JUST A STORY TONIGHT; NO PICTURE

I decided to write just a little about what my life was like in the late 1930's and a little during World War II.

Our house was just the average simple house that most of the people in our rural area had. My mother had a very nice wood cookstove. She kept it so clean. We had a refrigerator with a small freezer compartment that only held ice cube trays. The heat for our house was a wood stove in the front room. On cold nights, my dad would get up between 3 and 4 AM and build a fire in the heater. I stayed bundled under my blankets until the house started to warm up. For electrical appliances we had a wringer washer, a radio, a toaster and an electric iron. Almost every item of everyday clothing had to be ironed. We had lots and lots of handkerchiefs; big red ones for my dad and dainty ones for my mom, my sister and me which all had to be ironed. I always loved ironing the handkerchiefs and piling them in neat piles. My mom ironed all the sheets and pillowcases. One thing I remember is that I had this skirt that had tiny pleats all the way around. My mother would always carefully iron each little pleat. One day after my skirt was washed, I decided to iron it myself. I never had the patience my mother had. I just laid my skirt on the ironing board and pressed across the pleats and turned it over and pressed the back side. My mother was watching me and probably thinking she would have to do it over. When I held it up, the pleats were perfect. My mother said after watching me, she never did iron pleats one at a time again.

My dad always had big vegetable gardens. My mother would can jars and jars of everything. My sister and I helped her. I can still remember how sore my fingers got shelling peas. We had lots of jars of fruit too. Sugar was a very inexpensive item. Of course, when the war broke out, Sugar was rationed and women started canning with honey. Also, my dad and mother had a locker (freezer) downtown to keep the meat in. We always had lots of beef and chickens.

Now when I look back, I can see the late 1930's was a glorious time to live in. It was a peaceful time. Families worked together and had fun together. My dad enjoyed fishing. He would take all of us to the Snohomish River or to Mukilteo. My mother would take her magazines to read and my sister and I watched our dad or played around the water.

People didn't have a lot of money but most of the families around us had what they needed. Like my dad, they raised there own meat and had big gardens. People were careful with their money.

Usually a couple of Saturday afternoons a month I used to ride the bus into Everett with my two girl friends to see a show. About a half mile from our house you could catch the Northcoast bus.(you had to flag it down). At that time we lived close to Highway 99. When my mother, sister and I went shopping, we would take the Northcoast bus. It cost 25 cents to ride into Everett. On the Saturdays that I went to the show with my friends, we would walk 2 miles to the Intercity Bus because it only cost 10 cents to ride into Everett. We would go to the Matinee at the Roxy Theater which was only 10 cents.

During World War II, I was working at the Everett Daily Herald. Many items were rationed. Items like toilet tissue and Kleenex were in very short supply. They were not rationed. Stores would get a certain amount and it was first come, first served. People would line up at the door long before the store opened. The stores would run an ad saying they had a limited amount of toilet tissue or Kleenex. I was able to see the ads the day before. My mother, who had always used cloth handkerchiefs, suddenly decided she wanted Kleenex. (We still used lots of cloth handkerchiefs). When an ad came out saying there was a limited supply of toilet tissue or Kleenex, I would take the bus in 2 hrs. early before work. Once in a while, I didn't get any tissue or Kleenex but most of the time I was near enough to the front to get my one package of toilet tissue or l box of Kleenex. All during the war, there was no toilet tissue in public bathrooms. You carried your own in your purse. After the war was over, my mother said " I will never go without toilet tissue again". It is the one thing I still do today is stock up on toilet tissue and Kleenex. Debbie buys toilet tissue, but I still can't help myself. I keep the downstairs bathroom stocked and I always have extra tissue in my closet.

Nylon stockings had not come out yet during the war. Everyone wore silk stockings. (No panty hose) The department store close to the Newspaper Office advertised that they had a limited amount of silk stockings. I stood in this long line and when I finally got close to the counter there was only one pair left. Immediately two women were fighting over it. I never waited in line for stockings again. Shortly there were no silk stockings anyway because the silk had been coming from Japan. My mother was so careful when she put her silk stockings on. She put on her dress gloves and pulled the stockings up very carefully. Mr. Jeklin, the business manager at the Newspaper office, insisted all the girls wear silk stockings and high heels and of course women only wore dresses. Everyone was starting to run out of stockings. Then a miracle happened! Leg paint came out. There were four of us in the front office so we would paint our legs and when we got to work, we would take turns making a seam up the back of our legs with an eyebrow pencil. Unless you looked real close, it did look like you had stockings on. The trouble was it wore off pretty fast or smeared if your legs got wet. You would have to repaint them every morning.

It is sure a different world we live in now. I love it. I love all the nice things we have.