Remembrances... Installment #6: Deliver Me Almost Everything

REMEMBRANCES OF A CHILDHOOD

By Lynn Harrington

Part I: 1918 – 1927, continued

12. Delivery Men

In our neighborhood in the early 1920s, the local distribution of goods was still predominantly by delivery men and their horses. Supermarkets and shopping malls lay far in the future. Small neighborhood grocery and other shops were abundant, but to many the most convenient way to shop for specialties was to have them brought to the door.

The Ice Man Visiteth

Everyone needed ice in the summer, because mechanical refrigeration was in its infancy. So the ice man with his one-horse wagon traveled the streets of his route, looking at each house for the sign that would request delivery. These signs, about a foot square, were of cardboard, bearing in large, clear letters the name of the ice company which had distributed them, People's or Rice's or whomever's. Each sign was so printed that a number appeared at each corner in such a way that the device could be hung in a window diamond-wise, and the desired number, indicating the size of the ice block wanted, would appear upright, reading either 10, 25, 50, or 100. On spotting the sign, the ice man would stop his horse, go to the rear of his wagon, chip from a 100 pound scored block the weight of ice indicated at the upper corner of the sign. This chunk he would carry, using his ice tongs and resting it on a thick pad worn on his shoulder, to the customer's ice box, usually in the kitchen.

Milkman

If we boys happened to be up and out early in the morning, we might see the milkman and his horse at work. The man had an established route which he covered each day. Our parents told us how, not many years earlier, the milk wagon carried large cans of milk in bulk. The route was worked later in the morning hours, when people in the houses were up and about. As the milkman drove slowly along, he would make his approach known by clanging a bell and calling out, "Milkman!" Then the housewife, or a child she might send, would go to the wagon with a bucket or a jar.

The man would dip into a can with a long-handled measure and pour the milk into the customer's receptacle, often along with a stray fly or two. Payment was by cash on the spot.

By the time we boys came along the system had been much refined. In the establishment of a route or the addition of a new family to the neighborhood, the milkman would call at the house to sell strips of tickets, one of one color for quarts, another for pints of milk bottled at the dairy he represented. He would also leave a price list, showing, with prices, the various specialties he carried in his wagon, such as cream or buttermilk or cottage cheese. With this information at hand, the customer would, before going to bed, put out on the porch the washed bottles from previous delivery, together with the number of tickets indicating how many quarts or pints of milk were wanted at the next morning's delivery. If specialty items were wanted, a note and payment in coin would be tucked into an empty bottle, or under one.

"The horse knew just how far to plod...

In most cases the milkman came to know quite well what the customers along the route would want each day. He was carrying two delivery baskets, of metal frame and compartment construction to accommodate a dozen bottles. As his carriers provided stock for deliveries, they also made a place to carry back to the wagon the empties he would pick up. By using the carriers that way, he could walk along in front of several houses, filling orders, before he had to make another trip to the wagon. It did not take a good delivery horse long to learn to know the route as well as the driver did. Once set into motion, the horse knew just about how far to plod along before stopping again. This was a great saving of labor for the milkman. When he needed a refill, the wagon was there, and the only times he would have to double back was when a customer ordered specialties.

It was a pleasure to watch that close teamwork between horse and man. Before we moved from Cannon Street, trucks had generally replaced horses on the milk routes. It was one of the sadder marks of progress; trucks did not have to be fed, nor their stables cleaned. Early in the transition period we were amused to see the milkman with his carriers of empty bottles walk to the curb, look about in surprise for his wagon, and then express himself in very positive expletives as he walked back to the stupid truck, standing right where he had left it.

Breadman

The breadman, working from his wagon with his large basket containing not only bread but also cakes and doughnuts and other delicacies, also had a fairly well established route. He too walked from house to house, his horse following along the street. But baked goods were not the regular staple that milk was, so there was less precision in the operation. In fact, he just didn't bother stopping at our house; Mama did the baking there.

Vegetable Man

Of all the regular route men, the vegetable man was the most conspicuous. As he walked along beside his wagon he sang out in a loud and rhythmic chant his specials of the day, such as, "STRAWWWBERRIES, CUUUCUMBERS, RAAADISHES", and similar cries for bananas and lettuce and potatoes and tomatoes and other standard items of produce. As he called his loud sing-song housewives along the street would hear him, and by the time he was before their houses they would be at curbside waiting for him, basket and purse in hand. Milk and ice they would accept as delivered; the produce, however, they wanted to select for themselves.

"The Broken Man Is Coming!"

I remember quite well the vegetable man who worked our street for several years. Mama would now and then want to be sure she knew when the man was on our street. She might be working upstairs or in the kitchen and not hear him call. So on such days, when we boys might be playing outside, she would admonish us to let her know when he was coming. It just happened that the vegetable man had only one leg, and he swung along as best he could, his crutch under his right arm and his left hand resting on the wagon. We boys, in the innocence of childhood and without thought of any unkindness, would run to the door and call to our mother, "Mama, the broken man is coming!"

