Originally Posted by flamesfever
I grew up in the 40s and 50s in Toronto. My parents bought a small bungalow in what was then the very north end of Toronto, and what is now the center. They paid $4300. for it in 1943, and sold it in 1953 for $13.500. My Dad's salary went from $50. a week to $100. in the same time span. Usually when you got a good job, in those days, you had it for life. My Dad worked for Simpsons. Decent pensions didn't come along until later. When my Mom started working in a nearby factory, I remember thinking we were rich, when I saw juice showing up in the fridge.
In those days, the doctor paid a visit to your house carrying his little black bag, and I remember my parents trying to scrape up some money to pay him. We all got inoculated in school for small pox and diptheria. We had quite a scare when people started getting polio, until they found the vaccine.
Our street was unpaved, and all the neighbors and kids got together on weekends and played baseball in the middle of the road. Only the odd family on the street owned a car. I would guess we were the middle class at the time, and only the people living in the old money areas like Forest Hill Village and Rosedale seemed to have any significant amount of wealth.
I had some excellent teachers in school and only got the strap twice...once for laughing at a substitute teacher and once for throwing snow balls. All the kids went to the show on Saturday afternoon at a cost of 12 cents. We all booed when the good guys got injured and cheered when the bad guy got shot. As kids we made our own fun by playing cops and robbers, hide and seek, toboganning, etc. We played baseball and hockey and we the kids organized our own teams and kept records. I got a bb gun at the age of 13. My parents refused to buy it for me, so I bought it myself, and had my sister give it to me as a Christmas present.
On Sunday after dinner, the family all huddled around the radio to listen to programs like Lux Theatre, Boston Blacky, Fibber McGee and Molly, and the Shadow. My family were the first on the Block to have a tv, and all the kids came to our house to watch Howdy Doody, the Three Stooges, Red Skelton etc.
Each year in the fall we would get a load of coal to fill up our coal bin in the basement. I remember someone was always called upon to pull the chain that allowed more air into the furnace.
Although we didn't have a lot of money I wouldn't trade my early years for all the advantages that kids have today.
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