Reminiscing

The perils of aging:

Those nocturnal visits to the lavatory.
Having to sit down to put on one's pants.
Having to come back downstairs to remember what one went up for in the first place.

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Reminiscence

In the rural Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia of the Mid Twentieth Century my Great Uncle Otto was not poor, he just didn't hold with new-fangled ideas; like baled hay, tractors, automobiles, running water, electricity, telephones. A life-long bachelor—we are related—he lived with his brother Alexander, his sister Alexandria Silver whose husband died(in a woods accident I believe), a life-size hand-painted tin plate of her son who died as a young child that had pride of place on its own stand in the parlour, his mentally-challenged cousin Zipporah Connelly, and my Grandmother Sadie, his sister-in-law—who went to keep house for them. He lived to be nearly 100, so I can expect to become a very old curmudgeon.

His home was a two-story mansion of a place with entryways front and back, a two-story bay window at the front, cellar-way and full basement, and two sets of stairs to the upper level one being a service stair to the unfinished attic over the kitchen. On the mantelpiece in the kitchen above the chaise-lounge sat an Ansonian Mantle Clock which probably made its way from Boston in Captain Mailman’s boat—it still keeps time well into its second century in my living room. The front door was reserved for when the parson called, when someone was taken out feet first, or for house cleaning. Everyone came in by the back door—there was also a service door beside the sink in the kitchen. On their way in they would have passed the ice cooler in the entryway. The ice for it was stored in the ice house whose supply was hand sawn above the grist mill dam on the river. Off the kitchen tucked under the service stairs was the pantry. With town 7 miles away by horse and wagon keeping one’s supplies organized was essential—there were two general stores but they served more as social gathering spots than shopping centres. The pantry contained bins with a hundredweight of flour and sugar each,(the bags had floral patterns used to make dresses and pillow cases); a 50 pound barrel of salt plus coarse salt; a gallon of molasses; lard pail; baking essentials—fresh yeast, baking soda, cream of tartar, vanilla—bought from the Raleigh Man, a cousin from Broad Cove, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, coriander, summer savoury; and dried goods including raisins and dried yellow-eyed beans—home-grown of course. It was my Grandmother’s policy to add to her grocery list a replacement for anything she freshly opened.

The kitchen contained the sofa under the clock, a rocking chair, the oil-cloth-covered kitchen table, the sink with hand-pump and the kitchen stove with warming oven above and hot water reservoir attached. A container of Gillet’s Lye would have kept the drain running free. Even by day one would have lit the lamp to go down the stairs under the main stairway to the cellar where the main provisions were kept. In one corner was an essential feature of all farmhouses before refrigerators, the small well in which the creamer was hung to keep the milk fresh. One large bin contained potatoes and others onions, carrots, turnips, and cabbage. There was a wine-barrel of sauerkraut, and many barrels of apples from the apple orchard outside. A cabinet and shelves held the mason jars of preserves put down the previous fall. There were also smaller barrels and crocks of pickled beans and herring, ham, bacon, salt pork and cod, smoked fish—kayaks in particular which were stored on sticks in the rafters and, in my Grandmother’s case, bottles of homemade dandelion wine. One had to be prepared, borrowing from a neighbour would be an embarrassing admission of one’s bad judgement and the next shopping trip could be a week away, even a month away when the roads were impassable in winter.

Most homes were built on hills so that one could see one’s neighbour’s lamplight, a symbol of wellbeing and companionability in those days before telephones. The yard outside was enclosed by the barn and various outbuildings. To the left was the wash house with its stove for heating copper kettles for washing. A toe-path led to the hen house and down by the brook a small coop for the ducks. Next was the blacksmith shop and driving shed and beside it a shoeing station for the oxen. Behind them was the smokehouse. Across the yard was the 100-foot barn with thrashing floor, horse stable, cow stable, sheep pen and dung shed where the pigs also resided. The hay mow boasted a hay fork worked by ropes and pulleys and a track that ran the length of the barn. Completing the square was the woodhouse and between it and the barn the outhouse. The ice house was under a large maple down the driveway past the apple orchard and elsewhere, along the river was a shingle mill—essential for keeping all those roofs healthy. When a trip to the outhouse wasn’t practical one got the thundermug out from under the bed or the chamber pot out of the commode. Cleaning them is one task the modern housewife certainly doesn’t miss.

If enough people express an interest I’ll post more. I wrote bits of this as musings to a friend. This is probably a chapter from a book I expect I’ll write once I retire.