Growing up in a "Dirt Poor" area where everyone farmed and or worked in the mines. Dirt floor, outdoor plumping, water from a hand pump or carried in a tin bucket from the creek. Baths on Saturday nights and dress up Sunday Church.

Firearms were for hunting for the dinner table and home protection.
Most homes had a single barrel shotgun that had been hand me downs. Most had tape holding the forearm on to the barrel and wire wrapped stock wrists were the stock had been broken years before. No one I knew ever purchased a box of shells, usually 5 or 6 at a time.
Folks that was considered successful had wood floor and a water pump on the back porch near the kitchen. Firearms would be a double barrel or a pump action Shotgun. Sometimes there would be a single shot .22 rifle for rabbits in the garden. All the boys' dream was a Winchester Model 62 .22 Pump Rifle like the one on a top shelf in the General Store (covered with dust as no one in the area had the funds).The County School Bus picked us up at the stops which was approx one mile apart. The School was First Grade to the 12th Grade and all students rode the same bus that went to your area.
In 1946 after WWII was over my Father returned home driving a new maroon (loaded with chrome) Hudson car. I was very excited as I just knew we were now RICH ! I just knew that Winchester .22 Pump Rifle at the General Store was going to be mine! Christmas morning came and A rifle was under the Christmas Tree. It was a well used Savage Model 1904 Single Shot Bolt Action Rifle. The Winchester Model 62 was still on a high shelf at the General Store.

Jimmy, the house I was born in was so crummy the second story had a dirt floor.

I remember my grandfather arguing against indoor plumbing for the house because he didn't want anyone "doing his business" under the same roof where his meals were cooked.

That Winchester Model 62 is in my gun safe, dust free and spotless condition, just like new. Took me about 50 years to make that happen!

Good post!

As a child living in a southern IL coal mining community we lived i a chicken coop behind my grandparents house. It was actually three put together to house the 4 of us and was covered in brick pattern tarpaper. We were fortunate to have a potbelly Coal stove And one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling in each room and the outhouse was just behind our shack.

I was in high school in the 60’s before my grandparents had inside plumbing. My mother’s sister married an eye Dr and they put plumbing in their house. My dad moved up quickly in his work and soon we moved to a real house and my parents gave my grandparents a gas stove to cook on although my grandmother often preferred the coal fired cooking stove in the kitchen.

My grandfather had a pump 22 that I believe was a Winchester 62. I don’t know what happened to it but I own a beauty of a 62 now.

I wouldn’t trade that experience of my early years for anything. I believe they’ve made me a better person.

This one brings back memories. My great uncle, until the day he slumped over on his 8N and died of a heart attack, would head off to the woods with a roll of newspaper sticking out of his back pocket for this very reason.

My parents were born in Ireland. Dirt floor, outhouse, school bus? Don’t make me laugh. Shoe Leather Express got them to the one room school house for grades 1-12, but both of them never made it beyond grade 8. No need to. Reading, writing, basic math. That was all that was needed. I’m sure a shotgun or something was in the house but I know my dad never owned a gun since coming to this country.

Came here in the early 1950’s and worked their fingers to the bone to give their children a good life. Lived the American Dream. My father had a brand new car every three years.

All we hear about now is certain groups possess a “privilege”, and one particular group feels they are owed compensation for the way they and their ancestors have been treated. My parents surely never had any privilege. Nothing came free. Nothing came easy. The worst school in the worst ghetto now has more resources then the one room school house my parents went to, and people live a more comfortable life in a low income housing project than my parents had growing up.

I recall when my Grandparents got indoor plumbing, and i also recall before that, going tout to the well for "good water" and cistern to draw water for the chickens. I remember going to the corn crib to load a bushel basket with corn and take the ears to a hand cranked corn shucker that peeled the kernels off the cob and into a bucket. The corn was fed to the chickens, and the silky smooth corn cobs went into a bucket inside the outhouse.

I still remember summers there working with Granddad. He would grab a couple of corn cobs to shove in the back pocket of his bibs as we headed out to the fields or to slop the hogs, he would disappear into the woods for a bit while I greased the tractor parked in the barn.

