"Think it's rough? '36 was colder but they knew how to cope" from the February 8, 1977 Door County Advocate
By GRACE SAMUELSON
Think it's rough? '36 was colder but they knew how to cope
By GRACE SAMUELSON
The ground hog saw his shadow and you certainly can't blame him for turning back to his warm bed with the prospect of six more weeks of this kind of weather. Although most of us haven't had to put up with the hardships and suffering that folks in Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania had to endure we surely feel enough is enough.
Oil shortages, gas shortages, — whole cities crippled from the effects of the weather. Frozen water pipes, lowered thermostat readings, the feeling of isolation from having to stay out of the storms and sub zero weather if at all possible, made us edgy. Awful, isn't it? But do you remember the winter of thirty six?
The cold snap started later. The Feb. 7, 1936 Advocate reports: "As if more than two weeks' cold wave were not enough, the weatherman brought on one of the heaviest blizzards since 1929 this past Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday's low was 27 below." I remember! Six weeks of sub-zero weather, mostly 27 to 29 degrees below. That WAS a winter.
Too cold to let the children go outside, even for a ride around the yard on the sled. Too cold to do anything but stoke fires and exist the best we could. These were depression years, and things had not been easy.
Still, we were lucky. We were living in the farmhouse on the orchard-place that was the old homestead. In the fall the house had been well banked with straw all around the foundation, and as winter drew on we moved everything essential into two rooms, the big kitchen, and transformed the living-dining room into a triple bedroom. Ruth was four and a half, and Mary a fifteen month toddler. And in those days of massive unemployment we were fortunate since the man of the house had a job at Teweles' elevator.
An old black range did our cooking and a space heater whose pipe stretched across the room to the same chimney helped keep wintry blasts from penetrating too far inside. An old base heater kept the bedroom comfortable.
Other rooms — hallway, entry, and pantry and our "summertime bedrooms" were shut off and blankets and weatherstripping further aided in sealing in what warmth we could muster. The three beds were piled high with wool comforters, and sometimes, when blizzards raged, we took hot water bottles, or well-wrapped heated sad-irons to warm our feet.
At first it seemed more or less of an adventure. I kept thinking of pioneer days and of the stories I'd heard of the storms out in Nebraska, and the Dakotas. But the novelty wore off when just more of the same greeted is every morning, and our routine settled down to keeping fires going, keeping clean, and keeping fed.
Before leaving for work early each morning Stanley brought in extra pails of water, extra scuttles of coal and saw that the wood box was heaped high. Then, taking his lunch pail, he plowed through drifts down to the road where the Model T. waited.
Awhile later Grandpa drove out from town, parked by the highway and hiked up the hill to feed the cove chickens, and all the cats and kittens who came running. They watched while he milked the cow, certain that their share of the milk was coming.
He brought the milk into the house to be strained and poured a big crockery bowl full for us, and the rest in a pail to take home. He fixed hot mash for the animals, checked the fires for me, and then opened tie trap door that led to the cellar, and carried down the warm milk and brought up a cool bowl and any stored vegetables or canned fruits I needed, plus a bowl of apples for eating and cooking. I kept a hand on each of the girls so they wouldn't fall down the steps.
Then it was coffee klatch time. I didn't make fabulous coffee — Aunt Olive was the one in the family noted for that. But Grandpa wasn't critical, and we enjoyed this leisure time while he warmed up, and we caught up on news from town.
The old rocker by the kitchen window came into play now. Both girls climbed on Grandpa's lap and he'd rock them and always sang (What sounded to me like:) "Rea, rea, runkin. Hesta hestaprunkin. —" They loved it — we were so lucky to have such a wonderful Grandpa.
Providing plenty of "stick-to-the-ribs food" took a good share of the day. Bread making — we had compressed yeast so didn't have to sponge it and let it rise overnight. We'd never heard of T.V. dinners (or of T.V. , for that matter.) But we had T.V. dinners practically provided.
All I needed to do was wrap up warm and duck into the closed off pantry — a walk-in freezer handy — and choose cuts of frozen beef or pork stored there. Not an awful lot of variety, but a lot of good eating. The kettle sang on the old range all day, and the glow from the fires warmed the room adequately, except that the mopboards wore a continual coat of icy fringe all winter.
To scrub the floor was to transform it into a skating rink. So it got a quick mopping with hot water, then a rubdown with an old dry bathtowel. There was a cistern pump at the end of the galvanized sink, but the water in the cistern (under the pantry) froze so we kept the reservoir filled with melted snow, or water from the pump outside. Our hands would get chapped but we rubbed vaseline or glycerine and rose water on them and they soon healed.
