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Old 01-30-2021, 06:19 AM
 
Location: Bloomington IN
8,590 posts, read 12,353,101 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jean_ji View Post
My one grandmother had an Indiana limestone house with a fireplace and chandelier with prisms in the living room.
I live in Indiana limestone territory. I love those old limestone houses. They are so solid. Several years ago my husband was making noises about moving. One of those old limestone ranches popped up on the market at the time. It was a bit larger than most of them and had a two car garage. It needed a lot of work, but I would have been happy in it. Husband saw the reality of moving to a much smaller house and changed his mind.

I remember lots of things about both grandmothers' houses.

My paternal grandparents lived in a brick raised ranch. It really was almost a 2 story because the basement had 7/8 foot ceilings. There was a back porch with stairs to the backyard. We loved to play there. They had two kitchens. I only remember her using the upstairs kitchen a handful of times. It had a pull out cutting board which I thought was pretty fancy. I don't think we ever had a meal in the adjacent dining room. It was for show. I do remember the cockoo clock on the wall. She also kept a statue of Mary on the buffet with a candle she often lit. We always had big family meals with the cousins in the lower level kitchen. I guess it was large enough for the 10 grand kids.

My maternal grandparents were poor, but I didn't recognize that as a kid. I remember a coal furnace/stove in the corner of the living room. Grandpa sold and delivered coal among other things. The train tracks ran right next to the property so there was always bits of coal in that part of the yard. Grandma kept a fish tank filled with guppies and other fish. I loved watching them.
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Old 01-30-2021, 06:28 AM
 
Location: Wonderland
67,650 posts, read 60,959,349 times
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Oh I forgot to mention another tidbit about my maternal grandparents' house (the one with the Silent Zoo). They had a koi pond outside and for a long time they had an ALLIGATOR that lived in it. I mean, the alligator was old when I was a kid so somewhere along the way, he went away (?) and the koi returned and my grandmother put lily pads in the little koi pond too.
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Old 01-30-2021, 06:37 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChessieMom View Post
Both sets of grandparents lived in rural areas - homes back off the road, plenty of land. Not "neighborhoods".
My dad's father had a monkeyhouse out back, for his monkey. I barely remember it - don't even know what happened to it. A tobacco barn (I learned how to hand tobacco from the farm hands). I remember more about the outside than I do about the inside.

My maternal grandparents had a nice brick ranch. Pine wood paneling everywhere. I remember it seemed dark in there. My grandmother had a bowl of wax fruit in the living room. I used to scratch the wax off LOL. A fold-down ironing board in the kitchen.
Those bowls of wax fruit were just begging to be scratched! My grandmothers (and a few aunts) had them too. I think they multiplied in our family
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Old 01-30-2021, 06:38 AM
 
Location: Virginia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by silibran View Post
My grandmother was born in 1895. I have fond memories of he OK house which we visited once a year. It was a small house on a big lot that also had a rent house, garden and chicken house with chicken run.

My grandmother liked pink and red, and owning pretty things. Her house was furnished in a “modern” style for the most part. But I remember her kitchen the best. It seemed big to me, with its red and chrome dinette set and its Chambers range. I would love to own that range even now, with its stove top broiler, where she made toast. There was a corner china cabinet which was filled with red glassware, used solely for breakfast. I have much of that glassware now.

Outside the kitchen was the big side yard where we ate watermelon which my granddad or my dad got because my mother loved to eat watermelon. She seemed convinced that a signifier of
proper manhood was the ability to select the best watermelon from a pile of them.

Grandmother grew flowers. She gardened wearing a large brimmed hat to protect her complexion. But she never picked any for her house.

Her bedroom was furnished with birch Heywood Wakefield furniture and pink bed linens.
Your grandmother's kitchen sounds like mine, except my stove is a Wedgwood. I have a red and white dinette set and a built-in china cabinet too where I display my teapots and Depression and Carnival glassware. I love my vintage kitchen. In fact, I just got a pantry cabinet that is white with red Bakelite handles to match the stove and table set. It will display more china and glassware - yay!
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Old 01-30-2021, 06:47 AM
 
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Black rubber treads on the stairs, no AC, and a tiny galley kitchen in which she would make dinners for 20+ when everyone (kids and grandkids) were there. They were not wealthy, my grandfather was a carpenter. Back then, appliances came in wood boxes; the bookcase was made of the box their refrigerator came in - I have the mantel clock that was on it.

