DOING THE CHORES

[crazyphil]

I don't remember much before I was about six years old.
We lived in half of a little railroad section house, in a very
small town in south-central Idaho. My Dad was a section
man on the Union Pacific Railroad.

At age six I do remember my chores. I would pump water from
a well outside and bring the bucket of water into the house. I
would fill the coal bucket and bring it into the house. Then I
would chop some kindling wood, used to start the fire in the big
old Majestic stove in one of the two rooms we occupied.

My sister and I had bunk beds in the same room the Majestic
was in. I had a honey bucket under my bed, so I wouldn't need
to go down the path to the "two-holer" in the dark of night.

When I was 8 our family moved to a larger town and my Mom and
Dad bought their own home. It had inside plumbing and electricity.
It was hard to believe the conveniences. Still had an
ice-box though, with the ice man coming every week or so to bring
more ice. And my Mom still had a big old Majestic in the
kitchen. We even had a "party line" telephone.

So much for my "chores". Do you remember yours?

 

[bigwheelzip]

LOL, your childhood sounds like a camping trip.
At those ages, chores were watching my siblings, fetching stuff from the stores on 18th avenue, and not angering the nuns at school.

Sent from my motorola one 5G using Tapatalk

 

[Old_Cop]

I do remember party lines.

 

[Greyman50]

Grew up on a farm. Fed chickens, opened door to let them out every AM ,cleaned out chicken house, fed the geese( Big white Mean ones) and made sure the sheep( my Mother’s idea) had water and let out of their barn. Then there was bringing in firewood for fire places. Spring to late fall cutting grass, had an early riding mower as yard was huge. Had plenty of time to shoot too.

 

[crazyphil]

bigwheelzip - you reminded me of a story an old gent told me many years
ago: A man asked a young man if he knew the difference between a pump
handle and a horses tail. The youngster answered no. The older one said
well I sure don't want to go camping with you and send you for a pail of water.

 

[30-30remchester]

The first I remember was also about 6 years old. Living at over 9'000 elevation in the small Colorado mountain town of Twin Lakes, our only source of heat was a wood cook stove in the kitchen. It was my job to keep it stoked. Got dressed to go to school in our 1 room schoolhouse, while sitting on the oven door trying to keep warm. Took many a bath in the kitchen sink because it was warmer there. The phone system was a 7 party line. Our ring was 3 shorts and 2 longs. When a phone rang us, kids had to be quite so the adults could count the rings. Our little school had 8 grades and 13 students in one room. On Friday we had to stack our desks in the corner because it was also a church on Sunday. Double outhouse outside, one side for the girls and one for the boys. The first kid to school every day got to ring the bell. The last kid had to stoke the coal furnace. I rang the bell only one but stoked the furnace many times. A well with a handpump outside was our drinking fountain. However, we weren't that poor as there was a slide to play on. I will try to be humble but feel it needs to be said, I was the valedictorian of my class. When I mention this fact to others my wife thinks I should also state that I was the only person in my grade.

 

[Onomea]

When I was ten or so, my job was to take the trash/garbage out to the old smoke house, which no longer had a roof, put it into a large metal burn cage, and burn it. Once a week Dad and I would put the cage/container into the back of the station wagon, take it to a garbage collection point.

My dad occasionally used a bit of gas to get the burn going. So, while I was not allowed to do so, I dumped about a cup of gas on the garbage container on a wet day, and lit it.

WHOOOMP!!

Singed my eyebrows and burned off some of my hair.

I've been pretty careful around gas and fire ever since.

Another chore at that age was taking an axe, going into the woods, chopping some firewood from dead or downed trees, and dragging it back home. Glad to say I still have all my toes, nonetheless.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

I was the dishwasher in my family, nobody else ever did them to my satisfaction. I learned early on, get the water as hot as possible, and let them soak.

 

[Chubbo]

DOING THE CHORES???

At approximately 6 yrs. of age, circa1937, my chores were; Helping, hand spade our large vegetable garden, and mowing our lawn, with a reel type push mower. My dad had 5, or 6 other lawns lined up for me to mow free of charge. His theory was, it’d keep me busy, and out of trouble. I towed that heavy mower around behind my bike, to the lawns needing mowing. His theory worked; I’ve never been jailed.

In my spare time I ran errands, for Mom, and dad, and did chores for our neighborhood family, and neighbors.

