We are getting ready to start our new study that we will be doing during the real year of 2019. We normally take on a new study each year and we will be moving away from studying the Home front during ww2. Charles and I have been continuing to move back in time while most people are moving forward. I do not study politics, Charles does study Presidents of the past but as we have done in our other studies our main interest is about how families lived in the past, food, shelter, food preservation and what we can learn about the home and the home front.
I have been asked how we do our studies and the way we do this is we go to our public library research room and read books and look through the microfilms. We go to antique stores, thrift stores to study the old things. We talk to the elderly but now we are reaching the times where there are no more elderly around to ask. We also go to museums and parks that have history.
September 6, 2015 we went to a place called landmark park and I did several posts about our visit to this park.
Since we are moving further back in time we went back there this past weekend to re-visit the Waddell house that was built around 1906. The park was getting ready for the Victorian Christmas. I feel at home when I go there and we try to go during quiet times so we can listen to the quiet sounds and feel the history. It is not the house that my family once lived but very similar to the houses some of my family lived and matches the stories they told of home.
The floors sound familiar to me as I walk through the house remembering the houses that belonged to my family and it brings much joy to my heart. What is missing is the laughter and the story telling, the family sitting around with pans in their laps with peas and butter beans or someone sitting in a chair knitting or crocheting. It is not sad, it brings me back to a better time and gives me a better perspective on what I need to do.
This study will be after the Victorian Era has ended. I will be starting around 1900 but move quickly along until I get to about 1915.
When we do our studies we ignore the headlines such as during our ww2 studies. Most of us know about the the awful things that happened during world war 2. We know about the awful things that happened during the great depression but each of those had good times too because they had family and each other. They did what they needed to do to live and one thing we have found is how they pulled together.
I also try and not bring up the bad things such as the racism of those times. It was shameful and it happened and it still does. My history studies is about home, that means wherever home was. My study is looking for family and what made a house a home and how did they get by in tough times. How people lived before electricity, running water and refrigeration. How did they do those things? This past summer after hand washing our laundry all summer in very hot weather I got a good idea of how they did it.
So during the world war 2 studies we learned about rationing, people had to save and not waste everything. How they wrapped their tires to make them get by until they could buy tires. How they grew victory gardens and furiously canned every bit of food they could. The people at home were helping the war efforts as much as they could and that did help greatly.
This study will be different and I am still working it out but the plan is I am going to study 4 families (more or less) and how they lived from 1900 to 1930s. Part of this is from studying genealogy, also using the old journal I have, newspapers and books.
I am doing it this way because so far the newspapers have less home reference, magazines don't give actual current information.
Charles and I will continue to live Parts of the Past I call our Vintarian life. That is the word I made up for the Era we live. It is a sensible vintage time combining parts of the past.
Our home now reflects parts of the past as we have changed our home during these years of studies because while doing our history projects we found we prefer these times. We have never been so comfortable in our home as we are now.
We have more color in our home and they had more wood.
They had a extra bedroom....
And we have a extra bedroom...
They had a wood burning stove and we have an electric stove but the outcome is cooked food. They canned food and we can food. We can live today resembling the past by downsizing and going back to a more simple time.
This time was not simple as far as work, it was simple with less stuff and fluff and more about family. It was a time when they did not have to pay for services like we do now and did not have the flow that seems to be so ready available now that we have trouble slowing the flow that drains our budgets.
If they had to pay for the things we have to pay for today they would most likely be happy to go back to this time.
I will be following one family that did live in the city and held jobs outside of the home and did pay for some services but nothing like what we have today. Even though they lived in the city, there were no automobiles at the time so they had to feed their transportation.
Several years ago Charles and I were not happy living the modern way most people do today. It was generic, wasteful and expensive. If you are wanting to live a more simple life and change to a more vintage and interesting life you can do this too. If you are trying to find ways to save money being frugal can actually be fun and challenging. It can be interesting for the whole family. You can follow along here on my blog, you can also explore your on area you live and find out how people lived long ago. You can go to your library or visit museums.
I have years of posts on my blog, go to the top of the page and click menu or the top bar on the computer and click on living like the past.
Scroll all the way to the bottom and there are numbers where the pages will take you back to old posts.
I try to share what I know from experience, from remembering what I know from long ago and what I have learned through our history projects.
The Waddell house was moved to Landmark park so it is not located on the farm it once resided but it is a wonderful part of history.
You can visit this house and the other historic buildings so I will attach a link. http://www.landmarkparkdothan.com/
Grandma Donna
