In my Jan. 10 post I happened to mention my grandparents without electricity or water. Some people made comments to indicate that they had no experience with out services.
My paternal grandparents and great grand parents came from Russia in the early 1900's. They had lived in Russia for about 100 years. They were peasants. They made use of available materials for housing and food. So in Russia, they had clay houses. The roof was probably thatched. Here they could afford to get lumber for the roof of a clay house.
My Dad was born in 1912 in a clay house with a dirt floor. People liked their clay houses. They said they were cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
So many of the German people who came here to homestead had a clay house. Other people built sod houses which were equally functional.
Of course, there were other things that had to be developed to live with such a lack of conveniences.
To keep warm in the winter they had layers of clothing long before outdoor enthusiasts came up with the idea. We had felt boots. These were boots that were made of felt. I can tell you that they were warm. There was an overshoe that kept your boot dry. We had combination fleece lined under wear. We had two layers of pants. They were warm.
Sometimes the houses were banked up with snow or straw. The floors in the wood houses were cold. They was no heat in the cellar. Since the heat source was coal and wood the pipes wood sometimes catch on fire. Most people let the fires go out before they went to bed for safety reasons. .
So houses without electricity worked just fine.
People became accustomed to those conditions and thrived.
I am old enough to have lived with out electricity and no central heating. Our first house was a dilapidated board structure . I know that there is a photo of this old house but I'm not sure who has it. I remember Dad getting up in the morning and lighting the fire. We would bring our clothes into the main room and get dressed in front of the heater.
I do not look back at these days as a hardship. We were prepared and were comfortable and enjoyed life with no electricity. .
Red, Thank you for sharing this glimpse into your family’s history and the resilience of earlier generations. It’s remarkable to read about how your grandparents and great-grandparents adapted to life without modern conveniences, making the most of what they had. The clay houses sound practical and well-suited to the environment, and it’s interesting how similar they were to sod houses in functionality. Your description of staying warm in the winter—felt boots, layered clothing, and snow-banked houses—shows the resourcefulness of people back then. I like how you say that life without electricity wasn’t necessarily a hardship but simply a way of life. Your post reminds us we often take modern conveniences for granted. Thank you for sharing these memories. Red, you are really on a roll with Hiawatha House. Keep up the good work! John
ReplyDeleteThese ancestors never had modern conveniences. Electricity came to their village after Grandma died. Grandpa lived with us and had electricity after 1952.
DeleteHi Red, I'm considerably younger than your grandparents or dare I say you but even so I too lived without electricity and running water. I still remember those days quite well. We had kerosene lamps. We had electricity long before running water in the areas where I lived though in the cities, small towns etc. they had both. I also remember how cold it could be in the morning before someone started the wood stove in the morning. There is nothing better than a roaring wood fire though it's probably a great fire hazard. I agree that no one looked back on those days as real hardship. It was just normal until more development took place. It's great to read all your memories of the 'old' days.
ReplyDeleteThe light and lamps were something you had to get used to.
DeleteI've always had electricity, but central heating was undreamt of in my childhood. Frost on the inside of the windows, and a fire in just one room of the house, running cold water, and a geyser for hot water.
ReplyDeleteI love this story, it is one of my most favourite you have written! Your story brought me back to what I experienced as a child during winter, some similar to what you shared with us, and like you, to me it was not a hardship! To this day I wear felt footwear inside in winter!
ReplyDeleteWhere on earth do you get felt foot wear in these days?
DeleteI bought them at a craft market in Nova Scotia! They are for in doors, I have worn them when sitting outside in winter.
DeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteWe do live a good life, power is a necessity. We have gone without power for about a week, it was awful.
At least we have a wood stove for heat, but no well water.
A couple of days is about all I could do without power, I would go to a hotel. Take care, have a wonderful day!
In the system we live in now we depend on electricity. It would take quite a while to adjust to no electricity.
DeleteWhen I read the previous post, I had wondered if my parents ever lived without electricity. They were born in the mid-teens and lived in urban areas, so I imagine not.