He had one old single shot 12 gauge that had a loop inside the trigger guard that would break it open when you pulled it. The first time he let me shoot it, I pulled the wrong thing, and the shotgun came open, I thought I broke it. My nephew has that old shotgun now, but I have the Ferguson tractor.

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<<the house I was born in was so crummy the second story had a dirt floor>>

LOL! Well, in my day... ah, I got nothing!

Actually, I've seen a house that had a two-story outhouse built into one corner. You had to leave the seat up downstairs because using the upstairs bathroom required a "pass-thru"...

Our rainbow came in black & white.

May as well give you the first place prize. I don't think that story can be beat. Larry

In the 70s an uncle died and my aunt gave my dad his S&W Model 1 1/2 .32, nickel with hard rubber grips. That same aunt died two weeks ago at 101 years old. I asked my cousin, her only living son, if he remembers his dad having a pistol. He did but didn’t know what became of it. I sent him a picture of the S&W and he said “That’s it!”. So after forty plus years he’s getting it back. Here's that .32 on top. Those are blanks laying there.

My old home itself (built around 1920) wasn't so bad, but when I was small we didn't have any city water, only a cistern, plus an outhouse. That changed in the late 1940s, and not too long after that they actually paved the streets. Before that they were gravel over dirt. The family arsenal consisted of an ancient H&R 12 gauge single shot and a single-shot .22 bolt action rifle from Montgomery Wards ("Wards Western Field" was stamped on the barrel), I think made by Marlin. My dad used that rifle on deer, he was a pretty good shot, but he wasn't really a deer hunter, more of a poacher. You can't tell me that a .22 isn't a deer rifle. We also kept chickens, and when we needed one for dinner, he would go out on the back porch and shoot the head off one of them. Not real long shots, maybe 25 yards at most. He didn't like chopping their heads off. That was my main introduction to shooting.

Most people don’t realize that it was up in 60s before a lot of areas were brought up to snuff. There were schools that didn’t have water or rest rooms. Roads into many were dirt. When you think about the situation then and now, who should be in street protesting?

We got running water when I was about ten. Bathwater was heated on a stove for use in a galvanized wash tub. Baths were taken in the kitchen where it didn't hurt the floor to get wet.
The outdoor john was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. When the WPA came around and built concrete floored outhouses every one was really happy. Those old Sears and MW catalogs provided the wiping material. Praise the Lord for Charmin Ultra Soft. A bathroom was put in sometime after I got out of the Navy, probably about 1950.
Those outhouses were a part of the good old days that was not good.

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Mighty 90's,Trying 4 a 100!

Don’t know about the 62 but I grew up shooting a M63.

Dad only had 8th grade education and before the War was a farmer after a factory worker, but he was a gun guy.

A Winchester and Colt man, his passion was guns and motorcycles.

I still have his M63,M50 and a second series Match target.


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Hey, my dad made a scaled down version of that outhouse!

Things have really changed a lot in the passed 100 years, and changed really fast in the last 50.

Did upstairs occupant yell , fire in the hole before he turned it lose?

I'm thinking there was a strict protocol, and those who didn't follow it were in trouble.

Born in the early 50's I never knew the kind of rural poverty described above, but my Father surely did. There were several well used firearms in his family, but his was a sturdy Stevens single shot 20 ga., built like an anvil with no serial number and little finish left. It was a treasured part of my childhood hunting experiences with family, and is now in my temporary possession. It will be the last to go if everything else has to go.

This is the house my Dad grew up in (age 7 to 16) in Coleman, TX during the depression. Rented it for $8 a month. Lived there with my grandparents and his two sisters. This is a fairly recent "streetview".

The only gun they owned was a Model 12 Winchester 12 gauge, which is sitting about 5 feet away from me. It still looks almost new.