Bathroom facilities consisted of a tin washbasin in the sink and a wash tub in front of the fire for baths. Then the walk to the little house out behind the granary, which had a beautiful view of the countryside from its door and arctic breezes coming up through the three-holer. Naturally the little girls couldn't be expected to be exposed to the elements like that, so a receptacle in the house was provided for them. Here was where luck was with us again. Since we had no water piped into the house we didn't have frozen water pipes to contend with.
Nylon or other man-made fibers had not yet come into use, but we had good warm woolen clothing. The girls even had long underwear which I made out of the sleeves of men's old union suits. Sweaters and flannel petticoats, and Grandma made the baby khaki wool overalls with triple thicknesses of material on knees and seat. Warm coats and snow pants, made on my trusty treadle machine from grown-ups' outworn coats, waited all those weeks for the airing we all yearned for, but we couldn't risk frozen toes and noses.
The time passed. Housework, baking, washing clothes on a washboard; hanging them on folding clothes racks behind the stove. Ironing — (how luck to have electricity, and an electric iron! ) And we did have entertainment. The Atwater Kent radio was our pride and joy and it provided us with news of the outside world, and music, recipes, mystery stories (The Shadow Knows! ), Amos and Andy, spiritual guidance, and comics like Ed Wynn and Jack Benny, Gracie Allen and George Burns.
Kate Smith's singing brought joy, Mary Margaret McBride's chatter and recipes I tried not to miss. I didn't follow the stories on "John's Other Wife," or "Ma Perkins" but I was a little sneaky about their premium offers. I discovered that these offers were made at the end of their programs so I'd tune the program in then and jot down the free offer cherished seeds for an Oxydol box top or a package of cactus seed from 20 Mule Team Borax.
The children were royally entertained. "Uncle Mal" had a story hour each day in late afternoon. The Singing Lady told and sang fanciful stories. Then they had cut-out dolls — Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, and Shirley Temple and the Dionne Quints. Paper scraps littered the floor and "pick-up time" was more like sweep-up time. The button box was a source of creative pleasure — serving as miniature building blocks for stages to act out paper doll stories. While my sewing machine hummed they made doll clothes and doll blankets.
The windows were thick with frost but the girls would climb up on the day bed, scratch a peep-hole in the icy patterned surface and gaze out at a winter wonderland they couldn't visit. The window sills held my collection of house plants, too — geraniums, begonias and impatiens brightening the room, while at the kitchen windows tiny seedlings, protected from the frosty pane by layers of newspaper, gave out a promise of spring. The steam from the ever-singing kettle spread humidity to the flowers and plants. Luscious food aromas and wood smoke mingled together.
Think spring — Bill Skadden
There was time for leisure too. Time to hold the girls and tell them about Little Black Sambo, and Epaminondas, as my grandmother used to tell them to me. And the snatches of free time while the iron was heating or the potatoes boiling for supper, when I could pick up the needlepoint I kept handy, and do a row to two of the counted stitches on that canvas. Then, by six-thirty their Daddy was home, and we were a family again.
We had to miss Ladies Aid meetings but we cut out lots of red paper hearts and made valentines for cousins and grandparents — most of them with paper dolls folded inside. And we cut out sugar cooky hearts and baked pink and white marble cupcakes, decorated with red powdered sugar frosting.
On Lincoln's birthday our table had candles and a Lincoln log chocolate jelly-roll, with a cardboard ax alongside. On Washington’s birthday a cherry pie, and little paper hatchets. On Shrove Tuesday we pretended we had to use all the fat up before Lent and celebrated that with pancakes at noon and doughnuts for supper. And then Ash Wednesday bought the first batch of hot-cross buns. Leap year day, a cake.
At last it seemed the back of the winter was broken. There came a day when we could all go out to spend a half hour in the snow. We looked down the hill toward the highway; saw cars going by and knew soon we could go down to Goettleman Warner's again for Saturday night groceries and candy treats. So lucky we were! Fuel enough to keep us warm and home-raised food to keep healthy.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
[The nursery rhyme recited by Grandpa, Albert Samuelson, is described in these links: https://www.mamalisa.com/blog/question-about-a-danish-rhyme-rhea-rhea-runkin/
https://www.mamalisa.com/blog/question-about-a-danish-rhyme-rhea-rhea-runkin/comment-page-2/
https://blogs.transparent.com/swedish/swedish-nursery-rhyme-rida-rida-ranka/ ]
Articles by Grace Samuelson
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/grace-samuelson