Daily Life

Family Home

• Please tell me about the house you grew up in? How many rooms did it have? Where did you all sleep in the house? What was the furniture like? How long did your family reside in this house? Who lived in your home when you were growing up?

• If your family moved, where, when, and why did they move?

• How did your family keep the house warm in the winters? How did your family keep the house cool in the summers?

• How often would your family entertain guests in your home? Please tell us what it was like when your parents entertained guests.

• What language did you speak at home? Were you allowed to speak English at home? How did your family feel about speaking English?

• Where did you go to the bathroom? Please describe this building (location, toiletries, etc.).

• Please tell us about bathes. How often would you take a bath? Did you make your own soap? How did you heat the water? How often did you change the water?

• How often were you supposed to brush your teeth? How often did you brush your teeth?

• Did your mother have a garden? Please tell us about it.

Food

• Who usually prepared the meals in your family?

• Where were the meals usually prepared? What about during the summer months?

• Where did you store food to keep it cool during the summer?

• Did boys help in the kitchen? If so, please tell us more about their roles.

• How would your family have their meals? Would you always sit at a table together? Were there assigned seats? Were you allowed to talk?

• What types of food did your family usually eat?

• What were some of your favorite meals?

• What were some of your least favorite meals?

• What were the traditional German dishes that you had growing up?

• Did your family make ice cream? How would you do this?

• Did your family do their own canning, butchering, and/or sausage smoking? If so, please tell us more about the processes.

• What was your family's attitude toward alcohol? How often did people drink alcohol when you were growing up?

• Did your family make their own root beer, beer, wine, or liquor? If so, please tell us more about the processes.

Clothing

• What type of clothes were common when you were growing up?

• Were your clothes store-bought or home-made?

• If you had store-bought clothes, were would your parents get your clothes? Stores or catalogs? How often did you get new cloths?

• If you had home-made clothes, who made them for you? Were did he/she get the material? Did he/she ever reuse old clothes to make new clothes?

• Did you ever have to wear hand-me-down clothes?

• Did anyone in your family sew, embroider, or quilt? Please tell us a little about this.

• How often did you get new shoes? How many pair of shoes did you have as a child?

Technology

• When did your family get electricity? How did this change your life?

• When did your family get its first car or truck? How did this change your family's life?

• When did your family get a telephone? How did this change your life?

• How important was the radio in your family? What were some radio programs that your family listened to often?

"Baseball" Eugenia (Vetter) Schumacher