Great thread. Recall asking my dad about the "olden days" Lived in Utica N.Y. His life sounded great to a 9 year old with a horse to ride and the Little House on the Prairie school he attended in the 30s. I never gave much thought to the "outhouse" and mountains of chores they were required to do! He told me his father owned a pump shotgun and to this day I have wondered whether it was a Rem 31 or a Winny 12.

I had comfortable life, born in 50 and lived in small town in Appalachia. Not far away their were many without indoor plumbing and had outhouses. In fact moving outhouses was a major form of recreation. There were still people burning kerosene for light. My buddy’s grandparents still lived on hard scrabble farm. His gram would put a hot brick wrapper in rags to warm up bed. In morning you could see your breath. As for outhouse in winter you dropped your load and went down the road soon as possible. No thumbing through Magazines. Back then everyone had springs and wells too. All in the past now CO-OP electric and county water.

Jimmy, I was feeling real sorry for ya till you said you rode a Bus to school!

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“Look life in its iron face”

I still have a handmade Damascus shotgun that was given to my g-g-grandfather (I believe) around 1870's when they homesteaded a farm. It has patina but is in overall good shape, you could technically shoot it with light black powder loads, as it still functions, miraculously, given how it was stored by my grandfather on Dad's side.

Grandpa's single-shot winchester 22, I don't recall what model, it is somewhere.

On my mother's side, I do recall hearing a story or two about how they didn't have indoor bathroom until the 60's because, like another poster stated, it was in their view uncivilized to go in the place where you live. Both grandads in WW2 and both worked government jobs until they retired. Good people.

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Rather be outdoors

Back in my outhouse days, ours was attached to an old wooden garage, probably contemporary with the house. It was only a one-holer. When I was a kid, probably early grade school period, I had a friend. Their family had a two holer outhouse. The strange thing was that when his father came home from work, he and his wife always went together to their outhouse first thing. I couldn't imagine why they did that. And in a way, I still can't.

Outhouses were fun. We would go after dark and move them back a length. The unwary midnight caller would get a rude awakening. Tipping them over with occupants in side wa another favorite. Hooking them up to owners truck was always good for a grin. Even in the small towns the only recreation was movie Fri & Sat or the old Pool Hall. They didn’t have foreign stuff like Pizza Shops back then. Every town had a little greasy spoon where kids hung out. But only until 9pm. You better be headed for home when 9oclock curfew went off. No such thing as double jeopardy back then.
Any adult in town could beat your butt, call your parents and you would get it at home too. Sometimes if school related the principle would skin you too.

Just the other day I was up at a nearby well known ball field.
It used to have a 2x4 Outhouse.
Four women on one side, men on the other.
They tore it down! Progress, I guess.

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Not only did we have an outhouse at home, but the 3-room schoolhouse where I spent the first three grades had them too - one for girls, one for boys. Not only that, it used old-style potbelly coal stoves for heat in the winter. Kids were assigned jobs to bring in coal from a pile outside and take out ashes. It's amazing the school hadn't burned down. Air conditioning? No one had ever heard of that. The only water was from a hand pump in the playground (I don't know where the water came from), many kids brought their own water in bottles, along with their lunches. I think that schoolhouse was built right after the Civil War and was in use until the mid-1950s. The whole front wall was glass windowpanes for daylight. It had electric lights, but light was mainly from the outside. There is probably nothing like that school remaining anywhere in the USA today, not even in backwoods coal mine valleys in West Virginia and Kentucky.

Wife grew up in a century home and they had a two holer.

Our Church was still using an outhouse 20 years ago till the little house next door went up for sale.

we bought it to have “modern” facilities but one still had to leave church walk across the parking lot and go in the house, most men still used the outhouse.


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Don't know where in Ohio you are, but my growing-up stories are situated in a rural area near Portsmouth, on the Ohio River.

I can't complain. Being an Army brat, we lived in base quarters most of the time. My folks talk about the tiny trailer that they lived in when I was born in St. John's, Newfoundland, and how hard it was to heat, but I have no memory of that, of course.

Dad was a mid to upper NCO during my elementary school years, and the quarters we inhabited were fairly nice. While in London, England, we rented a house in the Edgeware area, but it was spacious and well furnished even though it didn't have central heat and it was my job to bring in the coal and light the water heater each morning.