Last edited by webster; 01-30-2021 at 06:56 AM..
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Old 01-30-2021, 07:15 AM
 
Location: Colorado
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sassybluesy View Post

2. They had a bear skin rug. Sometimes, my grandma would 'wear' the rug, and chase us around the house roaring at us. LOL
OK, that just sounds fun!
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Old 01-30-2021, 07:19 AM
 
Location: Colorado
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sydney123 View Post
My grandmother lived on a farm in the South of France... I am living it it now. I’ve been here a year and still finding things of hers in the attic.
I would love to see pictures of this, if you'd be willing to share!
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Old 01-30-2021, 07:46 AM
 
Location: Colorado
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Maternal grandparents house: My grandpa and his brother actually built it themselves in 1948. It's still standing, but sadly, no longer in the family (my grandpa died in the 1980's, and my grandma died several years ago, and by then everybody else had a house of their own, so it was sold.)

The house was built on a half-acre of land that my grandma's dad gave her and my grandpa as a wedding gift--he used to own a lot of the land in the area. My mom remembers watching her dad and uncle dig out the basement. The only thing they *didn't* do themselves was the electrical wiring (my grandpa did hire an electrician for that part.) My grandpa built the cabinets to be convenient for my grandma's height (she was five foot seven). The house was fairly simple--my grandpa didn't want it to be too big and difficult to keep up with when their kids would eventually be grown and gone. Which they did, but every Sunday, when my grandparents were done with church, we'd all pretty much descend on their house for the rest of the day. Imagine six kids, their spouses, and eighteen grandkids all crowded into a 1200 square foot house. LOL But they loved it. My grandpa was the quiet type, but you could see him sitting in his chair, quietly beaming at seeing all of us there.

The kitchen and eating area were pretty much one room, and it probably took up the bulk of the house. My grandma used to keep butterscotch candy in those little glass bowls when she was younger, as she got older she switched over to Hershey's kisses. She didn't have a dishwasher--or rather, as she put it, "I have six dishwashers!"--meaning her kids. But I remember after meals everybody would stand around the kitchen to get the dishes clean. It was almost like an assembly line.

While she did have a washing machine, she didn't used to have a dryer. She had a clothesline she would hang clothes on. She did eventually get a dryer when she was older.

The scent I remember most is roses--grandma loved to garden, and had all kinds of flowers planted everywhere, including sweet peas that *her* mother had brought over from England, but roses were her particular favorite. She also liked music boxes. And cardinals--both the birds and the baseball team. I have one of her music boxes with a cardinal on it, and her favorite suncatcher with two cardinals on it. I also have her wedding china--when she died, nobody else wanted it, and while I don't really use it much, I couldn't stand to see it passed out of the family. I'm hoping one of my cousins' kids will want it someday, since I don't have children of my own. (And one of them did indicate she'd be interested in having it, so if she wants it, I'll happily give it over to her.)

My grandpa had built a closet in the bathroom, and put a removable floor panel in there, so he could access the pipes if he needed to. It turned out that it was perfect for small children to fit in to and drop into the basement below. We used to do that a *lot* when we were kids. The basement was *huge*, and we'd play down there for hours if the weather was bad. My grandma would also have an extra roll of toilet paper on top of the tank at all times, but covered with a crocheted doily.

The yard, however, was the best--the back yard 'sloped' down just a little bit, but right next to the house was this big 'dip' that we'd go running around in. We thought it was just awesome. We were easily amused.

The house was just down the road from the railroad tracks. Whenever a train went by, we'd all run outside to the front yard to watch it. Sometimes grandpa would take us walking along the train tracks. We liked that, since he was usually pretty quiet and sedate (he'd been a coal miner in his younger days, so I think he just preferred to take it easy in his old age.) We'd look for interesting things along the tracks. Grandpa would occasionally clear things off of them, telling us that they could be dangerous for the trains.
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Old 01-30-2021, 09:30 AM
 
Location: Southwest Washington State
30,585 posts, read 25,173,318 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bungalove View Post
Your grandmother's kitchen sounds like mine, except my stove is a Wedgwood. I have a red and white dinette set and a built-in china cabinet too where I display my teapots and Depression and Carnival glassware. I love my vintage kitchen. In fact, I just got a pantry cabinet that is white with red Bakelite handles to match the stove and table set. It will display more china and glassware - yay!
Well, I think I might feel at home in your kitchen! And it sounds as if it makes you happy.
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Old 01-30-2021, 10:34 AM
 
5,118 posts, read 3,421,074 times
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Unfortunately all of my grandparents died before I was born but I do remember visiting my grandmother's sister who lived with my great grandmother on a farm in the mountains. The house was a 2-story weathered farmhouse with a big front porch. I remember sitting in rocking chairs on the porch, being chased by a neighbor's bull, picking wild blackberries, and getting dippers of water from the well until I found a big toad sitting in the dipper and was then no longer thirsty.
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