Vanishing Icons of American Life

[Mumbleypeg]

Stopped by recently to visit an old farmstead near me which is for sale by the heirs. The old house and barn were built sometime in the late 1800s, according to local lore anyway. The house is a small frame building, occupied until a few years ago by descendants of the original occupant/owners. The outbuildings, including the barn remind me of my paternal grandparents farm, and the memories inspired me to start this thread.

My grandfather, born in 1890, had an eighth grade education but worked hard all his life. By today’s standards he didn’t have a lot, but I’ve come to realize that by the standards of his time he was relatively well off. He and grandma had a two story 4 bedroom home (6 rooms total including the small living room and a big kitchen). I can recall in the late 1950s when the REA reached them and brought electricity. Then a couple of years later they got a telephone “party line”. When my grandfather died in 1968 there was still no indoor plumbing, although they did have a well pump (manual) on the back porch.

But this is about the outbuildings of bygone days. The barn at the local farmstead, like the one at my grandparents, was over two times bigger than the house. With a hay loft. A tack room for harness, bridles and saddles. A room for grain and other feed. A stall for milking. And stalls specially built for teams of horses or mules, two animals per stall with access for feed from the barn’s loft and center aisle. All this built in a time before tractors. A cookhouse/wash house for cooking and doing laundry in the summer so as not to heat the house being lived in. A smokehouse, and a spring house. A chicken coop. And of course the obligatory outhouse aka a “privy”.

Anyone else have similar memories of bygone Americana?

Ken

[TPK]

Sure do Ken. My Grandparents had a farm with 30 acres. I lived across the street from my Grandmother till I was 12. They had a small house, several other sheds & wooden buildings, an out house & a good sized barn. I took my children there several times this past summer. We had pic nics / cookouts, drove my dad's Honda 4-Wheeler, passed the football, played frisbee & made some beautiful memories there.

It was sold Jan. 9th 2020. Very sad!

[OLDE CUTLER]

It is not much different up in this part of the country, Ken. I grew up on the farm that my parents bought in 1946 and for the first 15 years of my life we had no indoor plumbing. At that time every section had inhabited farmsteads. When I drive around in the old "hood" as you mention, there are not many inhabited farms left anymore. The one I grew up on was bulldozed and burned in 2006. In the past farms were measured in terms of how many acres they were, today it is how many SECTIONS. Note a section is 4 quarters of land or 640 acres each. The tractors used today would not even be able to turn around in any of the fields on the farm where I grew up. The fences are even gone now, the owners take out all the fences, trees, and buildings and plant crops right up to the edge of the road. On many rural intersections, you have to stop at every corner, as the visibility for oncoming traffic is zero with the corn planted up to the road. And the roads are not maintained anymore because there isnt anyone living there to use them. The stone country church where I was baptized and confirmed had a ceremony to close out its active use a couple of years ago. The membership had gone steadily down to the point it could not go on. At the time I was a kid, there were over 60 kids in the Sunday school classes, today none. Even farms that still are inhabited all have new houses on them, as the old farm houses like the one I grew up in didn't have modern plumbing, heating systems, running water, insulation, of even basements. Our house had a dirt basement with an outside entrance. I can recall one night when I was a youngster, when my dad got up in the middle of the night and took a 22 rifle with him and went down in the basement and shot a skunk. You could hear mice moving in the walls every night after things were quiet. Our farm had a magnificent old red barn on it that was built in the 1930's. We used to put up hay in the loft in the summer and dad would have hay to feed the milk cows all winter. And I don't mean hay bales either, this was loose hay handled with an antiquated method that few people today have even seen. I was fortunate enough to come along after dad had made the change over to tractors. But the tractors were nothing like today with their heated and air conditioned cabs, radios, and GPS. My older brother got his wrist broken by the spinner knob on a Case DC when the front wheels hit a badger hole and he could not hold the wheel. Anyway, I know exactly what you are talking about Ken.

[danno50]

The icons are vanishing up here in Canada as well, Ken. One of most noticeable is the demise of the grain elevator. Every small town in Saskatchewan had 3 or 4 of them. Now, except for a few derelicts, or ones taken over by farmers, they are all gone. Many of the small towns are dying as well. And as everywhere else, farmer's are draining sloughs, cutting bush and getting rid of old farmsteads to make more farm land.

