SCRUB-A-DUB-DUB...

Washing machines.

One day last August I loaded my clothes, added the soap, then closed the lid; I turned the dial to the “Regular Wash” cycle, aimed the little arrow at “start” and pushed.

          The washer started the spin cycle.

          I stopped the machine, turned the dial, lined everything up again and pushed again – this time, it started the spin cycle, but added water to the whole thing.

          The third time around, I got agitation, but no water.

There was no fourth time; I went to the laundromat in town.

Over a hundred years ago, the Charles Williams Stores in New York offered a washing machine called the Sunny Monday Double Rubber Washer!

“The clothes to be washed are put into the tub between the lower and upper rubbers…practically the same movement as the one used in washing clothes on the washboard…”

          They’re not talking about rubber as we know it—they’re talking about two wooden rollers inside the machine that “rub” the clothes back and forth whenever you move that bizarre handle on top.

It’s only $2.45, for goodness’ sake!

Sears, Roebuck offered The Dolly Wonder – a “big family” size tub of one-inch cedar. Operated by electric motor, it “will do the family washing week after week and month after month easily and economically.” It was equipped with a power wringer with semi-soft rolls; a wide, reversible drain board. Only $51 if you pay in cash; the credit terms were $5 down and $5 per month…but the interest pushed the cost of the machine up to $56.25.

But, omygoodness, look at the 1931 Wardway Electric Gyrator Washer from Montgomery Ward!

          “The new, improved Gyrator Agitator swirls and forces the hot soapy water through the clothes…women everywhere tell us that no rubbing is necessary!”

          It has an all-copper tub that holds 6-8 cotton sheets; it has a strong ¼ horsepower splash-proof electric motor; its gears push the clothes back and forth AND up and down!

          Mrs. L.E. Davis of Tippecanoe City, O, writes “Under your easy payment plan, one pays so easily that it is not noticed.

          Best of all, the Wardway comes with a 10-year guarantee (with ordinary family use).

Wish I’d had a 10-year guarantee on my 2011 machine…

IT'S NOT THE WINE ITSELF...

…it’s about the wine coaster.

          I remember this one from my grandmother’s dining room table.

Dinner could be formal there: I had to wear a dress, white ankle socks (that always sagged) and black strapped shoes--remember Mary Janes? I knew which fork to use, which spoon; had a napkin as big as a pillowcase and my very own wine glass (never used, of course, but at my place, nevertheless!)

Eating dinner with the adults was pretty boring – I couldn’t understand much of the conversation – I much preferred to eat in the kitchen with Mrs. Sagan.

But, I digress; back to the wine coasters…

She had three or four of them for her two, fine stoppered cut glass decanters with an H (for Howell) etched on the side of the bowls; the decanters themselves were lovely, but I was more fascinated with the stoppers than with any other part of this arrangement.

        

The coasters were  sterling silver with wooden bottoms. At any dinner, there might be one or two on the table—one for a decanter of red wine, one for white—and they prevented drips/stains on the tablecloth. They also kept the decanters apart to prevent chipping the crystal.

          The term “coaster” didn’t make any sense to me until I learned that coasters with wooden bottoms were slid across the tablecloth to diners who needed refills; after-dinner coasters had felt backings so that those who lingered after the dinner had been cleared and the table cloth removed, could slide decanters back and forth across the bare tabletop without scratching the surface.

          Old coasters—made in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, were less than five inches in diameter; when broader-bottomed cut glass decanters came into fashion, decanters became larger, too. In huge dining rooms, coasters sometimes had actual wheels to make it easier to slide the length of enormous tables – they were called wine carriages!

I have this single felt-backed coaster and one of the decanters. I have no idea where the others might be; I’m hoping they’re with second or third cousins, somewhere, gracing their tables.

BUILDING BRIDGES...

Isn’t she beautiful?

         

This photograph—one of the first color ones in my family collection—has lived in every house I’ve ever owned.

Literally.

This is the drawbridge at Osterville, Massachusetts. I think it connected the points of land between the North and West Bays in Osterville Harbor, but I’m not so sure of that.

My father, the engineer in charge, was working on this bridge in October of 1946 when he received word I had been born: He drove to Boston to meet me, then came back a couple of days later to finish up the bridge.

It’s been known as “Deb’s Bridge” in my family ever since!