Coal Shooting

The coal man's deliveries were something special to watch. Dad seldom ordered more than a half ton at a time. Our coal bin was in the cellar, accessible from outside only by a low, ground-level window that was hinged to be swung inward and upward and held open by a hook. The coal was delivered by a low-slung wagon in spring and fall, and by a box sleigh when the streets were coated with a thick, hard-packed layer of snow in winter. There was not room for the coal man to get his rig between our house and the house next door, so the man halted his wagon at curbside, then carried to the cellar window a straight metal chute which he lowered through the opened window and secured in place by legs extending to the ground from the chute's upper end. Then he would go back to the load, place his carrying bag on the ground or the snow beside it, and shovel it full of coal. The carrier was of canvas and shaped like a pack basket. A cloth strap-handle was attached to the rim at the top, and another on the side near the bottom of the pack. I don't know just what the weight of that carrier filled with coal would have been, but it must have been at least 50 pounds. When he had filled it, the man took hold of the pack with a handle in each hand and, with a swift, deft motion, swing it up onto his shoulder. Then he would trudge to the chute and just as deftly dump it onto that device, down which the coal would rattle and bang as it slid down into the bin.

The noise induced by the coal's descent was a roar which reverberated all through the house. For the usual half-ton delivery that would mean at least 20 carries for the man; for the occasional full ton order, 40 trips. He was a short, stocky man, clothes and hands and face black with coal dust, but cheerful and friendly with us kids, and often flashing a wide smile that showed his teeth startling white in contrast to his blackened face.

Instant Messaging, 1920's Style

Deliveries of quite another sort were handled by an elite group of uniformed older boys and young men. These were the telegraph couriers. The telephone was not then the universally-owned instrument it is today. Especially urgent messages were dispatched and delivered by telegraphic wire services. Two major companies competed for this business: Western Union and Postal Telegraph. Both of these companies maintained service offices in virtually all cities throughout the country. At those offices, messages received from a distant station on their lines were printed out on tape as they arrived over the wire. Clerks would cut the tapes into appropriate length strips and stick them to sheets of paper bearing their company's letterhead, together with the address of the recipient and the point of origin, with the names of both parties, sender and addressee. Each message was stuffed into an envelope, address showing in the glassine window. Such messages were held at the receiving office for only a short time, usually just long enough to allow accumulation of telegrams for several addresses in a given section of the city.

Posted at the ready in the office would be a number of carriers, just waiting to be handed a sheaf of envelopes to be distributed in their assigned districts. Each had his own bicycle, and immediately upon receipt of his messages, placed them in his cap, ran to his bike, mounted, and sped away. The courier had to be thoroughly familiar with all streets in his district, even more so than taxi drivers. The cab driver could often get help from the passenger in finding his destination. All the courier had was the printed address.

A job as a telegraph messenger was a responsible and respected position. Telegrams were not generally dispatched for casual messages -- they were usually urgent and of a serious nature. In his effort to make the earliest possible deliveries, the courier was especially vulnerable to the risks of bicycling through heavy traffic. When snow made that means of delivery impossiple, he had to travel as far as possible by streetcar and run the rest of the way. Those hard working, dedicated couriers have by now disappeared from the scene, displaced by much more sophisticated, computerized transmission systems. We are the richer for bhe inv~ptionof those mechanical devices, but the poorer for the disappearance of the couriers.

The Coal Delivery Sleigh Ride

Early one memorable Saturday morning in the depth of winter, when the coal man had finished a delivery to our house, he told us boys that he was going back to the yard to get a big load to deliver to the boiler room at the Netherland Dairy, located about a mile toward downtown from our house. He said we could come along if we wanted a nice sleigh ride. We were overjoyed at the prospect, and ran into the house to tell Mama we were going for a ride with the coal man. We offered no particulars, and she probably assumed he was going to give us a ride to the coal yard, not far up East Brighton Avenue. Then out we dashed to climb into the sleigh, and we were off.

At the coal yard, loading up was quickly accomplished. The storage bins were overhead, and the teamster (after telling us to hop out and wait for him by the street) simply drove his team to the proper spot where the sleigh rested under the hopper from which the measured quantity of coal was dumped straight down into it. As the team pulled out into the street we climbed aboard and settled down in comfort to enjoy our princely ride all the way along the busy streets which led us to the Netherland Dairy. Unloading there was easier than at our house, even though the load was much larger. All the man did was drive the sleigh up beside .~ pair of big iron doors, flush with the ground. The fireman in the boiler room swung those doors up and open, the driver removed one section of the side of the his sleigh, and proceeded 'to shove the coal off and down into a large storage chamber which the iron doors had concealed. When the fireman saw us boys standing beside the sleigh he asked, "Are you kids with him?" We said we were, and he said, "You'd better come with me, or you'll freeze before he gets that coal off."

We followed with alacrity as he led us into the boiler room, a warm and pleasant place where we sat on a bench and watched him rake and poke around in the fire. After a little bit he disappeared for a few minutes and returned with three Eskimo Pies, one for each of us. Those foil-wrapped, chocolate coated ice cream bars were the most wonderful treat we could imagine, and our pleasure in them was diminished not in the least by the grime on our fingers.

Then the coal was unloaded, and it was time to go. This time we traveled seated on the edge of the sleigh box, with our feet and legs inside. Few winter diversions are more fun than a sleigh ride, and we felt quite important, riding there in state as the team plodded south along Salina Street. At Colvin the man stopped the horses and we got off, with many thanks for the ride. He said we were ~ery welcome, and that well could join him again mos t any Saturday, as tha twas a regular run. We knew, as we walked home, that we were quite dirty. Just how dirty we were hadn't really sunk in until we entered the kitchen at home, and Mama explained it to us in no uncertain terms. Needless to say, we didn't take any more Saturday afternoon rides on the coal sleigh.