[kennedy knives]

My Grandparents lived in rural South Georgia Sold there Farm before the depression . Then lost everything during the depression and had to go back to the farm they sold and share-crop on it. As a Kid went to visit and can remember you could see chickens through the floor boards & Stars through the roof . They had a cook stove on the back porch with a well & pump , Smoke house out back with a Barn which was much bigger than the house .The out house had Sears & Roebuck catalog in it and I think you know what it was used for . My Grandfather had a heat stroke and moved in to a Jimmy Walter home back in the early 60's that had indoor plumbing but wasn't hooked up at first had to heat water to take bath on there old wood cook stove . They had power then and still had an out house that my grandmother would stand at the back door with a shot gun for you to go use it at nights she was afraid of bobcats back then. They were poor but didn't know it had 13 kids my dad being one . I tell my kids some of the things from my child hood and they say you didn't do that . & I say yes we did love my child hood appreciate everything the good Lord did for me . The small farms are gone there now.

[TwoFlowersLuggage]

In some cities, houses built in the late 1800s are designated as "historic landmarks" and organizations are formed to preserve and restore them. Yet, out in the countryside, houses even older are simply torn down. That is certainly a shame. Of course, compared to Europe & Asia, the 1800s is considered "modern"!

[bighomer]

Well now we got electricity in 1951,momma cooked on a wood stove, that and a ole grate that we burned coal in was our heat source. Had a ice box on the back porch, ice man came every Thursday. We had a man that came by in a big ole van, momma called him the tinkerer, sold all kind of stuff. He had coops built on one side of the back and a tank of coal oil on the other side. He buy or barter for your chickens or sell you one.
Momma continued to use the wood stove and we continued to use the coal fired grate for a while. We had a battery powered radio. Dad got the house wired finally and bought a frigidaire and a hotpoint stove and a electric radio we wus uptown. Got a warm morning stove to burn that coal in and we was walking in tall cotton sho nuff. Now I don't remember ever being without a telephone, we had a 6 party line it was probably installed in the late 40's. Got our first tv in '57. As for the privy and Sears and roebuck catalog it didn't go away until I was in my early teens. I can remember walking behind daddy as he turned the crop ground with that ole steel wheel W-30 McCormick Deering tractor. When he would go to the house for the night he'd let me sit in his lap and act like I was driving. Some more sweet memories. I better quit be fore I get maudlin

[Mumbleypeg]

Y’all are bringing back more memories. My grandparents also put the Sears & Roebuck catalogs in the outhouse. It was hung over a piece of bailing twine that was strung across the wall.

Another icon gone from modern houses are the large porches, and porch swings. My grandparents back porch was enclosed. That’s where the well pump was, and the water bucket, dipper and washbasin sat on the same counter top where the pump was mounted. But grandma never liked the water from that well for drinking and cooking. So drinking water had to be carried from another well in the pasture. I don’t remember how far away that well was from the house but when I was a kid carrying that bucket, it sure seemed a long way!

The front porch was open and went across the length of the house. On one side was a big porch swing, which I now have on the front porch at our rural house. See below. When my dad was growing up, during the summer he slept on the swing often because his bedroom was one of the second floor rooms, which were hot in the summer. The swing is over 6 feet long, and he slept on it until he was drafted into the army after graduating high school in 1943. The swing is made of solid oak, and as long as I can remember it was painted John Deere green. I’ve repainted it several times since we’ve had it and always have kept it some shade of green.

I remember when I was a kid, sitting on that porch swing with my grandpa while he read the “funny papers” to me.

Ken

[kootenay joe]

I am Canadian and grew up in Montreal which at that time was only a one hour drive to the border at New York State or Vermont. From about 1957 to 1963 my family of 4 would take a 2 week driving vacation through rural USA, mostly New England States but also as far South as Kentucky and Virginia.
These were some of the most memorable times of my life. Not because of the company of my parents and older sister, or the fine ride of a 1958 Chev Belair, but because of the beauty and sense of peace in the small towns and rural areas.
We sought out the back roads and out of the way places and stayed at a different mom and pop motel each night. I remember going for a walk at dusk after a long day in the car. We had stopped at a small motel where you had your own small cabin, somewhere at elevation in N.Y.State. The surrounding coniferous forest gave a sweet intoxicating aroma and the absence of any drivers on the old road allowed the stillness to be. Don't know where that was, Finger Lakes area maybe ?
"Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco" "Treat Yourself to the Very Best" was seen covering an entire wall of old barns.
I remember walking through the State parks at Franconia Notch and Crawford Notch, in N.H. i think.
Small towns were clean, bright, shops on Main street having everything you needed: soda fountain in a drug store, hardware store, clothing & shoe stores all looked inviting. I recall what seemed like large stately well kept houses on streets with big trees.
I am grateful that we made these trips. I was seeing what might have been the end of an era. An era of small town and rural peace and prosperity in the New England States.
Also have memories of Hampton Beach, Rhode Island, Cape Cod and Chesapeake Bay Bridge, rainstorm flooding in Columbus OH., an so on, many old memories.
I have typed this from memory, have not checked it with a map. I am remembering 60 years ago so these experiences really did make a lasting impression.
kj