Curtain stretchers (and other memories)

My parents moved a lot as I was growing up, but we lived in the switchboard house at Guss, Iowa, for at least seven years. Many of my fondest childhood memories are linked to that home, and most of the snapshots taken of me as a baby were taken in front of it. I included Skinner School in the slide show because that's my first school, the one I attended when we lived in Guss. I remember the "Uncle Sam" mailbox that's pictured here.




I remember what much of the inside of that house looked like. I recall sitting on the front porch on a summer evening with Daddy, the radio inside broadcasting "the fights" (boxing matches) blaring through an open window, and my dad getting so involved in the action that he was squirming in his seat and throwing punches. He was a big fan of Joe Lewis.

Some other things I recall from those seven years of my childhood:



Every spring Mother would take down the lacey curtains in the living room, wash them, and put them on the curtain-stretcher so they'd dry wrinkle-free. I remember running around the stretched curtains in the yard and peeking through them. The whole living room smelled clean and fresh when the curtains were brought back inside, after drying in the sun.

I recall Mother using pants-stretchers, too, on Daddy's pants; a Google search tells me that those are still available!

Flour-sifters. When I was growing up, flour was always sifted before measuring it and adding it to your mix. In fact, I still sifted flour after I got married, back when I made all our bread. I still have a sifter, but I only use it when I make an angel food cake, or an "Elvis Presley's favorite pound cake", from scratch; that happens about once every five years.

I recall making baby dolls out of clothespins like these. I'd take an ink pen, draw a tiny face on the top part, and bundle my "baby" in a Kleenex tissue. I believe my mom showed me how to do this. (Oh, and she had taken an outgrown baby dress of mine and sewed it up at the bottom for a clothespin holder to take out to the line! I just remembered that.) She also taught me how to shape the silver inside wrapper from my piece of Juicy Fruit gum into a chalice. She showed me this while sitting in Church, probably trying to occupy me. But I digress.


Egg beaters were in common use in the '40's and '50's. Fact is, I still use one, if the only thing in a recipe that needs beating is eggs. It's much easier and faster than getting out the mixer and dirtying up a mixer bowl.

And that's today's trip down memory lane.