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Next week: more from Arthur G. Harrington

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Tales Told by Arthur G. Harrington (Installment #1)

Clockwise from lower-left: Arthur G. Harrington, Mary E. Harrington, Sgt. Lynn Harrington, Wilhelmina Hobert Harrington. This 1945 photo was almost certainly taken by my mother, Catherine Murphy Harrington, on her and Dad's first trip North from Atlanta to introduce her to the Harrington family in Upstate New York.

My father's oldest sibling, Margaret, died in the Spanish Influenza pandemic, near its end in 1920, when Dad was only five years old. My grandmother Harrington passed away the month before I was born. Thus, the grand old lady of the Harrington clan was always, to me, Dad's oldest surviving sister, Mary, who was born in 1901.

Never married, Mary spent her working career as an Earth Science teacher in Oneida, New York. She was the family's glue for many decades, carrying on voluminous correspondence with her many siblings and their children until her death in 1985. She was also her father's caretaker between the time of her mother's death until his, seven years later.

Her father, my grandfather, Arthur G. Harrington, wasn't much for writing, since he hadn't much schooling himself. He had enough to do, I suppose, providing for a family of eight children through the Great Depression, without spending much time on that sort of thing.

But he could tell stories. And Mary could record them. And she did -- for all of us.

In 1972, Mary presented each of Art Harrington's grandchildren with a fine little booklet called Tales Told by your Grandfather Arthur George Harrington. Mine, as you can see below, is copy number ten of a run of 20.

The first few pages of the booklet served as an introduction to Art for us grandkids, most of whom were too young to remember him other than as a big, old man wracked by age and wear. (In his prime, Art Harrington stood 6' 2" -- tall for his time -- and had a 20" neck, so thick that he never had a shirt that could button at the collar, but not fat. Evidently, he was a bull of a man, physically.)

Those first few pages also served as something of an introduction for us "kids" to some family history that most of our parents weren't particularly anxious to talk about much: Art's early separation from his father and his later determination to seek out his father, James McMackin.

This first installment of "Tales Told..." is presented in graphic rather than text form for two reasons: First, Aunt Mary's little booklet with its irregular, manual typewriter print and numerous handwritten bits doesn't work well with OCR software -- trying to use any of the packages I have available for that turns out to be more time-consuming than simply re-typing will be. But second, and more important, I want Adam and (I hope) others downstream in the gene pool to be able to see what the booklet looks/looked like, and to see how well-worn each of the 20 copies must be or have been. Future installments will be in re-typed, text format.

The pages below are stored on blogger in a big enough size to be read easily, but only if you click on each of them to see the larger, more legible image.

The marriage certificate and separation agreement to which Mary refers in the latter footnote can be viewed here and here. Also, to my son, Adam: it's interesting to note that the Truman Harrington to whom Mary refers was your great-great-great-great grandfather, or more than a third of the way back from you to Sir John Harrington and the court of Elizabeth I. My, how time flies. --SH

Mary and her little brother, Lynn, assist me in making cider, 1955.

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Next week: We return to Remembrances of a Childhood, and see a
bygone era of deliverymen.
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Remembrances of a Childhood (Installment #5)

REMEMBRANCES OF A CHILDHOOD

By Lynn Harrington

Part I: 1918 – 1927, continued

11. Christmas

We all sat silent then for a time, hushed by the splendor of the sight.

Of all the holidays of the year, Christmas was to us children the most exciting. In those early years presents were very modest, but our parents saw to it that each of us could buy a small gift for each of our brothers and sisters. The older girls in turn made it possible for us to each buy a gift for Mama and for Dad. I remember that for several years in a span that must have started when I was five the girls would help us boys in our Christmas shopping. The actual shopping was done during the week before the holiday itself -- we couldn't have endured so high a pitch of excitement for much longer than that.

This is the way it worked: Each of the eldest three would take charge of one of us boys, taking us downtown on the streetcar to shop, handling our money, and helping us with our selections. Mary, for example, would take me to Woolworths or Kresge's or both. They were called 5 and 10 cent stores in those days, and they really were just that. I find myself to this day surprised as I reflect upon the variety of items each store offered for a nickel or a dime. There were toys in great variety (metal or wood, but no such thing as plastics), coloring books, crayons, games, puzzles, and novelties of all sorts. She would help me select a gift for each of the others. The boys, of course, got the toys that appealed to me most strongly. For Florence I would select something like a pencil box or a little story book (which I of course figured she would later read to me). For the older girls I standardized: Each got a package of hairpins. For the selection of Mama's and Dad's gifts I was usually steered into W. T. Grant's store. The sign on the front of that one read 5¢ - 10¢ - 25¢ - $1. The choosing of gifts in that lofty economic environment was more difficult. I would finally settle on something like a nice handkerchief for Mama and a pair of suspenders for Dad. Then when she had a chance later my shopping advisor would let me help her wrap the gifts in pretty paper.

Mildred and Myrtle did similar duty for Bob and Jim, while Florence could take care of her own shopping, except that she was not yet allowed to go downtown by herself. From year to year we paired off with different sisters. It was always a very happy arrangement.

