Fishing Camp Memories and Life in the '50s and '60s

Reader Contribution by The Mother Earth News Editors
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This story is from Nancy Swartz and submitted as part of our Wisdom from Our Elders collection of self-sufficient tales from yesteryear.

My grandparents had a fishing camp on a nearby river, in the ’50s (actually before that — I was a kid — my father used to go there as a teenager) into the early ’60s. Of course, there was no electricity, running water (other than the river), or phone service. They had an ice box, for which we would stop and buy a block of ice on our way there. We went most weekends in the summer to the fishing camp. It was a great place for childhood experiences: fishing, swimming, wading, wildlife, etc. This was back before plastic was everywhere. My grandparents would use old glass liquor bottles to transport up potable water. They also had an outhouse where we used lime each time we used the “facilities.” It was shaded by trees, and one whole side was “windows” with screening.

I also remember my grandmother calling the refrigerator “the Frigidaire,” no matter what the make was. I’m guessing that’s because they were one of the first manufacturers of refrigerators. My grandmother’s purse was a “pocketbook.” My grandfather called the car “the machine.” They used a manual weed wacker and rotary reel lawn mower. Their house’s driveway was two strips of concrete, not a solid apron and drive. In the kitchen, there was a “box” in the wall where the delivery man would leave milk, bread, eggs, etc. My grandmother would mail her grocery list in the morning to the corner grocery store, and her groceries were delivered that afternoon. Their house also had a laundry chute to the basement where the washing machine was. I don’t think she ever had a dryer.

  • Published on May 24, 2012
Tagged with: Reader Contributions
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