Changes in a Lifetime

Some everyday household things are now in museums

It boggles my mind when I think about the changes my grandparents lived through. Growing up they would have been accustomed to railway trains but they were born into the horse and buggy age. By necessity, things moved slower then, both on the roads, such as they were, and in communication. Imagine how life was before there were even radios.

Come to think of it, can you recall life before cell phones? There have been a lot of changes in our own lifetimes. A group of us were talking about this the other day. They remembered life when everybody in the community had party lines so that you had to watch what you said on the phone because anybody could be listening. They may have been tempted to listen sometimes themselves. Well, they say that everyone knows your business in small towns. You knew if the call was for you by the ring of the phone, kind of a precursor to ring tones, I suppose.

The objects in our homes have definitely changed, from rotary phones to all-in-one phones with answering machines, for those who still have landlines. Even that has changed as we become more mobile in our communication. The evolution from the car phone, to the handheld brick-like phone to our current smart phones didn't take long.

It wasn't just communication devices that changed, the kitchen is almost unrecognizable between the '50s and now. When was the last time you pulled out the Mix Master to make a cake? The changes are evident in other rooms of the house as well. In my parent's house a stereo cabinet took pride of place in the living room, covering most of one wall. My mother also had a sewing machine, one of those Singer treadle machines that are now considered antiques or museum exhibits, only that was our working sewing machine when I grew up. Once my legs were long enough to reach, I could get up quite a speed on that treadle and that was one tough needle. It went right through my fingernail. Maybe our newer gadgets are safer!