Just as Christmas was the most exciting day, so was the day before the most interminable. It just seemed it would never get dark. Our salvation came after supper, when we were allowed to go to the movies at the Arcadia. It made no difference at all what was playing. We three boys were delighted to attend, to find the time slipping away as we enjoyed the comedies and the playing of the piano, and sometimes even paying attention to the feature picture. But what meant the most to us was the realization that when the show was over it would be time to go home and to bed. And we would be tired enough to fall asleep quickly, and then when we awoke it would be Christmas!

In winter it was always dark when we woke up. It seemed that on Christmas morning our internal clocks sounded their silent alarms not later than 5:00 a. m. But we were ordered to stay in bed and be still, for Mom and Dad and the older girls had to get up first and get the breakfast preparations under way and the Christmas presents all arranged under the tree before we could come downstairs.

Then at last, probably between 6:00 and 7:00, we would be called to dress and come down. When we reached the living room several lamps would be burning in their brackets, and everyone was dressed and we could see the table in the dining room all set for the breakfast that would follow the opening of the presents. But what caught our attention more than anything else was the dark Christmas tree,in the corner of the living room opposite to the bottom of the stairway. Then we all took our places, Mama and Dad standing by the tree, we boys sitting on the floor at the bottom of the stairway, and the girls sitting on the stairs.

The lighting of the tree was to us a scene of transcending beauty. Distributed about on the tips of the branches, among ribbons and tinsel and threaded strings of popcorn, but not visible to us until lit, were the little candles. Each was held in a little tin sleeve soldered to a clamp which held it tightly near the end of a twig. Dad turned the kerosene lamps down very low, casting the room into near darkness. Then he went to the tree, and, as Mama steadied each candle-bearing twig, Dad used a match to light the candle. This continued until all of the candles bore their tiny flames, and the tree was a shining cone of breath-taking beauty. We all sat silent then for a time, hushed by the splendor of the sight. But the flames had to be extinguished. If one of them happened to touch a dry evergreen needle there would have been an instant, sizzling flame. So Mama turned up the room lamps while Dad pinched out the candles, and the distribution of the presents began. Jimmy, as the youngest, was designated to pass the gifts to the rest. Mom and Dad, by turns, picked up a package, read to Jimmy the name on it, and he would carry it to its recipient. Of course, when they gave him one with his name on it, he plopped right down on the floor and unwrapped it, chortling his glee over the present. I substituted for him in the distribution until he was ready to resume, so the gifts kept flowing.

The presents were small and inexpensive, and the colored tissue was, as far as possible, saved for another year. But none of that mattered. We were not expecting great things, and the pleasure was in the receiving and the sharing. And I do not think we were ever at any other time so happy and so unified a family as we were on those Christmas mornings.

An electrified Harrington Christmas tree, more than 80 years later and a continent away. (Click the image for a more detailed view.)

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The next installment of Satchel will probably be posted on the weekend of June 27 - 28. We'll give Lynn Harrington a little break then, and will hear from other voices. Dad's "Remembrances of a Childhood" will resume the week after that.
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Remembrances of a Childhood (Installment #4)

REMEMBRANCES OF A CHILDHOOD

By Lynn Harrington

Part I: 1918 – 1927, continued

6. The Elk Bakery

The Elk Bakery was a fine establishment. It was a treat just to spend some time looking in through the window at the fascinating display of baked goods. The assortment changed every day. There were cakes and cupcakes and jelly rolls and sweet buns one day, and the next time I was there I might see a great assortment of pies and tarts and doughnuts and turnovers and cookies. Of course, there were also days when breads and rolls were featured, but they didn't hold my attention for very long.

By the time I was in the fifth grade I had formed fast friendships with several schoolmates, and on Saturdays and on summer days when school was out we would often get together to play or fight or run like a pack of young dogs. On one such Saturday one of the boys announced that someone had told him that the lady at the Elk Bakery would sell stale cookies and things cheap. So the six of us in the group at that time pooled our resources and came up with a total of ten cents (a couple of us had no capital to contribute, but the others would not have thought of leaving us out). So off we went as a group, to try our luck.

When we reached the bakery counter, presided over by a nice motherly woman, our acting treasurer asked if we could buy ten cents worth of stale baked goods. The lady asked if we would like some bread or rolls. When we all shook our heads in the negative she said, "Just a minute and I'll see what I can do."

She disappeared into the room behind the store, and shortly after reappeared with a rather large paper bag, bulging with its load and securely closed at the top. The ten cents was exchanged for the bag, and out of the store we trooped, all dying to know what was in the sack, but thinking it would be unseemly to look while she was watching.

Once out on the sidewalk the bag was promptly opened and we all tried to look in at once. What we saw might as well have been gold. We whooped and hollered like a bunch of wild Indians when we saw the jumble of cookies and tarts and even cakes in that bag. We could hardly wait to get at the treasure, but with the cunning common to wild animals and little boys, we instinctively concealed our prize and made a quick escape from that busy Salina Street sidewalk where some bigger boys might see what was going on and relieve us of our treasure.

After a short conference we decided that the safest place to go would be up Colvin Street hill eastward to the mounded eminence beyond Oakwood Cemetery. There we climbed the steep side of what we would learn in later years was a drumlin. People familiar with the area now would know it as the prominence at the southern base of which stands the University's Manley Field House. To us then it was just a wild, grassy hill, dotted with shrubs and small trees, but open at the top, affording a beautiful view down on Syracuse and across to where the city was spreading up toward the western rim of the Onondaga valley.

