Hard times with no creature comforts

“Even in the mid-1950s, one of the houses that I lived in had no piped running water”

I had a very dear aunt who made it to — and past — her century of birthdays. Her recollections often made me think about the changes she had seen in her long life. She was born before World War I into a life of few houses with flushing toilets or electricity and almost every single household utility and gadget we now take for granted.

Those who lived in the countryside had one advantage over those in city slums, as they at least had a garden in which they grew vegetables to feed the