I have often wondered why certain memories are so vividly imprinted in our minds and others are discarded into the winds of time. Our senses can trigger memories - smells, sights, tastes, sounds and the feel of something beneath our touch. I have many fond recollections of the home where I grew up that I’d like to share with you.
The house had two stories. The upstairs, consisted of three bedrooms and a bathroom. One wall in the upstairs hallway had built-in cupboards and drawers for storage. The upstairs had sloped ceilings as was the building style at the time.
The kitchen, dining and living room areas were on the main floor. A porch jutted out on the side and a shoot to the root cellar under the house was located by the front door. Grandma and Mom carried hundreds of jars of canning up and down the steep wooden steps that lead to the dirt floor cellar.
The house never had running water so that meant there were a lot of pails of water to haul in and out for dishes, washing clothes with a wringer washer, bathing and kitchen use. Water was heated on the stove in a large kettle or in a pail with an electric heating element. A pail of drinking water was available, and we all drank out of the same dipper. A vanity we called the washstand in the kitchen was where we brushed our teeth and cleaned up. My parents bugged me that I was always primping too much. Dad would tell me, "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear".
There were always many dishes to wash, plus the cream separator when Mom was milking cows. Mom ran a tight ship in her kitchen and dirtying additional dishes snacking in the evening was frowned upon. The kitchen was basically closed after supper.
The kitchen was the hub of the home and all activities originated there. A four by five foot chalkboard on the wall above the table was where we drew pictures and practiced our letters and numbers. Mom would jot down her grocery list in one little corner of the blackboard and my brother and I would add silly things to it. The phone was located on the wall as you went upstairs and we sat on the steps to talk. That was as far as the short phone cord would reach. Sitting behind the half wall of the stairs gave me a sliver of privacy while I was on the phone. They could hear me but they couldn’t see me.
I can recall the excitement of getting our first electric stove, clothes dryer and colour television. The dryer made it blessedly unnecessary to hang everything on the clothesline. Mom still put Dad’s white one-piece long johns outside on the line and then later carried them in under her arm, frozen solid in the shape of a human. She basically freeze dried them so that they took less time in the dryer once they thawed out.
The bedrooms were shared by us five kids. The boys in one, the girls in another and my parent’s room was in between. I bunked in with my older sister when I was small and then when she moved out, my little sister moved in, so I always had a roommate. I warmed my feet on my big sister’s legs and my little sister did the same to me.
The old linoleum covered floor upstairs creaked loudly when you walked in the centre. I tried to slither silently along the wall where it creaked less as a teenager, but Mom always heard me coming in after curfew.
The living and dining area were heated by an oil heater with a stove pipe extending up to connect to the red brick chimney. A grate in the upstairs floor over the stove allowed heat to reach the upstairs. That was the only heat source up there, so it got chilly at times. As kids we liked to look down through the floor grate and listen in on the adult’s conversation at the dining room table below. We would drop little things through the grate to get attention, which was foolish because then our cover was blown and we got sent back to bed.
The many windows provided a 360-degree view of the farm as you walked through the house. You could see the lane, the barn yard, the house yard and the garden from the windows. Mom had a feeder for her beloved hummingbirds outside the kitchen window so she could watch them while she washed dishes.
Like many families, we had the traditional dark wood dining room set comprised of a table and chairs, china cabinet and a sideboard. All meals were eaten at the kitchen table except for holiday feasts which were served in the dining room. Like most homes, Dad had his exclusive recliner chair. On Saturday nights when he was watching Hockey Night in Canada, we knew better than to walk in front of the television. I can recall crawling along the floor to get to the other side of the room so I didn't commit the offence of blocking his view of the game.
Mom had a massive bread mixing bowl that hung from a nail in the porch when not in use. On many chilly days when we got off the bus from school, the kitchen table would be laden with fresh baking. There were buns, loaves of bread and cinnamon buns dripping with a caramel sauce made from fresh farm cream, brown sugar and cinnamon. I will never forget what a treat those cinnamon buns were. I smiled years later when I found the black and red baking pan Mom made them in; the scrape marks my brother and I left as we tried to get at every drop of the sauce were still clearly visible in the pan.
The decor consisted of crochet doilies, white sheer curtains, Dad’s wooden gun cabinet, a barometer on the wall and a can of water serving as a humidifier sat on the oil stove all winter.
In 1998 due to Dad’s poor health my parents made the difficult decision to retire and sell the farm. They moved to Prince Albert and the house on the farm was vacant after that. The vine that had grown on the back of the house crept its way inside and wandered freely about.
The kitchen table, washstand (my primping station), cream separator and water pails.
The house on the farm was demolished by the new landowner in 2018.
The telephone on the wall and deer horns.
My younger sister preparing for her lesson at the blackboard.
The kitchen table, washstand (my primping station), cream separator and water pails. The upstairs wall I slithered along after curfew.
If you like this story, I’d love you to share it.