NEW BEGINNINGS

In the 1930’s the depression was on and still homes began to modernize. In his book Harold Luiken who married in 1934 describes the first home that he and his bride moved into. 

“By the standards in those days we had a fairly modern house. A coal and wood burning furnace in the basement, a coal and wood burning stove in the kitchen which came with the house due to the fact it had a water front piped into the fire box. What is a water front? A cast iron block some three inches thick by 18 inches long with a hollow body and two openings at one end to permit fitting water pipe into the block. These pipes ran to a 30 gallon supply tank in the bathroom. The water system was in the basement. This was also a water supply tank of some 30 gallons and attached to this was a small water pump with electric motor. The water supply was from two large underground cisterns filled with rainwater. The water came from rain off the house roof and piped into the two cisterns.” 

“What with the water front in the firebox of the kitchen stove, we had running hot water in the bathroom, soft water at that. The cisterns were some 300 gallons capacity and we rarely ever ran out of soft water. Our drinking water was hauled from the town pump a block up the street. A drinking water pail sat on the corner of the kitchen cabinet … no built in cupboards in those days. We did have a modern bathroom complete with closet, bath tub and lavatory. Our furniture was as plain as possible, a small table and two chairs in the kitchen, no refrigerator. We had a dumb waiter on the back porch. What’s a dumb waiter? Dumb waiters were quite common in those days if you did not have an ice box. It consisted of a metal drum some 15 inches in diameter and about four feet long. This drum had 10 inch openings full length and four shelves to provide space for all foods that needed cooling. This drum was lowered into a round hole in the ground some 15 feet deep and probably 18″ in diameter. You raised and lowered the drum into this pit with a crank attached to a spool which was enclosed in a wood cabinet with a door opening to permit getting into the drum with the food. Some 20 feet of quarter inch rope was used for this lifting operation.” 

“We had no washing machine. Trena took all of our laundry to her mother’s house every Monday morning. Our dining room consisted of a table and four chairs, a small buffet for linen and silverware. The living room had a small davenport and one chair. As I recall we had two rocking chairs that probably came from some of the family. The bedroom had only the bed. No clothes closets in the house anywhere. We had two 4′ X 4′ X 8′ wood clothes cabinets built at the lumberyard and this was the extent of our clothes storage space. We did acquire a used four drawer bureau from somewhere a bit later.”