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Senior Moments

Category: History / Topics: History Statistics

A Century Agp

by Dan Seagren

Posted: July 12, 2009

The way things were…

Reading the following could generate a senior moment. But if it doesn't, read on anyway. I would imagine these stats were carefully researched before being sent across the airwaves

Here are some of them: 

  • The average life expectancy was 47 years. Only 14 percent of the homes had a
    bathtub.
  • Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads
  • The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour
  • Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee was fifteen cents a pound
  • Most women only washed their hair once a month and often used egg yolks for shampoo
  • Five leading causes of death were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza 2. Tuberculosis3. Diarrhea
    4. Heart disease 5. Stroke
  • There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
  • Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write
  • Only 6 percent of all Americans had Graduated from high school
  • Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.

Now, do you really wish you were born at the turn of that century? Maybe being born in 1920 or 1940 wasn't so bad after all. My own father was born in 1894 and finished 8th grade. When I visited his childhood home some years later, there was an outhouse, no running water, no electricity (which came later along with running water). But there was a beautiful, fenced yard, and a vegetable garden and lots of flowers

Then, years later, the fence was gone, there was no beautiful lawn, the barn was bulging and had to be taken down. The magnificent (to a twelve year old) old homestead burned to the ground as I watched in horror and was replaced with a much more modest, modern house. My last visit (as a near senior) was my last look

Today, many years and conveniences later, some luxuries and probably undeserved amenities, my senior moment visualizes the old homestead (with two parlors rarely used even with ten children), with its beautiful, manicured lawn surrounded by flowers, protected by a fence which kept the undesirables out. That's how I want to remember it, ala 1909ish style, not as it is in 2009.



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Dan Seagren is an active retiree whose writings reflect his life as a Pastor, author of several books, and service as a Chaplain in a Covenant Retirement Community.

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Posted: July 12, 2009   Accessed 145 times

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