The last time I saw that bridge was in the very early 1960s when I was sailing with my family on the Trident; I was about fifteen years old. I stood on the bow with the horn and called the approach for the bridge keeper – I remember his singular response—a conversation, of sorts; an agreement between us—and then the slow, lovely ascent of the draw.

          We passed through; I made my way to the stern and watched the descent from there.

          My father’s bridge, I thought.

I’d like to think it’s still there…

SEPIA SATURDAY BLANKET...

I’m not sure how many of you, my blog followers, know about Sepia Saturday.

If you don’t, you should, so here’s a little primer:

          Sepia Saturday is an “open” blog – a blog that “provides bloggers an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs.”

          Every week, bloggers from all over the world (honestly – you’ll be amazed at the international flavor of Sepia Saturday!) review a prompt photo posted by our Exalted Leaders, then post their individual responses to the prompt on or about the following Saturday…

…and the result is a fascinating collection of photographs, essays, poems, questions, revelations and various musings and mutterings from all over the globe!

All who contribute make a point of viewing everybody’s postings, and the comments submitted are sent in good faith; they’re encouraging, funny, interesting and, sometimes, amazingly tender.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is an old photograph from the National Library of Ireland: a wagonload of people in what looks to be a late 19^th-century version of a bus…four horses, drivers, passengers in hats, posed on a dirt road in a town someplace.

The themes? Travel…Overcrowding…Blankets

Blankets? I thought; what can I possibly do with blankets?

Didn’t take long to figure it out.

My cousin Robert (almost everybody calls him Bob, but I think he’s more of a Robert), who lives about 25 miles away from me, shares with me a deep love of genealogy social history—he and I share old family letters, photographs, momentos; we give each other pieces of our shared history (his mother and my father were siblings).

Robert and I are constantly handing each other gifts and treasures, and he surprised me with this blanket--one that's been hidden away in the family summer home in East Boothbay, Maine for close to seventy-five years.

This threadbare wool blanket belonged to my father (see the sewn-in name tag!); it was the one (I’m guessing) he took to college in the fall of 1936, his freshman year at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

The connection here is simple: my father would have loved Sepia Saturday.

          And so, his blanket, and my hope that you will find your way to www.sepiasaturday.blogspot.com; I hope to see you all there soon!  

CANTEEN...

Funny how words shift and evolve, isn’t it?

What starts out as one thing soon becomes another…

In the 1700s, a canteen was simply a supply store; it’s from the French (cantine, a sutler’s establishment) and Italian (cantina, a wine cellar or shop). But the meaning shifted in translation, and “canteen” soon became to mean the item we know so well…a small tin container for water or liquor.

Transporting water was always an issue—ancient nomads used animal bladders, closed tight with sinew and tied to camels for long crossings in the desert; shepherds hollowed out gourds, stuck a plug in the necks and hiked up to high pastures where they summered their flocks; cowboys made bags of leather and strapped them to saddles on cattle drives across the American west.

Some canteens were even made of thick colored glass—they were designed to transport liquors from distiller to market. I’ve found some in old house dumps behind old New England farmhouses, seen others in antique stores, and they are quite lovely on display.

My maternal grandfather spent some time in Italy before WWI; he was a pediatrician, and made many trips to Europe studying diseases of children. On one of his jaunts, he ended up in Florence (Firenze), where he purchased this lovely Pilgrim’s Flask for my grandmother. It originally had a leather cord attached to each of the lion heads on the shoulders of the bottle, but that’s been gone a very long time. My grandmother never drank anything but sherry (the sweeter the better—sweet enough to choke a bat, I hear!); I doubt she ever stashed any of the hard stuff in it, but I do remember the occasional floral arrangement on the kitchen table – bright flowers above the neck, stems pushed down inside.

Eventually, a canteen took the shape we know today – a roundish tin water bottle carried by people on the move – soldiers, travelers, those on the road; Girl and Boy Scouts used them (you bet we weren’t carrying booze, though!). They all had straps or clips or belts, they were sometimes covered with leather, flannel, or even wool.

          

Here’s one I found in one of my trusty old mail order catalogues (1930), not a lousy old tin canteen, but an aluminum one – “pure aluminum substantially constructed throughout. Screw top with safety chain. Well made outside cover khaki color lined with felt, long length adjustable shoulder straps.”

