Questions Open the Door to an Unexpected World

My Aunt Lois (L) and My Mother, Ruby (R)

Lately, I’ve begun doing something that I should have done years ago – asking my mother and aunt about their lives growing up. My mother, a coal miner’s daughter from Lee County, Virginia and my aunt, a carpenter’s daughter from Gaston County, NC, married brothers and became sisters-in-laws. They are much, much more. They have been best friends all my life and both have been mothers to my siblings and me.

It never occurred to me that their lives were all that different from my own and they’ve never offered many details. But, oh, how I wish I had asked earlier!

Both grew up in different parts of the country, but they seemed to live under similar conditions. No indoor plumbing, electricity for lights only. So, one day I asked one question. How did my aunt’s family keep food cold when she was growing up?

The Icebox

An antique icebox

My aunt’s family had a metal icebox and a man in a horse drawn cart delivered a block of ice each week.

My aunt described the icebox as metal, with one long door and two shorter ones. Food was stored in the two larger compartments.

The ice block was placed on a rack inside the smaller door. A tube running from that compartment to the outside drained out the water as the ice melted.

“It wasn’t like a refrigerator,” my aunt said. “You could not keep anything frozen. Stuff would go bad.”

It’s on my list to ask my mother whether they had an icebox or relied on the cold water in the mountain spring.

Oil Cook Stove

A modern oil stove

Then without another question, my aunt told me that the cookstove in her house was fueled by oil. I had never heard of this. To my surprise, these stoves are still made, extremely expensive and used in homes in the UK.

“It had two burners and on the front of the oven as a round temperature gauge. The stove got real hot,” my aunt recalled. “It used the same oil as the house heater.”

Although the photo is from a modern manufacturer in England, the stove fits my aunt’s description to a “t.”

My mother’s family had a coal stove that both heated the small house and where they cooked the food. They had to carry in the coal from a shed and of course, it wasn’t free.

The Washpot

A cast iron washpot

In this same conversation, my aunt asked me to look up pictures of washpots. I was astonished that there was specific cast iron pot designed for doing laundry.

“It had three legs and small handles called “ears.” The washpot sat upon a stand and beneath that, my daddy would stack wood and light a fire to heat water in the washpot,” my aunt recalled. “Mama would put the clothes in and stir them around with a paddle. Then she would move them to another pot of clean, cold water and ring them out by hand. Then she would hang them on the line. The laundry took all day.”

My mother’s family had electricity and a ringer washer. They did have to bring up water from the community well, but it was a far less laborious process than my aunt’s family.

What different lives they led and how they have never complained. I am already thinking of my next questions.