Going to Grandma's house....well, Apartment.

 When I was little, the only grandparents still alive was my father's mother and my mother's father.

My Grandmother was married to her second husband, Joseph Brincil. They lived in a Tenement  apartment building in Manhattan. 

I have photo's of spending Thanksgiving there. How she managed to cook for everyone is amazing!  Her daughers and daughters in law would also bring dishes to eat and help with the setting up and cleaning up. She had 5 children, they were all married with kids. I know there had to be a kids table. 

My mother said grandma Maude  would get up around 4am to start cooking, so soon after dinner she could be out cold on the floor, drunk but also very tired. We have pictures of that too, and I was told she was playing games with us grandkids. 

I remember playing with my cousins. The Silk boys, Tommy, Kevin and Bobby. DeMonte boys, Tommy and Andy. Symmonds boys, Philip and John and my sisters. 

The apartment was a railroad apartment. You came in the apartment at the kitchen  and you walked straight down a hall through (no doors) bedrooms, usually two and ended at the living room that might have a small side room off the living room. 

At some point we would get packed in the car and the trip home back to the Bronx. 

I don't remember a great deal, large gatherings like that, consumed lots of alcohol. So, lots of laughing and talking loud and smoking. Just about everyone smoked.  

I will have to post about the Grandparents one day. 

Grandma with Grandpa Joe, my dad in a white shirt and Uncle Andy. I think they could be his sons.  In grandma's kitchen.  

sweating in the 1960s

Needless to say, we did a lot of that in the summer time.  There were no air conditioners ,just fans for the most part.  Yes, there were air conditioners but they were expensive and who could afford the electric bill! 

So, windows were open, screens kept the bug out.  An exhaust fan in the kitchen help blow the heat out. But it was always unbearably hot in the kitchen,in the summer.  Window fans offered tiny relief.  

To make mom suffer even more, a sheet was put up in the door way of the kitchen and living room. Plus the swinging door was closed to keep the heat out of the bedrooms making the kitchen an infurno! 

I can still see her, face red and glistening with a wet dish towel around her neck, cooking over the stove. sigh

Livingroom sofa and chairs would be covered in a sheet to sit on, so you sweat on that.  The sheet would be shaken out , turned and put back on for the drier side to be sat on. 

I had this little round trinket box ,mom gave me,  that had powder and a powder puff.  She told me, when you feel too hot (I used to faint in school too)  put some powder on your wrist where the veins are, that will cool the blood and make you feel better.  It was a placebo, but it worked. lol

Beds just had sheets and if you woke too hot and called for mom, she would come, shake out the top sheet, turn it and put if back on the bed, Plus you would turn the pillow to find a dry spot.  You were stuck with a sweaty bottom sheet. 

School was not much better. The windows were all opened, top and bottom but most classrooms did not even have a fan.  Sometimes a nun would say, put your pens down, put your head on the desk and let us rest a bit in the hot classroom.  

Deodorant was awful in the 60s! They were a roll on.  You had this liquid in a plastic bottle with a rolling ball on top so when you put the rolling ball on your underarm it would "roll out" the liquid. But many things would go wrong. To much might come out or it would stick and nothing would roll.  Also it was very COLD in the winter. You are not cold enough you have to put cold deodorant on!  It was also sticky. Just horrid! 

Getting dressed, doing your hair and make up in the summer while sweating was a nightmare! 

I always look back to the past with fond memories, but I never forget how terrible it was during a heat way in the summer. 

I will also do a post on good summer memories, since there were many. 

This was the type of deodorant we had.