For this week's Sepia theme, "washing up", I looked through some old photos in search of some that might show my grandparents' kitchen sink, as I remember it from my early childhood (I was born in 1955). I found these two below - and on closer inspection, I even think they may have been taken on the same occasion, as my grandmother (Sally) is wearing the same clothes in both.
Here she's feeding their collie Zepp a biscuit. She's standing next to a narrow cupboard next to the electric stove. To the right, next to the door (leading out into the entrance hall), is the kitchen sink with draining board.
Here she's sitting on the sofa by the window (one of two), drinking coffee, with the kitchen sink to the left. There's a small mirror on the wall above: They also often used the kitchen sink for washing hands and face, shaving etc.
It occurred to me that if I put the two photos together edge to edge, they would show the whole small sink area. The scale is not 100% the same in both photos, but close enough...
Dishes were always washed up directly after a meal, dried with a towel and put away. In the photo the dish rack is turned up against the wall - when it was down, it covered the whole small draining board. There were no other workbench surfaces in the kitchen. The kitchen table was used for "everything".
In my childhood, they did also have WC and a bathtub installed down in the cellar, but there was no washbasin or mirror down there, and the walls and floor were raw cement... In summer they still mostly still used the old "outhouse" out in the yard. It was not until after my grandfather died (in 1969) that my dad arranged for a WC (+ washbasin) to be put in for my grandmother in what used to be a wardrobe next to the living room on the ground floor; and also a WC in a wardrobe upstairs (where there was already a washbasin in the adjoining bedroom). My grandmother pretty much only used the downstairs kitchen + living room (and slept in the kitchen) during the last years when she lived there alone, while we used the upstairs two rooms when visiting her.
After Sally moved to a retirement home in the village, and after her death, we kept the house as a holiday house. When dad retired from work (at 60), he and mum decided to move there permanently - but not until they had added a large new extension (more than doubling the living space), including a modern kitchen and bathroom + large new living room downstairs, and an enormous home office space upstairs for dad. The old living room became their bedroom; and what remained of the old kitchen (sink and stove and cupboards removed) became a sort of extra, doorless, room where some "antique" furniture and books were kept, as reminders of the past.
Linking to Sepia Saturday 792
That sink definitely was part of the hub of life in the house at that time...and the family must have been diligent in keeping it clean and things put away. If I had only learned that when growing up, it would be so much easier for me to keep up with the kitchen now!
ReplyDeleteBarbara, my own kitchen is not very big either, and I don't have a dishwasher, so I do try to keep up with my washing up as well. I do have a bit more room than my grandmother did, though, so I do often leave things to dry on the dish rack.
DeleteFunny thing about kitchens & washing dishes. My mother always washed mixing bowls & etc. as she went along fixing food so the only dishes to wash & dry were the the serving dishes & the ones we ate off of, & I have always done the same - at least rinsing the mixing bowls, etc. & putting them in the dishwasher while I was preparing food. I got my first dishwasher when my second child was born & relied on them for clean dishes for years thereafter - except when my husband & I moved into our current home - just the two of us - & I discovered it was easier to hand wash the dishes & either dry them on the spot, or at night, just let them dry in the drainer overnight. Times & what's important - like having a dishwasher - change.
ReplyDeleteGail, I've never had a dishwasher - and my own mother never did, either. And living alone as I do, I don't really see that a dishwasher would make my life easier. (I'm thinking I'd probably need certain things again before I'd filled the machine enough to run it!)
DeleteI love the little details of life that you can find in old photos. We have so many "conveniences" in our modern world that we forget how domestic life used to be for our ancestors. My father grew up in a rural farming community. His tiny house had a wood fired kitchen stove, cold well water, and an outhouse. One year when he was maybe 12-14, his older brother returned on leave from the navy and set up a single tap shower in the basement. My dad said he felt it was the grandest luxury he could ever imagine. His other brother lived in a larger house in a small town but never felt the need to install an indoor bathroom. Their outhouse was very clean and neat, and had dual holes. There was only one cold water tap in the kitchen. They bathed once a week in a moveable metal tub filled with water heated up on the stove.
ReplyDeleteMike, my grandparents grew up without electricity or running water too, and at first they did not have them in the house they built and moved into when they got married either (1930). So when later they got an electric stove, electric light, central heating and running water installed, no doubt that felt like luxury. (Whereas I myself grew up with electricity, WCs, and hot and cold water from taps as normal standard...)
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