Beech Tree News Network

Last week I was mending some clothes for my daughters and grandchildren. I learned to sew from my grandmother and my mom as well as in a class during high school. At one time, sewing was a common skill; but, I failed to teach my daughters. Our daily lives have changed through the years, and household tasks have changed, too.

I asked family and friends what task or chore they did or saw others do while growing up that they no longer do themselves. Their answers are listed below:
•    Bringing in coal for the stove. I hated that job! And, taking out the ashes is included!
•    Hanging laundry outside; but, I would if I could.
•    Lighting the heater.
•    Raising a garden, killing hogs, carrying in wood and water. The list goes on!
•    I helped mow the yard when I lived at home, but my husband doesn’t like for me to get near the mower because I have run over several things.
•    Wash windows. My mom still comes to wash mine.
•    The task I did from childhood through young adulthood that I no longer do is work in tobacco. From setting to hoeing, to hanging and stripping, everyone in the family was expected to do it. It was called “family quality time” (that was secretly how they got out of paying us).
•    I used to love to watch my mom clean out our coal-burning stove! She would work all day, then come out black as night, with only the whites of her eyes showing. Bet she didn’t look forward to that as much as I did. Thankful I didn’t have to do it!
•    The chore I used to do that I don’t anymore is carrying/hauling/stacking wood that Daddy cut, either going with him or helping unload when he got home. That was weekly (part of the year), and it amazed me that he loved it. I can understand it now; but, it just seemed like work at the time. The chore I watched being done, but never did was sewing…still.
•    Hauling hay.
•    Hanging out clothes!
•    Hanging clothes on the line. I don’t currently have a clothes line.
•    As a child, we had a wringer washer. I remember watching the clothes being fed through the wringers. The gutters were moved to the cistern when it rained to catch the water. When my mom would wring a chicken’s neck and it would bounce around the yard, it was my job to take a bucket, put it over the chicken and sit on the bucket until the chicken stopped bouncing. I also remember listening in on the eight-party line!
•    Milk the cow, feed chickens, gather eggs, cut tobacco, mow grass, feed the mule, and use Grandma’s privy.
•    Farming, raising cattle, and hauling square bales of hay.

These changes show some ways our lives have changed. I like sewing, but don’t often sew. “And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time” (Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing). If you have a memory that you would like to share, please add it through the comment box below.

Ecclesiastes 3:1, NIV:  “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”