My dad would make sauerkraut. He would use the little white porcelain table to cut the cabbage. He also made horseradish; it always made his eyes water.

My dad liked his beer and his cigarettes – that’s why the ashtray with a cigarette and the bottle of beer are close to his worktable.

My mother would bathe us [as babies] in a little tub on our kitchen table near the stove so we would keep warm.

We, at one time, had a kerosene stove with a tin square oven. To bake a cake or biscuits, etc, you put that oven over the burner. It worked! Mom baked great cakes.

In those days when the floors looked shabby and worn, they painted them and then speckled them, sometimes with a sponge and a different color paint. That’s what Mom did with our kitchen floor.

When we were a little older, Mom went to Delaware to work at the telephone company. She left money for the doughnut man. They delivered out in the country in those days. For a memory, I made a little pan of roll as you can see on the counter. They were made from little foam ball from an artificial flower. The pan is the bottom of a tin spice can. I painted the rolls and used a red bead for the cherries – Viola, rolls!

The icebox really has (fake) food inside – eggs, milk and shortening. There is a block of ice in the ice chest. Too bad you can’t see them but we had to glue it shut. Some of the cupboards have dishes in them too. Knowing this may make it seem more realistic and fascinating.

 

The closet door is made from the tree we used to play on. My husband did a very good job with that. That door does not open.

The picture on the buffet is our family photo from about 1939. I took pictures of the original one, then cut them out, and my husband made the frames from toothpicks and cardboard. I used tiny beads for the corners. The picture above the buffet is of the Frederick N. Fleshman family; wife Nettie (Bayles) Fleshman; sons Fred (my dad), Joe, and George Fleshman. George had Fleshman-Wayne Photo Studio on Winter St. in the late 1940’s.

It was nice to finally get a phone. It’s funny how a person can remember where everything was in the childhood home. The phone, as you can see, was by the side door on the wall.

 

The player piano really works but it’s glued down so it won’t come out, of course. It’s unique! This is where our piano was. Dad played the piano and clarinet. He had a band when he was young – "Slime Five".

The old radio was our entertainment. We would listen to ‘The Thin Man’, and ‘The Shadow’ and, oh yes – ‘Fibber McGee and Molly’.

Notice the Chinese checkers board? That was the only game I remember having. We played that a lot when company came. My husband & I made it.

The picture on the wall is my mom and dad, Thomas Fred Fleshman and Ida Evelyn Jewitt Fleshman in the early 1920’s while they were dating. We fixed that picture as we did the one in the dining room.

In the magazine rack is a Gazette article. I thought it neat to put a Gazette there – what else!!~ (if course a miniature).

We had curtains but I kept them bare so people might look in.

At one time, there was an old wood-burning stove like this one in our house but Dad put a new coal-oil burning stove in later. Our house always smelled of coal oil and kerosene.

 

Usually this was Mom & Dad’s bedroom but when we were sick, that’s where we were – with them.

We were short of closet space so in our old house, there was usually a lot of stuff laying around. It was also a small house. I’ve made it somewhat neat but with three little kids, the house was usually "lived in", as the saying goes.

Since we didn’t have a bathroom, we had "thunder mugs" upstairs; notice the little rolls of toilet paper? I can’t remember toilet paper upstairs; I know we used old magazines in our old back house. My, how I hated to visit that on a cold day! When I was little, my dad caught me smoking in the old back house. How did he know? Maybe because the smoke was oozing from the knotholes in the old comfort station?

It was very hot upstairs in the summer. It was had to get to sleep. I don’t remember a fan but I put one in, maybe because I wished so much that we could have one in our home.

Bedroom on the left

This was the kids room. (window on front was facing west – Klondike Rd)

I put toys in this room but, as I said, during the Depression, we had very little and toys were scarce. We played outside a lot and usually played on our beloved tree. It was on the hill in our front yard. It was later cut down (1980’s) and used for firewood. I asked the present owners, Tony & John Miller at 2083 Klondike Rd, if I could have some before it was all gone. They said yes, I now have a small child’s chair made from my beloved tree. I’m hoping that will be in the Historical Society upon my death. By the way, the old house burned down after we left… sometime in the 1950s I believe.

Lucky us – a closet! Look close for the tiny hangers. You could get to the attic from the closet.

It was sometimes my job to carry our potty downstairs – not such a good job for a little girl. Sometimes little steps make big messes. Usually a porcelain pot; I didn’t have one of those for the house, so I put in the other kind.

This is just an old house. We didn’t usually have nice furniture so I didn’t try to make it look nice.

 

I’m so pleased that the house I lived in as a child will be on exhibit for future generations. --------