By kiki
The houses at the Simons Brickyard were no more than shacks with no indoor plumbing or natural gas; cooking was done on wood-burning stoves. When nature called, we used outhouses. "where's the sports page? Pop would yell, somebody would yell back "in the outhouse" Where somebody had used it for toilet paper.
The houses at the Simons Brickyard were no more than shacks with no indoor plumbing or natural gas; cooking was done on wood-burning stoves. When nature called, we used outhouses. "where's the sports page? Pop would yell, somebody would yell back "in the outhouse" Where somebody had used it for toilet paper.
Saturday mornings were the Simons people's day to bathe. We all had tinas (galvanized tubs) sitting on bricks. After filling the tina with water, we would light up a fire underneath to get the water nice and hot. Once the water was hot, we would carry it in a galvanized bucket to the bathing shack. Pops had dug a hole in the ground and constructed a tub, a small swimming pool out of bricks and cement in the bathing shack. In my last two years at Vail Elementary, we were allowed to shower daily at the school's showers.
Mom would also use the tina to do the laundry. She had two lavaderos (washboards). After washing our clothes, she would hang them out to dry. If the clothes were left hanging overnight in the winter, we would find them frozen in the morning; we would then have to put them close to the wood-burning stove to thaw them out.
My mother (born in 1920) grew up in Los Angeles on Garey St. Just south of what is now the 101 fwy.and east of what is now Union station. I always find it fascinating to think of L.A. without indoor plumbing and outhouses. Back in the late 1920s when she grew up on Garey it was exactely like this. I'm not exactely sure what year she and her family had thee indoor plumbing luxuries.
ReplyDeleteHer family would curtain off their kitchen to take their baths in thee ever popular "tina", also warming their water on a wood stove.
I remember her telling of how cold it got at times that they literally made Jell-0 just my leaving the mixture in a room in their lil house.
She also recounted how poor they were during the depression, yet those were thee happiest times of her life!
Here's to the simple life...
Thank you Frank for your story..It brought back my Mom to me for a bit..
Thank you Gen for sharing your mom's beautiful story.
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