Modern geography of the ten-cent sugar bonanza, as seen courtesy of Google: Cannon and Salina streets are at left, the Oakwood Cemetery is at upper-center, the Manley Field House is the round, white structure at right, and the feast's drumlin is just above that, topped now with water tanks.

By the time we had left Colvin Street for the steep climb our numbers had grown from the original six to eight or nine. A half dozen boys running with a bag of something served as an irresistible magnet that attracted two or three boys of our acquaintance, who voted themselves in for a share of whatever was goingon. When we reached the crest we all sat down, gathered around the prize. Then it was just a matter of lounging there on the hilltop, helping ourselves to whatever we wanted from the abundant supply and luxuriating in the treat. I remember that it was the first time I had ever seen a jelly roll, and I consumed a good share of the one in our stock.

We all ate to repletion, and it was a rather subdued little group that descended the drumlin that afternoon, more than a little queasy and no doubt surprising our mothers by our strangely light appetites at supper that night.

Over the next year or two, at appropriately discrete intervals, we made similar, but variously rewarded, forays. The Elk Bakery lady was at all times kind, and the goods were never actually stale. But my recollection is that the yields diminished as other boys began showing up at the bakery on similar missions, and that after our initial orgy we were quite willing to exercise more moderation in our Elk Bakery ventures.


7. Horses and Men

The transition from horse power to internal combustion engines in the work of transportation, earth moving, and construction did not occur overnight. In my early childhood, up to about 1922 or 1923, horses and wagons made up a considerable share of the traffic on the city streets. We found the horses most interesting to watch. Some of the peddlers drove bony, worn out old nags, living out the last of their days in equally worn harness. Other horses were fine, vigorous specimens, such as the light animals ridden by mounted police we would see patrolling in the parks, or escorting a parade. Much like them were the single horses that farmers sometimes drove into the city, drawing the buggies in which country people came to town to shop or to visit family or friends. Much larger and more powerful were the draft horses that drew large wagons to the feed store on Salina Street near Brighton Avenue. Those wagons would come bearing loads of oats and shelled corn in burlap bags. At the mill that grain would be mixed and ground to meal with wheat or other cereal grains supplied by the miller. The grist was then bagged and loaded back onto the wagons, to be hauled back to the farms for use as winter feed for the milk cows, to supplement their hay-and-silage diet.

On early spring Saturdays, before the cows would be turned out to graze in the pastures, we would see numbers of such farm teams and wagons lined up at the mill, each awaiting its turn. We enjoyed walking along beside the standing teams (but, being city kids, not too close), admiring the size and the rippling muscles of those great animals. We would occasionally see a team stopped at the corner of Salina and Elk, quenching their thirst at the large cast-iron watering trough maintained there by the city.

Another good place to watch horses at work was at the sand and gravel pit down near Roosevelt Junior High. There they pulled in with empty dump wagons and took up positions within reach of the large crane-like steam-powered shovel. That machine would dig into the gravel bank, pullout a scoopful of gravel, swing it around and drop it into a wagon. Two or three scoops made up a load, and the driver would move his team with its loaded wagon up the grade out of the pit and along city streets to its destination. That might be a road grading and paving project, or a construction site where gravel and sand would be mixed with cement and water to make concrete. Those wagons lacked, of course, the hydraulic devices which elevate the front end of a modern dump truck. The wagons were so built that the bottom was made up of two door-like lengthwise sections, each hinged to the frame along its side. A chain and ratchet device allowed the driver, from his position on the seat up front, to work a lever back and forth, to either bring the doors tight shut or to let them drop open, thus dumping the load directly under the wagon.

Any construction which involved excavation, as in making a hole for the basement of a new house, called for a still different form of man-and-horse equipment. There were no bulldozers nor backhoes then. The bulk of the dirt was removed by what was called a "scrape'. This was a large shovel-like arrangement, with a steel bed about three feet wide and equally deep from front to rear. The steel backplate extended up about a foot, and at the center of its reinforced top edge was a ring. The two steel side pieces tapered up from the front edge to a welded joint with the back piece. Back and up along the outside of each side piece was a sturdy wooden pole, which extended out two or three feet beyond the back of the scrape. These wooden poles were rounded and smoothed for the last foot or so of their length. The operator would stand between these handles, gripping them firmly. From the ring at the top rear of the scrape, a chain extended forward, several feet, where it was attached to the evener behind a single horse. The reins from the horse's bit reached back far enough that the driver could tie them together and loop them around his back.

Heading the horse in the direction he wanted to go and setting it into motion, the man would raise up on the handles, the front edge of the scrape would bite into the ground, and as the horse moved forward the pan would fill up with dirt. Then the driver would bear down hard on the handles, bringing the front edge free from the ground. Then, engaging each rein between thumb and forefinger of each hand as he grasped the handle, so that he could steer the horse, he would continue to bear down as the horse dragged the load to the desired dumping point. Then the man would tilt up the handles just enough to allow the leading edge to catch in the ground, after which the forward motion of the horse would flip the scrape forward and face down, leaving its load in a heap. Then it was a matter of righting the scrape, reversing direction, and repeating the process.

This technique was used for rough excavating only; men with hand shovels had to do the more precise labor of cutting the corners sharp and leveling off the rough places in the floor.

Primitive and arduous as this operation was, a strong man with a good horse could dig out a lot of dirt in a day. On major construction jobs, such as excavating for the base of a large office building or apartment house, steam powered shovels did the digging. Horses and dump wagons still did the hauling away.