Upon return to the states my folks bought a new home, and we lived there all the way through my finishing High School since Dad retired pretty soon after returning from Vietnam.

As a result, I can't complain, life was pretty good.

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Only a cold warrior

Northeast, Ashtabula Co


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Did I mention that I had to walk two miles to the bus stop ? Plus fight Indians to and from the bus stop ? Then there were the wild animals ( Lions, Tigers, Wolves, Alligators, etc ) Years later when my good looks and sexy self developed it was Cougars that I had to fight off.

I worked In Painesville/Fairport Harbor for 2 years. Happy to leave.

Skeeter Skelton wrote of out of season hunting "but let me tell you that store bought meat was a seldom thing during the Depression."
I note that all the people mentioned above did one thing in common-they COPED with it. Actually they lived in the 19th Century. Which a lot of people did, and they survived it.

My family came to the US in May of 1961 after fleeing Fidel Castro and the "wonders" of Communism. My Grandfather in Cuba was a successful businessman. Had a chicken wholesale business, hotels on Havana Beach, and a retail store. All of it was confiscated by the Government. He came to the US without a penny and a pot to piss in.

Had a wife and four kids to boot.

He went from being successful and financially independent to cleaning Florida Spiny Lobsters on the Miami River. He worked hard and put a roof over the family's heads and food on the table. He raised two sons and daughters. My Father in 1975 became a cop with the Dade County Public Safety Department.



As a rookie Patrolman, he was able to buy a handgun in Dade County and more importantly get his Dad, my Grandfather a carry permit. So Dad went and bought three snubnose Model 64s. One for himself, his Brother, and of course My Grandfather. Dad and my Uncle traded/sold their back in the day. But not my Grandfather.



My Grandfather carried this Model 64 from the 1970s up to the early 00s. Sadly, by 2003, he was fighting cancer and it destroyed his memory. So for safety reasons, I had to take the gun away from him along with his car keys.

He carried it daily. I recall him coming home from collecting his dues for his clothing business and he'd put the cash and gun in the safe he had in his office.

While Dad might have sold the Model 64. Dad was a gun guy.



You had to be when you were working UC Dope Cases in Miami in the 80s.

I never lived through the conditions shared here.
By the time I came along mom and dad had climbed the ladder.
Mom used to tell the story of their first home Idaho. She recalled being able to see the stars at night through the roof. Over the years until I was born Dad started his own electrical contracting business and they managed to raise 12 kids and get us all through school on one income. Try that today!!
Dad was a gun guy at heart but we had utility guns until I was a teenager.
He used an old 1894 30-30 for everything for years and managed to shoot a couple truckload of elk with it.
His second gun was an NRA 1903-A3 sporterized.
Shotguns were whatever he could afford that was a pump. I recall a model 12 in 16 gauge and a divergence from the pump rules 11-48 in 16 ga.
Handguns were not seen until my brothers pitched in and bought him a 9 shot Sentinel. When I moved away from home in 1978 that revolver still looked new. Dad had nothing against handguns, just had no use for them as they were not practical.

I have heard my Grandpa tell about shooting a covey of Quail running down a cotton field.
He would wait until they were a distance away and shoot high for their heads. He would take down several, often 6-8.
This wasn’t sport hunting.
This was during the depression and this was subsistence hunting.
He and the family needed to eat!
We still have a Stevens Double Hammer Gun passed down from him.

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People around this area shot what they could and any extra they would sell.
Dynamite was used to get fish. The woods were picked clean of wind falls and such close to roads. It was gathered for stove wood. People picked coal along rail road tracks or off the gob piles. During those days nothing eatable was wasted. People shot and trapped birds to eat. I’ve herd stories that there was no small game left around the towns.

I can never remember us having an out house, But, I used plenty of them while visiting. Many of my country cousins didn't even have electricity or phones when I was small. Our cars were old, my jeans had patches well before they were not "in fashion". I was the oldest so I didn't get handy me downs from my brothers. I got them from cousins instead.

