Coleman Lantern

[cooperhawk]

After WWII Dad moved us out into the country to a farm with no electricity or running water. In 1951 we finally moved into town because my Mother went to work in the Post Office and she"d had enough of out houses.

At first we had Kerosene lamps for light, and fuel oil stoves. The upstairs was not heated so we slept under a lot of quilts.
Along about 1948 we got Coleman Lanterns for light. Man, what a difference that made. Much better to read by.

When the bull dozed the old farm house I managed to salvage those of lamps, lanterns, and the wall telephone. I have them on my mantle
and hanging on the wall in our dining area. Those were tough times.

[Cowpokey]

I'm a little younger than you cooperhawk, and we did have electricity in on the farm...but we didn't have heat upstairs either. After us kids grew up and moved out, our folks remodeled the house and moved the master bedroom upstairs...that's the same time the whole house got heated, weird...right? We used feather ticks in the wintertime for sleeping under. I had a thermometer on the wall in my bedroom, it was usually below 30ºF in the winter, and there was frost on the inside walls of our bedrooms...good times.

[cooperhawk]

I had a thermometer on the wall in my bedroom, it was usually below 30ºF in the winter, and there was frost on the inside walls of our bedrooms...good times.

You know, they were good times. We raised chickens for eggs, but they were money makers, so for Sunday dinner Dad would often go out in the grove and shoot a pheasant for us. We had milk cows, hogs, sheep, ducks, and goats.

No TV or video games, we went to box socials where we bought box lunches not knowing what girl made them, always a surprise, sang community songs, church socials, ect. Neighbors visited often and we had great family holidays where relatives came from near and far and the food was fantastic.

And guns were a big part of our life. We hunted a lot, and we shot targets a lot. I got my first .22 on my twelfth birthday and I still have it. A bolt action Mossburg. I already had a .410 shotgun. No one thought anything of it. I took my double barrel 16 gauge to high school shop and refinished the stock.

Course I don't want to go back there permanently, but we do like to go rough is from time to time and we still use those Colman lanterns.