Horses, in their various labors, made great contributions to the economy. They were, in effect,
and in contrast to fossil fuels, self-renewing energy resources. The were also, especially in crowded cities, a source of pollution far different from what we see on the streets today. In the downtown section sanitation men were equipped with two-wheeled pushcarts, each with an open-topped barrel supported between the wheels, and with a shovel and push broom. The men patrolled the streets, sweeping up and carting away the horse droppings that accumulated every day.

In the residential sections the streets were washed down by the use of water wagons. The body of the wagon consisted of a wooden tank placed like the metal tank on a modern tank truck. At the rear of the wagon was a transverse pipe with holes along its rear surface. The water flowed out with considerable force just by the pressure of the load in the tank. The flow of water washed most of the detritus from the street surface into the gutters, down through the catch basins and into the storm sewer system.

A refurbished horsedrawn water wagon, manufactured by Studebaker. Photo from "Automotive History Online". Click the link to see the photo's context there.

We lived a little more nearly in the state of nature then than we do now. When a horse felt a call of nature, he stopped and answered it, no matter where he might be. It was a common occurrence in the city, and we took it quite for granted. We noticed, but thought nothing in particular about, the performance of a little man who walked past our house on Cannon Street on his way to and from the street car line which carried him to and from work each day. He carried a brown leather satchel as he walked during the spring and summer months.

Not uncommonly, on his homeward way in the evening, he went out into the street in two or three places, opened his satchel, took out a small scoop, transferred some horse manure from street to satchel, replaced the scoop, closed the satchel, and continued on his homeward way. When I asked Mama why he did that, she said he probably had a nice garden, and used the manure to fertilize it.

As motor vehicles gradually replaced the horses, tank trucks were used for washing down the streets. On a hot summer day we kids took off our shoes and stockings and had great fun running about close behind the slow-moving truck. Then the city switched to combination washer-sweeper vehicles, which did a better job of actually cleaning the streets, but which ended that particular fun for us.


8. Coal Stoves

The kitchen of our house was a large room and, especially during winter, the center of activity in the home.

Coal was the fuel for the big iron cookstove (often referred to as the kitchen range). A smaller, upright stove stood in the living room. Coal was the fuel for both of these stoves which, in the absence of a furnace or fireplace, provided the heat for the house. Winter evenings were spent gathered in the kitchen, the warmest room in the house. When we went off to bed on especially cold winter nights we all, adults as well as children, took along a securely closed bottle of hot water, wrapped in cloth. One such bottle, tucked between the covers and close to the feet, made falling asleep more comfortable.

Near each of the stoves was kept a scuttle, a sort of pail, oval in outline, with its circumference extended to form a chute from which coal could be dispensed into the stove. The scuttles had to be refilled from the coal bin cellar.

You can still buy new coal scuttles. This one is available for forty euro from Ireland's Baumann.ie.

The coal we burned was anthracite, a hard, relatively clean-burning fuel in contrast to the soft, or bituminous, coal used in factories and other industrial applications. We owed the availability and comparatively moderate price of the hard coal to the proximity of the vast Pennsylvania anthracite coal fields. "Moderate" in relation to price is, of course, a relative term. Coal was one of the major elements in the cost of living, and we had to use it as conservatively as possible. This involved a job for us children. A grownup, for obvious reasons) would shovel the ashes from the pit under the firebox of each stove, into a metal basket and carry that out to the back yard. It was then up to us kids to sift the ashes, using a device consisting of a circular, cheese-box like holder open at the top and with a coarse wire screen bottom.

A handle like a broomstick was attached to the sifter. We would scoop ashes into the sifter, then hold it over an ash can and shake. The ashes went into the can, and we then picked from the sifter any incompletely burned pieces of coal for return to the scuttle.


9. Laundry Day

Laundry day was a hard one for Mama. I can see her now, with a large wash tub on a platform Dad had placed near the kitchen range. The wash boiler on the stove was full of steaming hot water, which Mama transferred, a dipper at a time, into the wash tub. She then refilled the boiler, for more hot water would be needed for the rinsing. The stove had to be kept hot, too, which added nothing to the comfort of the task.

The dirty laundry was put into the tub, and a washboard was inserted. This was a wooden frame holding a horizontally-corrugated sheet of galvanized iron which extended a little above the rim of the tub. Using a brown bar of strong Fels-Naptha soap, she would work up a head of suds on the hot water, and then, taking the pieces one at a time, rub them vigorously over the corrugations of the metal. Shirt collars, knees of pants and elbows of shirts usually needed extra attention, and these were rubbed vigorously with the bar of soap before they were scrubbed. Each piece, after scrubbing, was wrung out by hand and then dropped into a second tub, situated on the floor beside the platform and containing clear, moderately hot water. When all of the clothing had been scrubbed, it was sozzled in the rinse water and left there to soak while the wash water was dipped out and into the sink to drain away. Then the boiler of water, hot by this time, was dipped into the tub which had been used for the scrubbing. The clothes soaking in the first rinse water were once more wrung out and then dropped into the second rinse water. Each piece was again sozzled about in the clean hot water, then wrung out and dropped into the clothes basket. The basket was carried out into the back yard with the bag of clothespins and the laundry was hung out to dry.

