. This paper would get folded and put in a draw to be reused for things like lining cake tins or if you had a parcel to send, also as firelighters. 

We had a wood stove in our kitchen, which my Gran could produce the most awesome food from she would make scones and use the waxed paper that was from our cereals boxes to line the tray. String got saved, buttons and zippers got saved when an article was no longer wearable. old clothes were turned into cleaning rags. Nothing came in plastic it did not exist and I think we were better off because of it. 

My Gran worked hard and the house was always tidy, if she was going out she always looked well presented. There was no going down the street looking sloppy, you were a lady and you acted like one. No one spoke with poor language and there certainly was not profanity heard on the street. People visited with each other, especially Sunday afternoon. It was nice when you knew that everyone had the weekend off and could find time to relax and enjoy each others company. 

Our milk used to get delivered to our front door in glass bottles that you put the empties out for the milkman to take back and be cleaned and reused. We had a very good vegetable garden that my Gran and Dad would tend. Gran made lots of jams and chutneys. 

When my Gran set the table for a meal she would put out the butter and jam in little glass dishes that made the table look so pretty and we always had a table cloth. Its funny how we do not value our housecleaning and upkeep skills as much as they did then! I would love to hear what other people think of their generations from the past too. best wishes from Judi

Thank you Judi for the lovely email. I hope others will send in their emails of memories from the past.  

You don't have to send photos, you can if you want but it is not necessary. I enjoy hearing the stories as well so just go up to the top contact button and send me an email if you care to share your memories.  Make sure you put your correct email so I can reply back to you. I will only use your first name only in the post. It would help to send a country and or location so we can see if there are similar stories from all over the world.

The photo at the top is my Grandmother and her two younger sisters growing up in Mississippi.

Grandma Donna 

Comment on this article

Would you like to make a comment or view comments on this article?
Visit the comments section in the new discussion forum!

No comments so far.

 

NEW! Join the mailing list to get email notifications when new articles are posted to our site.

Your information is safe with us and won't be shared.

Thank you for joining! 

IMPORTANT! 
You were sent an email to confirm your subscription to our mailing list.
Please click the link in that email to confirm or you won't be added.
If you have not received the email within a few minutes please check your spam folder. 

 
Loading More Photos
Scroll To Top
Close Window
Loading
Close