My fondest memory is the family loading up and going to the Penguin Ice Cream shop on Main. Each of us kids got a nickel ice cream! The entertainment was my dad telling the year make and model of each car that drove past as we sat parked on Main and ate our ice cream.

I have never ridden a school bus to school. The closest I can remember being to school is about 1/2 a mile. Jr HS and HS were both a bit over 2 miles away as we lived just outside the city limits. Not that far, but in Eastern Montana it was far enough when well below zero.

I truly appreciate all the privileges given to me. I did see those worse off than me and mine. Some of those kids did really well for themselves.

My step brothers and sister were my child hood friends well before my mom married their dad later. They lived in a small 3 room "house" It did have running water, but no indoor toilet, they bathed in a big tub in the middle of the area that served as kitchen and living room. All of them now own their own homes and have have done very well. My step sister was the most driven. She had no college education, but went on to become a comptroller for a large construction company and is worth millions. Nobody handed her squat because of her "privilege"

On the ranch near Wibaux, Montana, my grandfather had an old Cresent Arms ? (I believe that is the brand) 12 ga. single shot. I remember the cracked stock was screwed and wired together. My brother still has that thing around somewhere, probably in one of the old trucks for dispatching rattlesnakes and such..

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John

Jimmy, you forgot to mention that the two miles to the bus stop and two miles from the bus stop was up hill both ways.

A lot of those people could have used the benefits of Socialism ! Form them into a collective farm, everybody can work together for the common good, listen to inspiring speeches and vow to fulfill and surpass the Plan, see their own hailed as Heroes of Labor, etc.

Tongue firmly in cheek, I am assuming.

That was certainly the Wild West in Miami then.
I flew small planes in and out of Miami intl. then and was approached many times asking if I wanted to make $10k-$20k
to fly some “stuff”.
Half of them could have been feds but the other half were definitely not.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I said NO.
Miami Vice days

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“Look life in its iron face”

In my Agency the Browning P-35 was the preferred weapon for the undercover officers. 13 rounds firepower and they didn't look like a "Cop's Gun"

The closest I ever got to a "family gun" was the M-1 Carbine my old man brought back from WWII. Never fired it.

We lived out of the U.S. for a while when I was a kid. On some
islands in the South Pacific. We had indoor plumbing most of the
time. Not always though.

The thing I remember most is riding around with dad in the
AG station's Dodge Power Wagon. The roads were almost more
suggestions than real roads. When we came to a bridge over a
river, or creek, dad would get out with a hammer and a bag of
spikes and nail the collection of branches (it seemed to me) together.
Then we'd drive across. Never fell through but I wonder what might
have happened if dad ever forgot the bag of spikes.

The house was 12X24 and had a concrete floor. It was originally constructed as a single car garage. Running water consisted of a kitchen sink on the west wall and a toilet in the NE corner which sat behind the only interior wall. There was a fuel oil space heater on the other side of the wall it didn't help much on Northern Michigan winter nights. We had curtains we would pull at night to separate the sleeping area from the kitchen. A Springfield .22 bolt action my dad had earned driving tractor when he was 14 stood by the back door. A Damascus barreled Iver Johnson single shot 12 gauge leaned next to my parents' bed. Dad won a J C Higgins 12 gauge pump on a 10 cent raffle ticket when I was about 10. Those were the family guns and my introduction to firearms, mostly shooting rats at the dump with the .22. The recent ammo drought reminded me of the first time my dad bought more than one box of .22 cartridges. When the GCA of 1968 was passed he went to the hardware store and bought a brick so he'd have something to shoot at the Feds when they came for his guns. (Actually I think it was because he didn't want to have to sign for them). The .22 and the pump are in my safe. The IJ meant nothing to Dad and less to me. He would be stunned to know that I got $100 for it at a "buy back". As I recall he had $8 in it.

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I need ammo, not a ride.

My Father's UC gun of choice was the Star PD .45. Here he is back in the day qualifying with it.



It didn't scream cop.