ReplyDeleteIf your parents lived in the west there was only electricity in larger centers.
DeleteIf only our ancestors could experience our homes today! Beyond imagination really!
ReplyDeleteMy grandpa did experience a modern home for his last 5 years of life.
DeleteOh, we are spoiled now and I can't imagine how many of us would survive if we lost all electricity forever and had to live as you and your grandparents lived back then. I guess you got used to living that way because that is all you knew so that was normal for you. You must laugh at some of the silly things people complain about now, Red.
ReplyDeleteWe couldn't survive as a society with out electricity. I could not survive without electricity unless I had help.
DeleteWhen I was a young child our only heat in our two room house with a walled in porch addition was one wood heater stove and a wood stove in the kitchen. We did have electricity for lighting. The bathroom was an outhouse. Gradually we added on to that old house and got electric heaters in the added bedrooms and bathroom, but that wood heater was still the main heat.
ReplyDeleteThe big thing was the economy prevented getting better accommodations. We had the depression and then the war so it was difficult to make progress.
DeleteYou don't miss what you don't know. As children, you didn't know that there was any other way to live. I have a question though...now that you have lived with modern conveniences, would you consider it a hardship to go back to those days?
ReplyDeleteI love reading about your growing up days. Were you able to know your paternal grandparents? Were they near to Esk?
You ask a hard question. there are many variables. At this age I could not go back. We did spend quite a bit of time with our paternal grandparents. They lived about 8 miles away but with transportation we didn't get their often. Grandpa lived with us for the last 5 years of his life,
DeleteI never lived without electricity, but I remember going on week-long trips to the mountains, sometimes even solo, and I had a camp stove for everything. It was in the summer in Colorado, but still I remember having a hard time getting out of the sleeping bag when it was really cold. I love the idea of felt slippers.
ReplyDeleteI did plenty of back packing in the Rockies here. there were times we woke up in July with frost on the tent.
DeleteI want some fleece lined skivvies! (underwear) Wow! But I do like my electric heated mattress pad and heavy down comforter. Interesting about the clay house. There were quite a few sod houses in early Kansas, since we don't have many trees out on the prairies. Some folks burned dried cow chips instead of firewood. (Poop piles.) Some old-timer festivals here have cow chip throwing contests. Stay warm. Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteMuch the same thing happened here with the buffalo chips. One museum here has a clay house and a sod house.
DeleteA life I could not imagine.
ReplyDeleteI didn't live on the frontier, but I did have frugal parents, plus a father who suffered as an abandoned orphan, no family, little food. So we wore warm clothing and slept under several wool blankets in an unheated upstairs. Dad had to get up early to light the coal furnace.
ReplyDeleteYou lived under the same conditions as I did. It was my Dad and Grandparents who lived in the clay house.
DeleteBeing prepared makes it a lot easier to manage your life.
ReplyDeleteWe had electricity but no running water other than a pump at the kitchen sink. Those were hearty people with little heat in the winter:)
ReplyDeleteWe did have electricity and water but I remember visiting a girlfriend's parents' house and they did not have inside plumbing!!!
ReplyDeleteI've always lived in a "brick" house but the house I was brought up in had metal windows and we had to break the ice (from condensation) off the inside when we got up or the wall below would be soaked. We survived then. I'd be hard pressed to live like that now I've got used to central heating.
ReplyDeletePeople were very hardy in those days. No modern amenities but were very happy. My father-in-law lived a very similar life in North Dakota, and I enjoyed his stories from those days. We didn’t have central heating when I was a child but had a coal fire and we bundled up. Still pampered and spoiled in comparison to how my parents grew up. Thanks for your memories from childhood. Always interesting.
ReplyDeleteLoved this sharing!
ReplyDeleteEven though I am 53 I still witnessed times without basic services and I remember clearly that how people were accustomed to whatever they had and enjoyed their lives thoroughly
Clay houses sound like it might be more insulating? I know my son experienced houses made of clay in Mali.
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