“If the old screen door could talk today, what do you think that door would say? All the laughter, the loving children at play. All the squeaks, slams, and knocks, the old screen door can’t say.”
After a rainy and cool Memorial Day weekend, summer has come to our little part of North Carolina. With brilliant Carolina blue skies and expected temperatures in the 90-degree range, the hum of air-conditioners in our cul-de-sac sing their tune in harmony with the crickets and katydids.
Yet there’s another summer song I recall from my growing-up years…the slam of the screen door. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s (yes, I’m that old!) no one in our family or circle of friends had air-conditioning in our homes or cars. But every house had a screen door that turned the inside into the outside, invited the fresh air in while keeping out the mosquitoes and flies. That half-barrier told my young cousins the door is shut, and we stay inside. But it also said to our neighbors we’re home, “come on in.” The screen door rendered life airy and bearable through the long, buggy evenings of summer.
History
People had been working on wire window screening for a long. Past civilizations used fabric screens that kept out the bugs fairly well. However, they restricted air circulation and dimmed the light. Early European settlers to Boston worried about “the three great annoyances of Woolves, Rattle-snakes and Musketoes.” The first two critters could be kept out by physical barriers, the last demanded something better. Settlers discovered that cheesecloth allowed air to circulate, but it was delicate and easily torn.
During the Civil War, a Connecticut sieve company, Gilbert & Bennett worried about what to do with the screening for sieves that built up in warehouses when the company lost access to Southern markets during the war. An employee of the company came up with a new idea…coat the wire cloth with paint to prevent rust and sold it for window screens. The idea became so popular the company made wire cloth a major part of its business, and it became a major manufacturer of screens for doors and windows.
Components of a Screen Door
Comprising little more than wire mesh, a wooden frame, and a handful of hardware, a screen door creates a barrier and an invitation, and an unmistakable sound that says summer. Here are a few examples from the Sears Roebuck & Company Catalogue (1895)
My maternal grandparents lived on a dead-end street in Rensselaer, NY, just over the Hudson River from Albany. I spent countless summer days there, picking blackberries, trailing after my grandfather in his garden, and watching him and my grandmother play pinochle at their kitchen table in the evenings. Their screen door led straight to their kitchen. It was painted a deep forest green with rusty hardware and a black screen. That door kept out the green pollen, Catalpa pods, maple helicopters, and dandelion fluff in the spring.
While the other doors were burdened with locks and deadbolts, the screen door had only a simple catch. And if Grandpa had to lock it–what a foolish notion since any one of us could poke a hole through the screening with a finger–he would use a hook and eye. Which someone, who shall remain nameless, pulled at the door and accidentally ripped the eye right out of the wooden jamb!
But that was the screen door’s purpose…to open easily, letting in people, the wind, the sounds, and scents of summer. Even now, whenever I hear a door squeak on its hinges or hear the slap of the screen door as we go in and out, I’m transported back to that carefree time.
We have our own screen door, except that it’s white vinyl, not wood. For us, it’s a piece of nostalgia, yet, taut and true with its modern mechanisms. It’s a boundary between inside and outside. Between present and past. Between open and closed.
If you have a memory of a screen door, I’d love for you to share with us.
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Oh, and if you’re wondering, my niece and her sweet husband welcomed a bouncing baby boy April 2! I was there for his arrival, but can’t wait to return for a visit and hold Baby T again!
when it came to decorating my home. Something was missing. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I had a nice painting of a cabin situated beneath the mountains. I had color schemes and knick-knacks, but something wasn’t quite right. The things I had didn’t define me, until I stepped foot in Old Colorado City and discovered exactly what I had been missing—everything to do with horses and the west.
Potbellied Stoves— Benjamin Franklin is credited with inventing the pot belly stove. A cute appliance used to heat a room, the pot belly stove is made from cast iron and has a bulge in the middle, hence the name. The stove was mainly found in the mercantile or school house, and later on train cars. Some potbellies were equipped with a shelf to boil a pot of coffee or to cook a pot of stew. Franklin is also credited with inventing a large cast iron box that was set on top of the hearth and used for cooking. If I could, I’d fill the house with several of them. Not for the heat they provided, but to add to my collection of all things western.
Downing Company and weighed more than 2,000 pounds. The Concord had a reputation for being comfortable and sturdy. Each coach built was given a number by the Abbot Downing Company, and used leather strap braces beneath the coach instead of a spring suspension to create a swinging motion verses a jostling, up-and-down motion. At the front and back of the coach, leather boots held luggage and mail. The top of the stage also held luggage, and more than a dozen people if needed. The inside bore three seats of leather and could hold up to nine passengers. Those who sat on the middle seat had no back support and had to hold onto leather straps suspended from the ceiling. Curtains at the windows were also fashioned from leather and rolled up and down.
Hi, Winnie Griggs here. With the start of the new year I’ve been in a cleaning out and de-cluttering mood. And I’ve been surprised by the number of things I’ve come across that I’d forgotten I had. One of the items is a pretty little tray, with a picture on front that is a reproduction of a picture that was featured in a 1913 Burpee seed catalog. Which got me to wondering, since I know Burpee Seeds are still around, just how long the Burpee Seed Company has been in business. Which naturally gave me an excellent excuse to stop cleaning out my spare room and start in on a little research.
breeding (chickens, geese, turkeys) but it wasn’t long before he was also working with livestock, dogs and plants. Atlee was fascinated with the still-new and little-respected science of genetics. A man who loved research, Atlee conducted his own experiments, and met with a great deal of success. He corresponded with poultry experts across the world and contributed articles to poultry journals as well.
n 1888 the company established Foodhook Farms in Doylston, PA to test new flowers and vegetables. This was before the US government had a seed testing or research station of their on.
The Montgomery Ward catalog has been called one of the most influential American books ever published. One such nominating committee, the Grolier Club, stated: “The mail order catalogue has been perhaps the greatest single influence in increasing the standard of American living. It brought the benefit of wholesale prices to city and hamlet, to the crossroads and prairie.”
But by the late 1860s, Chicago was teeming with post-Civil War energy. Fifteen railroad lines moved 150 trains a day out of the busy terminals. Like thousands of other young men Ward arrived in Chicago in 1866 and began work in various dry goods firms, including one operated by Marshall Field. He became a salesman, his income rising to a whopping $12 a week.
Consumers came to trust Ward”s unseen store, and business grew rapidly. He bound his first catalog in 1874, and in 1875 the book expanded to seventy-two pages. Worrying that he might become too big, Ward took an ad in Farmers Voice just to reassure his customers he had not lost touch with their needs.
The Tribune, no friend of Montgomery Ward, wrote: “We know now that Mr. Ward was right, was farsighted, was public spirited. That he was unjustly criticized as a selfish obstructionist or as a fanatic. Before he died, it is pleasant to think Mr. Ward knew that the community had swung round to his side and was grateful for the service he had performed in spite of misunderstanding and injustice.”
