This lovely old photo is my hubby’s grandmother, Mary Ethel Leverich Oswald (1886-1967). This was her high school graduation photo……. today’s high school graduation photos look nothing like this, do they?? Yes, the Olden Times were different…… for instance:

If We Didn’t Have It We Used:

• Q tip  —  cotton wound around a match
• Scouring powder  —  wood stove ashes
• Glue  —  raw egg white
• Hot water bottle  —  heated rock or bag of heated rock salt
• Toothpaste  —  salt mixed with baking soda
• Paste  —  flour mixed with water
• Bandage  —  torn-in-strips old bedsheets
• Adhesive tape  —  needle and thread
• Deodorant  —  baking soda
• Ice  —  hailstones or blocks cut in winter from a pond or river
• Waxed paper  —  found inside cereal boxes
• Sandwich bags  —  waxed paper
• Foil  —  gum wrappers
• Ink  —  laundry bluing
• Group transportation  — truck with seats in back
• Tire repair kit  —  can of rubber patch and glue
• Air for tires  —  hand operated tire pump
• Toilet tissue  —  Sears or Wards catalog
• Salad dressing  —  cream, sugar and vinegar mixed well
• Sanitary napkin  —  old sheets
• Pencil sharpener  —  knife
• Fingernail clipper  —  kitchen scissors
• Salve/Ointment for wounds  —  lard mixed with kerosene and turpentine
• Hand lotion  —  cream or lard
• Laundry soap  —  you made it from grease and lye
• Lunch pail  —  lard bucket with a handle
• New mop —  old clothing on a mop stick
• Cough syrup  —  raw onion and sugar syrup
• Fresh milk  —  milked a cow twice daily

So do you really think life was better in the good old days? How would you have fared?

(Thanks to Nostalgia Magazine, Nov-Dec 2010 issue for this wonderful article by Leone A. Browning.)