Good Old Days Magazine

Dear Friends of the Good Old Days, In my humble opinion, there’s no better feature on a house than a welcoming front porch. And if that porch has a big ol’ wooden swing hanging from its rafters, well, that’s the cherry on top. I realize a front porch

I read your story in the March/April 2021 issue about the ironing board (“My Mother’s Ironing Board”), and it took me back to when my mother, Margaret, took in ironing. She worked from daylight to nighttime. Mom had five of us kids to raise because m

August 1957 found me watching my first rodeo in the western Illinois village of New Windsor. Little did I know that later, as a young married couple, my wife and I would return and buy an old two-story home there. The home came with friendly neighbor

I grew up in Bicknell, Ind., on Sixth Street. I am 89 years old now, a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. The events of this story happened in August 1939 when I was 9. It is hard for me to imagine this happening to a 9-year-old in this day a

He rode the rails like a king—traveled in luxurious Pullman cars, dined on the finest steaks, and was pampered and petted. But he was far removed from royalty. He was just an ordinary mutt commonly known as “the Railroad Dog.” Spot became an unoffici

What popular children’s television show starring a brave, intelligent and loyal dog debuted in 1954? Find the answer on next page. FAMOUS QUOTE These tykes, dressed appropriately for Halloween, receive the fright of their lives when the homeowner ans

When I went off to college in the mid-1960s, it was far enough from home that I didn’t get back very often. But when I did make the trip to that small, rural community of Garrison, N.D., where I grew up, I always called my mom ahead of time to make s

When I first started school, back in 1958, my elementary wasn’t far from home; in fact, it was a mere five-block walk through suburban Detroit. Along the way, at every street crossing, was a tall fifth-or sixth-grader sporting a white strap that enci

I am from a railroad family. My grandfather was a traveling auditor and his brother was a carpenter, building sleeping cars in Tennessee. My cousin was a transportation safety executive in another state. My father was a passenger accounting clerk, an

Can you match these 1950s fictional characters to their television show? 1. Marshall Matt Dillon A. Wagon Train 2. Jeff Miller B. December Bride 3. James “Jim” Anderson C. Gunsmoke 4. Donna Stone D. Father Knows Best 5. Wallace “Wally” Cleaver E. The

In my mind, my childhood passed not by the day or even by the month or year, but from season to season and holiday to holiday. One favorite school project was making our own calendar to teach us the names of the days and months. It meant creating 12

As an observer of modern domestic architecture, I have frequently noted that today’s housing developers have made a crucial error in designing homes for the urban and suburban markets. For the most part, they seem to have forgotten about the psycholo

On Oct. 4, 1957, attending the Vernon Verona Sherrill Central High School (VVS), 3 miles from the exact center of New York state, suddenly became much more fun for me. I was old enough to enroll in chemistry class, and the Russians had just launched

My childhood lullaby was not the gentle sounds of Brahms. Rather, I often drifted off to sleep to the discordant bangs and booms of iron meeting iron as railroad cars from a Kewaunee, Green Bay & Western train were being loaded onto a car ferry that

This is a story about porches and dividing-about how Grandma’s back porch was divided in two, and how, in one half of that porch, “someone” took a child’s scissors and made experimental cuts in one of Grandma’s curtains. In the first part of the 20th

I Spot the hills With yellow balls in autumn. I light the prairie cornfields Orange and tawny gold clusters And I am called pumpkins. On the last of October When dusk is fallen Children join hands And circle round me Singing ghost songs And love to t

Submitted by Bonnie Lisko Kisch of Bismarck, N.D. It was around 1970 when Bonnie’s two children participated in the Kiddie Parade in Jamestown, N.D. Jay and Jodi went as Peter Pumpkin Eater and his wife. “Although Jay is smiling in the photo, I recal

On spring nights in my childhood, my father and I sat on our front porch and listened to the high-pitched chorus of tree frogs and the echoing song of whip-poor-wills. We watched for the first lightning bugs to flicker in the dark. During summer thun

“Go sit on the porch, and don’t you dare get dirty.” That was Mom’s warning after getting four of us children into our Sunday best. “The photographer will be here soon.” Every summer in the late 1950s, we sat on that porch, dolled up in our Sunday be

Words are forward and backward, horizontal, vertical and diagonal. aboard dark evening fall friend grade Halloween haunted hooky mother pink porch railroad rocker school shadows station street swing teacher train treat trick whistle

In the fall of 1952, I entered the fifth grade in Wildwood, Tenn. Not only had I been promoted in school, but I had progressed from single-digit age 9 to double-digit age 10. As with all schools, students gathered on the first day to brag or complain

Our porch was so much more versatile than a place for “just sittin’.” It was a gathering place for our entire neighborhood in Salt Lake City. On a warm summer night, my mother would bring out a cold watermelon, and then my father would pull out his t

In the fall of 1958, I began attending first grade in a tiny country school in Padroni, Colo. It didn’t have all the perks of the larger school systems. Consequently, we weren’t taught music from first through the fourth grades. That changed dramatic

This story is about my grandparents’ back porch. It abutted a very small house on State Park Road on the fringes of Paris Mountain in Greenville, S.C. My grandparents moved there in 1975, and although it was a small two-bedroom, one-bath house, it wa

It was my favorite. My mother’s meatloaf. At 8 years old, I was not an expert in culinary cuisine, but I was a rather successful young glutton and knew what I liked. My mother had learned to make her meatloaf from my great-aunt Pearl. That hardworkin

A clown or a ghost—those were my choices, said Mom and Dad. A clown or ghost meant I could wear a snowsuit under my costume, so I was outvoted. I would not be the cowgirl I would’ve definitely preferred—like Dale Evans, Queen of the West! When I was