While the majority of this work fell to Mama, whenever possible she arranged to have one of the big girls on hand to help her with it. She had need of a second pair of capable hands especially for the wringing operations, and anyone big enough to reach into the wash boiler could do most of the dipping.

Mechanical assistance came very slowly as the years passed. I do not remember just when it was, but at some time in my early years Dad brought home from somewhere a crank wringer device, which could be attached to the edge of the rinse tub. This device consisted of two rubber-clad rollers pressed close together in a spring-loaded frame.

Hand-cranked wringer: a technological wonder for laundry day. Photo from an entry on EBay.

This must have been a great help, but it would not have been until at least 1928, when we first lived in a house wired for electricity, that Mama could have had a washing machine of any kind.

Much of the laundry required ironing. There were no wash and wear fabrics in those days. The items of clothing and sheets, pillow cases, and such were first sprinkled in preparation for ironing. Two flat irons, similar in shape to modern irons but each a single piece of cast iron with a polished, flat bottom surface, were placed on the kitchen stove to heat. The ironing board was set up near the stove, with the basket of sprinkled pieces close at hand. When an iron was hot enough for use (the simple test was to lick a finger and touch it gingerly to the polished surface; if it hissed, it was hot) the ironing began. With those old one-piece flat irons, the handle was so hot that a hotpad was necessary as an insulator. When the iron cooled only a little it was returned to the stove in exchange for the one resting there.

Later in the years of our residence there, a new iron was developed which contributed to the comfort and efficiency of the operator. The irons looked like the old models except that they had no handles. Instead, they had been cast in a mold that formed a pair of recesses in the center of the upper surface. The separate handle was a metal frame affair with a smooth wooden grip and a clamp arrangement so that the operator could release one iron and pick up the next without the necessity of wrapping a cloth pad around a hot iron handle. Alternation of irons could be achieved as before, but much more comfortably.


10. Kerosene Lamps

The lack of electricity or gas in the house meant that we had to depend for illumination on kerosene lamps and on candles. The lamps provided the basic lighting; the candles were just supplementary. In some central locations, Dad had placed lamp-holding brackets high enough on the walls to put them out of the reach of the smaller children and high enough to achieve better distribution of the lamps' limited light. However, lamps were also needed closer at hand for dining or reading or such tasks as sewing, so a number of them were distributed on tables and stands around the house. Portability was one of the advantages of the table lamps.

Early 20th-Century kerosene lamp. Photo from the Laurel Leaf Farm online antiques catalog.

Maintenance of the lamps provided small jobs for each of us, as we reached an age where we could be trusted with the tasks. For one thing, the chimneys required frequent washing, and this was a job for the older girls. Rather early on Bob, and then I and then Jimmy were assigned the daily task of refilling the lamp bases with oil. This was done on the back porch where the oil drum was kept. We had to learn to do the work carefully, spilling no oil, for kerosene was at best a stinky fuel. We also learned to trim the wicks, using scissors made special for the job. An even wick and a clean chimney meant clear, bright light.

I seldom think of those kerosene lamps without vividly recalling an accident involving one of them. It happened in the after-supper time in winter when darkness fell early. Mama was in the kitchen ironing, with a lamp on the base end of the ironing board casting its light on her work. The end of the board was close against the frame of the doorway that opened on the dining room.

I was playing on the floor nearby. Suddenly I heard the sound of breaking glass and a cry from Mama. The piece she had been ironing was a large one, a sheet or tablecloth, and in maneuvering it as she worked she had somehow struck the base of the lamp with the iron. The lamp collapsed, spilling kerosene on the vertical board of the door frame. As the broken lamp tipped against that board the chimney smashed and the burning wick came into contact with the oil-coated board. Flame leaped from the board, and Mama instantly wadded up the cloth she had been ironing and, by rubbing it frantically against the flame she managed to extinguish the fire.

Everything had happened so fast that I could scarcely believe what I was seeing. But as brief as the action was, it was indelibly burned into my memory.

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Next: Christmas

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Remembrances of a Childhood (Installment #3)

REMEMBRANCES OF A CHILDHOOD

By Lynn Harrington

Part I: 1918 – 1927, continued

3. The House

The house on Cannon Street, not as large in fact as it seemed to a small boy, must have been, for so numerous a family as ours, crowded to the limits of comfort.

It was not very long before the number in residence was reduced. The first to leave was Margaret, who was married in early 1919 to Lester Gilbraith, not long after his return from traumatic service with the American Expeditionary Forces in France in World War I. Then, in 1921, Mary graduated from Syracuse University and took her first teaching job, in Fort Plain, where she took boarding accommodations for most of the year. Myrtle, in 1924, was next to marry and move away. From then until the end of our tenancy there in the spring of 1927, there were only seven of us to whom the house on Cannon Street was home. [The remaining seven: two parents, Florence, Mildred, and the three boys. –Ed.]

The house itself, despite its city location, could hardly be described as modern even for that day. It had running water, but cold water plumbing only. No electricity, no gas, no central heating, no bath tub nor shower, and no telephone. The lack of electricity meant none of the multitude of electrically operated household conveniences we take for granted today.

City water was piped to the kitchen sink and to a small lavatory equipped with a toilet and a small wash-up sink. The large cook stove in the kitchen was so designed as to circulate hot air from the firebox under the cooking surface and around the oven and the built-in water tank. That tank was kept full of water carried in a pail from the faucet of the sink, and hot water was dipped from it for use as needed. Baths were taken standing in a large, circular wash tub placed on the kitchen floor close to the stove. Larger quantities of hot water, for those baths or for laundry work, were heated in a large oval copper container called the wash boiler. [Copper wash boilers are now trendy antique items for storage of various items, such as firewood. -- Ed.]