Since there were no cellphones, or computers to tend to. I still had time to spend playing childhood games with the neighborhood kids, and learning about real-time life in general.

Times are a bit different today.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Like others here I had chores growing up. As a lad I remember going down to the coal bin and filling the scuttle.

The most unusual was going with my grand dad down to the sea estuaries to wade out and help him pull in his eel pots. We would empty them, bait them and stake them back with an identity marker.

After that no wriggling critter alive bothers me.

 

[lihpster]

Age 11 chores were, take out the trash, feed the animals, chop wood for the fire, stack wood and bring loads inside, do my own laundry and ironing, most days I fed myself, holding flashlights and tools, going to school and anything that anybody came up with. Sometimes I was just a heavy weight to keep something from moving.

 

[robvious]

I grew up a city kid in the early 70's I was assigned chores.. make my bed, clean the bathroom sink, tub & toilet and eventually mow the lawn or shovel snow or rake leaves.. but out on my grandparents farm I got to hunt eggs, water & feed chickens, bring in the cattle & hay them, help hand milk the cows, slop the hogs, help with cooking & cleaning meals and mow the "yard" around the buildings with the riding mower... home was work.. the farm was fun... I have missed the farm a lot lately... always was time to big game hunt with bb guns and mess around in the shelterbelt on boy adventures... and anyone that had similar adventures remembers the smell of the hay loft in the barn and grandma's cooking... I can

 

[Kinman]

Haul the garbage, Mow the lawn (non powered push mower with grass catcher, dump the grass), Snow removal, any manual labor, stock the shelves at my dad's store on Saturdays (not always but often enough). All this for a quarter a week and the rub was that my kid brother got a quarter for doing nothing except be a kid. He bought a building downtown to convert to an office, it was covered with ivy, I spent half the summer scraping all that ivy off, brushed the old brick and painted it with heavy oil-based enamel my uncle relocated from the base, in the end he paid me $50 and said "There you go son, now you can buy your school clothes this year." I said "Dad, Last year it cost $50 when mom took me shopping for my school clothes." He repied with "You catch on quick." That was when I learned to never work for your old man.

 

[SS336]

Sure, I was raised on a Cattle ranch in South Park Colorado (elev. 9980’) in the 50’s and 60’s.
Chores, we had chores. milking the cow every morning was the easy one. Calving season, branding, haying season. Then it was winter with the tempatures in the minus 50 often enough that it made your teeth hurt.
Yea, we had chores, but it was the best time of my life. Would not trade it for anything in the world.

 

[lkabug]

At 6 years old, My job was to keep the coal bin full. We heated the house with coal and cooked on a coal/wood kitchen stove. During the winter that bin was replenished before and after school. Also kept the wood rack stocked, had to keep a cord of wood split and stacked. Plenty of dead wood in the hills. At 10 years, I inherited the mowing scythe and sickle. Fed the chickens gether the eggs and clean the hen house. Rake the leaves. There were few excuses acceptable for not doing my chores. The girls had to do all the inside stuff. But life was good. I learned about responsibilities and getting the job done.

 

[Golddollar]

The one job I did that has really stuck with me was to dig out the clogged sewer line leading from the kitchen. Apparently the prior owners of our house washed all their coffee grounds and who knows what all else down the kitchen sink, and the sewer line was packed.

As a result, in all of my residences since I graduated from law school in 1987, no solid materials were ever put down the kitchen sink, including to the point of having mesh strainers in the kitchen sinks.

 

[Chubbo]

I plum forgot my winter chores.

We had an ultra-modern heating system, a stoker fed coal-fired furnace. Some of my winter chores were; keep the stoker bin filled with, oiled coal chips, made especially for stoker fired furnaces. Then to use a special clinker tool to extract the large clinker formed, by the furnace. Then hauling those clinkers, and ashes to the city dump, on a sled, or wheelbarrow. After the other normal chores were done, I was free to ice-skate, sled ride, play hockey, build snow forts, and have snowball fights etc.

The lack of cellphones, and computers of this era, made all this possible.

 

[mtgianni]

At age 5 my younger brother was found to be allergic to cows milk. We got some goats and I fed and milked them twice a day at age 5. my uncle grew tomatoes near us. At age 6 I helped plant, pick worms, water, weed, harvest and sell tomatoes from a roadside stand. I was deemed a "flighty" kid, prone to daydreaming and was not allowed to cross cultivate with a tractor until I was 10.

