I began this writing wrestling with the idea 'How did we get where we are'? Many misunderstandings come from assumptions, erroneous or not. I'd like to continue with some of the 'ideas' made about 'life in the '50's.
But here’s a surprise. The 1950 house may well have been heated by coal! It was the most common heating fuel in 1950. Only .7% of homes were heated by electric and 26.6% by utility gas. That would all change over the course of the decade though. By 1960 coal was down to 12.2% and utility gas up to 53.1%. Today 51% of homes are heated by utility gas.
There is a surprise here. I can't grasp much from my reading and research except that during and by the end of the 1950's decade coal usage for home heating decreased to the point that in the early 1960's it had gone to almost nothing. When my mother was young they heated with coal. When I was a child my grandparents heated with wood. At that time my grandfather resisted my mother's wise advice. Instead of renting one of the newfangled chainsaws from the lumber yard, he chopped all of our wood by hand (with an ax) and hauled it back from the 'timber' with a team and wagon. By the 1960's however, grandparents had two oil burners. I'm sure age would dictate exercise. He would have been in his sixties by that time. My cousins's family used wood into the 1960's, and my husband's family used coal. That seems to have covered the whole gamut.
Unlike most households today, the majority of families sat down to eat together. Yes, the whole family ate at least one meal together, if not all three. Mom cooked because that was her job. In 1950 most mothers were employed at home. Mother's full-time job was her home and family, and most mothers took that job seriously. My mother-in-law would have exemplified the scriptural 'worthy woman' with the amount of tasks she did in a day. She worked hard from before dawn till dark with her household duties. Marie and Marvin were married in December of 1941, so they covered a few decades. Her years while Marvin was in the military were training for when they began their life in earnest after the war years—December 1945/spring1946 and beyond. Marie's mother before her had been a good example, teaching her daughters cooking, cleaning, and gardening. What Marie hadn't learned from her own mother, 'Mom Westphal' filled in. Back in those days not only did mothers take homemaking and wifely skills serious, the majority also took their religion serious. These scriptures would have been near and dear to their hearts as they raised their children:
"that aged women likewise be reverent in demeanor, not slanderers nor enslaved to much wine, teachers of that which is good; that they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sober-minded, chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed:" (Titus 2:3-5 ASV)
But here’s a surprise. The 1950 house may well have been heated by coal! It was the most common heating fuel in 1950. Only .7% of homes were heated by electric and 26.6% by utility gas. That would all change over the course of the decade though. By 1960 coal was down to 12.2% and utility gas up to 53.1%. Today 51% of homes are heated by utility gas.
There is a surprise here. I can't grasp much from my reading and research except that during and by the end of the 1950's decade coal usage for home heating decreased to the point that in the early 1960's it had gone to almost nothing. When my mother was young they heated with coal. When I was a child my grandparents heated with wood. At that time my grandfather resisted my mother's wise advice. Instead of renting one of the newfangled chainsaws from the lumber yard, he chopped all of our wood by hand (with an ax) and hauled it back from the 'timber' with a team and wagon. By the 1960's however, grandparents had two oil burners. I'm sure age would dictate exercise. He would have been in his sixties by that time. My cousins's family used wood into the 1960's, and my husband's family used coal. That seems to have covered the whole gamut.
Bathrooms? Complete plumbing (hot and cold piped water, a bath-tub or shower, and a flush toilet) was available in 64.5% of homes in 1950. That would change too and by 1960 only 16.6% of homes were without complete plumbing. Personally, I think it probably was a rural and urban question. I lived at times with my mom in the city, and she always had inside plumbing, but not everyone in the country saw inside plumbing as a necessity. As I stated previously, my grandparents (both born in 1898) chose not to have inside plumbing.
"that aged women likewise be reverent in demeanor, not slanderers nor enslaved to much wine, teachers of that which is good; that they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sober-minded, chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed:" (Titus 2:3-5 ASV)
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