All that for $1.98.

         

Today, we pay that much for the fortified (electrolytes added!) water we carry inside…

GYPSIES, TRAMPS and THIEVES...

Well, I’m not so sure about the gypsies and the thieves, but definitely tramps – a whole collection of ‘em.

          

This photo was taken in the back yard of my parents’ house up in the West End of Portland, Maine. I think it’s the fall of 1956; if so, I am ten years old (I’m the fourth from the left, white shirt, string tie and mustache).

          The Gang – a motley collection of best friends. We all went to elementary school together at the McClellan School – we walked along brick sidewalks to school every day, came home for lunch, walked back in the afternoon. We played together after school: rode our bikes together in a loose pack down to Dudley-Weed Drugstore for popsicles on hot days, went trick-or-treating on Halloween, climbed the monkey bars and gave the swings a workout, roller skated, hop-scotched and jump-roped in the schoolyard, shimmied up street poles and twisted the street signs around (our worst offense, I’m sure).

          Some of our fathers were doctors; some were civil engineers, bankers, teachers, lawyers…our mothers were, mostly, “stay-at-home moms,” although we didn’t call it that back then – it was simply a given, a natural state of affairs in the decade after WWII.

          Our parents were all friends. They partied together: I remember a progressive party they had: one house for cocktails followed by a walk through the neighborhood in their formal dinner clothes to another for appetizers and more cocktails, a third stroll to a third house for dinner, down the street to the fourth for dessert, a final trek to the last house for coffee! They took us caroling through Portland’s West End at Christmas time (with an upright piano in the back of a pickup truck and the rest of us walking in the street, singing; a light snowfall made the whole event even more magical) and they went sledding with us on the Western Prom.

         

We were all friends – both parents and children.

All the parents are gone now (save one, who is 100 this year); all of these tramps are still alive as far as I know, although we seldom see each other.

Yesterday, I had lunch at a low-key restaurant in a nearby town with two of the other Tramps in this photo who are up here for the summer months – the second from the left (M., in tuxedo and high-top sneakers) and the fourth from the right (P., underneath a broad-brimmed hat). We ate and talked, caught up on each other’s lives, congratulated ourselves for being in pretty good shape as we push into our 70s (I was the only one with an Artificial Body Part!).

We laughed and wondered, waded in and out of various childhood memories – most of them happy (one of them this gathering of hobos); we’ve sorted out the troubling ones, packed them into handkerchiefs, tied them onto gnarled poles and moved on…

…still tramping together after sixty years!

BEFORE TELEVISION...

Behold the Enterprise Stereopticon with a Seroco Acetylene Light, advertised in the 1902 Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogue—the “highest grade” of lantern made.

The full set came with a Seroco generator and a Simplex burner for firing the acetylene, a high power single stereopticon with carrying case, a 120 square-foot white screen, 52 transparent views in a polished wood case, and an accompanying lecture, bound in book form for easy reading by the operator to the audience.

There were several topics available: some of the most popular lectures were patriotic and military: The Maine and the Cuban War, the Boer-English War; religious and travel: the Passion Play Series, Life of Christ on Earth and—one of my favorites—Around the World in Eighty Minutes, a precursor, perhaps, to the more familiar (to us) eighty-day hot air balloon excursion.

There were eighty views in this series, so the audience saw one scene per minute.

For a more grim entertainment, you could see The Assassination of President McKinley, “a valuable memento of the sad event whereby the nation was deprived of its president.” It includes a view “of the assassin himself, taken within ten minutes of his capture by the police.”

Only fifteen slides in this set, but all with color added!

         

Sinclair Lewis might have enjoyed The Chicago Stock Yards (subtitled “From Hoof to Market”). Witness “the shipping of the animals, their reception at the stock yards, the slaughtering, curing, saving and inspecting, the manner in which the by-products are utilized…”

Fifty-five slides in this set, twelve of which had added color.

Sounds gruesome.

Sears pitched these stereopticon sets to young men (and women!) who might be interested in becoming self-employed—people who wished to “make money with little effort,” and find “pleasant and honorable employment.”

          The entire set cost $53 (a bit over a thousand dollars today—a substantial investment), but a traveling lecturer with an established circuit could earn that in a week by renting a hall in each small town, charging admission for two or three presentations, then moving on.

Hurry; place your order!