4. Mrs. Searles’ Dry Goods Store

It was not unusual for my mother to give me a nickel and a piece of thread, and tell me to go to Mrs. Searles' and give them to her and ask for a spool of thread just like the sample.

1924 nickel

That store never failed to awe and subdue me. A little bell tinkled when I opened and closed the door. Outside, it might be bright and sunny, with streetcars rumb­ling along, their motormen clanging their bells to demand that all other traffic make way. A few auto­mobiles with their Claxon horns and trucks with their noisy engines added to the din, while teamsters drove their rattling wagons over the bricks and paving stones.

But the door which closed behind me when I entered Mrs. Searles' store cut off all outside noise at once and completely.

Along one side of the room ran a counter; the wall back of the counter aisle was lined with shelves, from floor nearly to ceiling, all loaded with sewing specialties and boxes of unknown contents. On the counter were glass cases of bows and ribbons and pins and needles and great numbers of spools of thread in all colors imaginable. The remainder of the store was given over to racks and frames and hangers all heavily loaded with bolts and spreads of cloth of countless kinds and colors, mostly subdued.

I do not remember ever entering that muffled stillness and finding anyone else in the store. I would stand there for a few moments, just a little apprehensive lest by my presence I might disturb the silence. And then, moving majestically forward from a passageway at the rear, Mrs. Searle would appear. She was a tall, severe woman in a long black dress, and as she slowly approached, arms folded across her chest and her glasses reflecting little flashes of light from the few ceiling-­hung lamps, it seemed that her movements did not even stir the air through which she passed. She would come to a stop a short way from me, stare at me briefly, and then whisper the single word:

"Yes?"

I would quickly hand her the nickel and the thread, much too frightened to speak. She would go and get me the spool of thread, hand it to me, fold her arms again across her chest, and resume staring at me. I would turn and get to the door as quickly as possible while maintaining absolute silence. Once out of doors into the light and the noise and the bustle all about me, I would run all the way home just as fast as my legs would carry me.

5. The Fire House

By the time I was in the second grade (1922 -- Ed.), I had begun to enjoy exploring the neighborhood, and to look upon it as my own domain. One of the first places we boys and our friends would go to of a Saturday morn­ing was the fire house. We would approach as near as possible to the great doors and peer in to admire the equipment poised there. Now and then a fireman would call us in, to visit with us and to show us the two engines stationed there. On one memorable day one of the men took us on a tour of the building, taking us first upstairs where he showed us the big room lined with the single cots where the night shift slept. There was a chair by each cot, and he told us that the men kept their uniform pants and shirts on their chairs, ready to be donned in an instant when the alarm bell sounded. He showed us the shiny brass pole that extended from the ceiling down through a large circular hole in the floor to the main floor below. The men upstairs could reach the engines quickly by sliding down the pole.

We looked longingly at that beautiful pole, and [my older brother] Bob even reached out tentatively to touch it. But the fireman knew what Bob was thinking of, and told us at once that we mustn't try to slide down it -- that was a very slippery pole, and too dangerous for us.

Downstairs again, he showed us the inside of the tall tower in which hoses were hung to dry upon return from a call. He showed us, too, where until quite recently the fire horses had been kept, before they were replaced by the trucks. He said that when the horses were resting at night, their harnesses had been suspended above them in the stalls, with a pulley arrangement by which the harnesses could be dropped and buckled into place very quickly.

One fireman in each shift was on duty con­tinuously at the signal desk. The fire department had no radio communication in those days. Each of the alarm boxes in the area served by Company 8 was connected by wire, like telephone lines, to that signal desk. The system was so designed that when the lever at any box was pulled, the connection auto­matically triggered the alarm gong in the station house to sound a pre-coded series of clangs of the bell. Three strokes followed by a brief pause, then two strokes, for example would identify for the man at the desk the location of the box from which the alarm was sounded.

All of the firemen made it a practice to memorize the location from which any coded call originated. If the fire chief of any district found his men and equipment unable to handle alone a fire in his area, he would call by telephone the cen­tral dispatching office downtown, from where additional units from adjoining districts would be instructed to send help. The most serious of fires would result in the emergency call-out of the entire city fire fight­ing force, save only for a few scattered companies assigned to standby alert in the event of another fire anywhere in the city.

Such a blaze, at least in the Syracuse system, was called a three-alarm fire. I remember only one such fire during my Cannon Street years. From our house we could hear Company 8 move out, bells ringing and sirens wailing. Then we heard other engines, from a station farther south, roaring north on Salina Street. People were soon out in the street, talking excitedly about the great fire that was raging downtown. We boys ran to Salina Street, from where, looking north toward the center of the city, we could see a great mass of swirling red and gray and black smoke rising high into the sky. We were told that the Bastable Building (in later years the site of the State Tower building) was burning.

I knew very little of the downtown scene, but Myrtle was with us and told us that was one of the bigger buildings in the city. It was leveled that night [but resurrected: http://yestercuse.com/towerhistory.htm --Ed.]

New York Times account of the Bastable Building fire, February, 1923

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Next: Urban horses, coal stoves, and laundry without electricity.