In The Olden Days....

 

This lovely old photo is my hubby's grandmother, Mary Ethel Leverich Oswald (1886-1967). This was her high school graduation photo....... today's high school graduation photos look nothing like this, do they?? Yes, the Olden Times were different...... for instance:

If We Didn't Have It We Used:

• Q tip  --  cotton wound around a match
• Scouring powder  --  wood stove ashes
• Glue  --  raw egg white
• Hot water bottle  --  heated rock or bag of heated rock salt
• Toothpaste  --  salt mixed with baking soda
• Paste  --  flour mixed with water
• Bandage  --  torn-in-strips old bedsheets
• Adhesive tape  --  needle and thread
• Deodorant  --  baking soda
• Ice  --  hailstones or blocks cut in winter from a pond or river
• Waxed paper  --  found inside cereal boxes
• Sandwich bags  --  waxed paper
• Foil  --  gum wrappers
• Ink  --  laundry bluing
• Group transportation  -- truck with seats in back
• Tire repair kit  --  can of rubber patch and glue
• Air for tires  --  hand operated tire pump
• Toilet tissue  --  Sears or Wards catalog
• Salad dressing  --  cream, sugar and vinegar mixed well
• Sanitary napkin  --  old sheets
• Pencil sharpener  --  knife
• Fingernail clipper  --  kitchen scissors
• Salve/Ointment for wounds  --  lard mixed with kerosene and turpentine
• Hand lotion  --  cream or lard
• Laundry soap  --  you made it from grease and lye
• Lunch pail  --  lard bucket with a handle
• New mop --  old clothing on a mop stick
• Cough syrup  --  raw onion and sugar syrup
• Fresh milk  --  milked a cow twice daily

So do you really think life was better in the good old days? How would you have fared?

(Thanks to Nostalgia Magazine, Nov-Dec 2010 issue for this wonderful article by Leone A. Browning.)