If you have read the previous post on Memoirs of the Farm, we introduced Marie L. (Griffith) Cooper, one of the original homesteaders of our home. She has left us a Beautiful journal of "life on the farm" as she experienced it growing up her at The Vintage Barn. So, we will pick up where we have left off.
Beginnings
On the main level as I said, first, the kitchen. I do not recall square feet but at that time I thought is was large. The kitchen had the standard cupboards, our utilitarian stove and hot water tank, the sink and drainboard with the dipper alongside, and in the center of the room, the kitchen table and its oilcloth table covering with six chairs alongside. The ice box was on the back porch. whenever we were lucky enough to get and or save ice we could use it for cold storage. The one thing you need to realize at this time that we did not have electricity until 1936.
Then we went through the swinging door to the dining room and there we had a large round oak table with claw-foot pedestal and the wood stove, the built in glass doored cupboards which housed all of my mother's precious collectibles with linen closet drawers in between, high lighted above by a beveled mirror. On the self in front of the mirror sat the battery operated radio and some of my mother's hand painted vases. There was my father's Morris chair with the footstool, my mother's rocker and various straight chairs. The gasoline lantern hung from the ceiling.
In the living room, there was a piano plus some furniture we rarely sat on and a wonderful fireplace we always used on Christmas Eve! the was an archway always between the dinning room and the living room with a heavy drape which was pulled in the winter to keep the other rooms warmer. The living room had a thick floral rug.
The front entrance hallway held a desk of oak and a hall tree with the mirror and hooks for coats and umbrellas.
Also, on the main floor was two bedrooms. One was my parents, complete with a large walk in closet with built in drawers. The other bedroom had the same kind of good things and later i was lucky enough to call it my own for a few years. On these beds were quilts and crocheted bedspreads which my mother handmade.
The special thing of all times was the bathroom with indoor plumbing-which worked most of the time. I am sure this must sound strange considering the "times" but in those days, the indoor plumbing was special. First of all, you had to have a well and a pump house to generate the water output, you had to have a special septic tank, you had to have enough money to afford a toilet, a sink and a bathtub. Well, I guess we were lucky! We were the only one within many miles to have the indoor bathroom. We also had a typical outhouse with the Sears catalog for toilet paper, used when the well dried up in the summer. When this happend, we could get our water from concrete storage cistern in our back yard (Now our GREAT fire pit for backyard campfires).
Stay tuned for more memoirs!!!
