Lorene Andris, Mother

First Airplane, Automobile, Radio,
Electric Appliances, Life Then

by Lorene Andris

When I saw my first airplane was in the latter part of 1918, November after Armistice Day. Scotty, a war ace, brought his plane home to Marietta, and he flew low over our house and landed in the field across from our house, with the tail up in the air. He nose-dived it. Our chickens had never seen an airplane. They all ran into the chicken house. My dad ran over into the field to see if Scotty was alright and came back and said "Oh, he's drunk. You can't hurt a drunk." The plane was crashed. It was a bi-plane.

1918. Old Durward Hoag's dad, Reno, had the first automobile that I ever saw.

Also, "when I was 12 years old, Uncle Ed [Just a cousin once removed, her great aunt Mag's boy] wrote us a letter and told us that he had build himself a radio and to come out next Sunday. Also wrote Uncle Jake and Aunt Mary and said they should also come out and bring us with them. He lived out on Rt. 26 at a little village called Sitka. He turned on his battery operated radio and the first thing that he got was a preacher that was talking. I got excited and thought it was God talking. He took me out in the yard and showed me the tower and antenna and explained to me about sound waves and how that vioce could come into that [radio]. Still, in my childish mind I thought it was God for a long time. [This was] summer,1925. We never owned a radio until 1934. "

We never owned an electric iron until 1930. We always had outside toilets until dad died. We moved into a flat on 4th street. Cold water in the sink and a pull-chain toilet. I just about wore out the toilet the first day we moved in.

No electric lights until 1925. Always had oil lamps or gas lamps.

First electric toaster about 1937. Always had a little tin contraption that set on the stove.

We never had a refrigerator until 1937; had an icebox. The ice man drove a team of horses and delivered the ice. Jim Flowers, Vera Ulmer's grandpa was the iceman. He always threw me a little piece of ice for free. A drip pan caught the drippings [from the melting ice].

We had a rugged life.

Grandma always swept the wooden floor with lye water; made it shiny and smooth. Grandma Noe made her living in West Virginia weaving rugs and being a midwife. She had made a 9 x 12 rug woven in strips of rags and sown together. That was our only rug. It was inn our front room, sitting room. We couldn't afford screens. Grandma would go to the rummage sale and buy old lace curtains and tack them on the windows so we wouldn't have flies on a hot summer day. Never had an electric fan until 1935.