Dishes and cleaning were never thought of as chores just necessities.

 

[Rustyt1953]

I helped mom on laundry day.

 

[arjay]

There was an endless supply of chores to do. I didn’t mind them except for pulling weeds or the ones I saw as just busy work. Those two I’d skip out on and catch hell when pa got home lol
When I got a bit older I learned how to negotiate;-)

 

[Old Arkansawyer]

My farm chores were like some of the above. Started milking a cow
twice/day at age 5, the easiest milking cow in the herd, as soon as she
got in the barn milk started dripping. This grew until at almost 9 I was
milking 4 cows. After that milking machines took over.
Helped with planting, hoeing and harvesting an acre garden.
Fed pigs/hogs and in the winter fed hay to the cows, horses/mules.
Gathered kindling and firewood afternoons in winter.
After age 8 I was driving the tractor so helped with the plowing, discing,
planting corn, cultivating and harvesting. My dad grew about 20 acres
of corn that was picked by hand using horses/mules to pull a wagon.
Anyone ever pick the down row on 20 acres? If while the corn was
growing in June we had lots of rain then the mule, double shovel and
me plowed the middles to extract weeds/Johnson grass. This was only
done after the corn was to high for the old John Deere. I still love those
old 2 cylinder tractors.
Hay hauling was a standard chore every summer. Anywhere from 60-80
pound bales, wire tied were the heavy ones. My dad had 2 barns to store
the hay, one with a loft the other stacked from the ground up.
I started working for neighbors at 11, but I guess that wouldn't be a
considered chores.
Sometimes I did not want to do some of these things but knew they had
to be done. Looking back they weren't all that bad. If a parent had a
6 year old today get up every morning a milk a couple cows then walk
almost 2 miles to school in all kinds of weather, that parent would be
charged. My opinion if more kids today had similar experiences the
world would be a better place. And I feel sorry for those that have not
or do not experience some of the above.
I still go out and feed my mules twice/day a cup of rolled oats. Not that
they need it, I just enjoy doing it. Maybe old habits die hard. Buy my
hay in big rolls so only put one out every 8-10 days.

 

[Kenna]

grew up in the 60s.Helped mom with indoor chores wash dishes,bring laundry to basement,keep my room clean.As soon as Dad was confident of my grass cutting that was mine to do. Also picked a lot of cherries, dad made wine. I remember I hated raking leaves,front lawn had 2 Locust trees man are they small leaves!!

 

[crazyphil]

Old Arkansawyer - Your post reminded me of a job I had many, many,
years ago. I worked for a farmer putting up his hay. Back then he didn't
have any mechanized equipment to cut the hay, put it into windrows and
bale it. It was all done the old fashioned way. Cut with a sythe, raked
into windrows, and pitched on the wagon with pitchforks. The wagon was
pulled by a team of horses. The equipment was undoubtedly available,
but the farmer just did not have it. That must have been in the late 1940s.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Logan and JR have assigned daily/weekly chores. The one that causes the most wailing and gnashing of teeth is litter box detail.

The neighbors must think I'm beatin' them.

 

[arjay]

Old Arkansawyer - Your post reminded me of a job I had many, many,
years ago. I worked for a farmer putting up his hay. Back then he didn't
have any mechanized equipment to cut the hay, put it into windrows and
bale it. It was all done the old fashioned way. Cut with a sythe, raked
into windrows, and pitched on the wagon with pitchforks. The wagon was
pulled by a team of horses. The equipment was undoubtedly available,
but the farmer just did not have it. That must have been in the late 1940s.

My ma tells stories of the farm in the 30s and the war years when they used horses (Clydesdales) along with tractors. She even rode them to the tram stop 1 1/2 miles away in the snow on occasion to go to school

 

[Chukar60]

When I started reading this I thought I never really had chores. Then got to thinking maybe I did.
I was allergic to cut grass and cut alfalfa so mowing the yard and doing duty at haying time were out.
But I did dishes, weeded gardens, fed dad’s bird dog, shoveled cow manure out of corrals, the spread it over the gardens or pasture ground, picked the garden and helped mom can whatever she had to can.
All of us kids did this stuff. Mom and dad never called it chores. It was known as “doing your share of the work around here.”