A Dirty Old Box

A modern wash board

The dirty old box had been in my garage for years. Today I decided to look inside and found some items that belonged to my parents. Maybe the items are antiques or maybe they are junk but I got a nostalgic feeling as I pulled the dusty things out of the box.

The wash boards are faded and one wash board is glass and the other is metal. I looked on the Internet and the wash boards listed, like mine, are actually called vintage or antique. Some of the more modern ones are made out of plastic. I know that when I was in Mexico, I could have used one when I did my laundry because everything had to be washed by hand.

A flour sifter that I remember my mother using was the next thing I pulled out of the box. I remember she would let me turn the handle and I felt like a big helper!  Compared to the flour sifter I use, this one is huge. My small sifter is a two cup so my guess is that the one I found in the box must be a four or larger cup sifter!

When I pulled this metal contraption, I had no idea what it could be. It looked like some sort of scale gadget or possibly a handle to carry heavy items. I hope that someone reading my blog will know what it is and enlighten me!

An old faded postcard of an Irish Village at the Chicago World's Fair also informed me that 78 Irish villages had been displayed at the fair. I found a better picture of my postcard on the Internet and it is the same postcard. The Chicago Fair took place in 1933 and 1934. There were many villages recreated from all over the world. Italy, England, Denmark, Norway, Mexico, Chin, Japan, Egypt, Czechoslovakia, Sweden Morocco, Dominican Republic, Germany, Belgium, Ukraine, France, Philippines and Ireland were represented at the fair.

I felt a bit guilty as I pulled out The Sacred Heart of Mary painted on a slab of  a tree. The bark still surrounded the picture. There were two other pictures in the box that may have hung in our house as I was growing up.

 An ice pick did bring back memories. We had an old ice box and a truck would deliver a block of ice and it would be placed in a container at the top of the ice box. I remember using the ice pick to chip off chunks of ice and on hot summer days sucking on a sliver of ice.

Next was a hand-held mixer with a pretty green handle. Mom would whip up cake dough and then she would let me lick the wires. I recall twisting my tongue in and around the wires to get every bit of dough! I wonder if this type of mixer is even made anymore. I tried looking on the Internet to see if these mixers are still made, but everything hand held was electric. The last item I pulled out of the box was a cheese grater. How well I remember my mother shredding cheese to put on top of the enchiladas she made. She stacked the tortillas like pancakes with cheese and onions between each layer and on top of the pile she would put a fried egg. It must have taken her forever to shred the cheese on this shredder!

Along side the box I saw an old scale. Someone had told me once that if it had not been painted yellow, it would be considered an antique.

Sometimes, it's fun to look through and around old, dusty boxes! What a pleasant walk through memories and how times have changed!

"I love history...everything is inspired by history, 

so that's why I love vintage and antiques."

Kelly Wearstler