Lived in Detroit, the ice was delivered by a horse drawn wagon, you put either 25 or 50 pound sign in window so he would know how much you wanted..as kids we’d sneak up to the wagon when the guy was delivering and grab a piece of ice to suck on. milk was also delivered in horse drawn wagon. The horse never stopped, just trudged along at a slow pace so the milkman could catch up after delivering milk to your front porch...The sheeny man came down the alleys blowing a horn and you took out any big stuff or furniture you didn’t want and he’d pick it up....Sanford and son without the truck..he had a horse drawn wagon also with a hat on the horse..
lol.
My dad lived out in the country I guess. Most of the time they didn’t even have their own property. They rented, share cropped or whatever they needed to do.
Of course it was a LONG time to the end of WW2 when things started improving. I am sure their situation changed a lot.
Hey GG - my mom also had that. Except she said the ice man would cut the block to size - and knew the size of everyone’s ice box. But perhaps there were only two sizes!?
I mentioned to her that I guess back then you never had a REAL cold glass of anything - no ice for the tea, soda, whatever. (She laughed - SODA!?) But the kids would crowd around the ice man (horse-drawn) and he would make sure to have extra shavings for the kids to have!
She said the milk man had a truck, but the Sheny man (sp?) had a mule. Her mom felt bad for him, so would always have something that the kids could bring out to him.
On milk days my old man said he would sneak down early and drink the cream that rose to the top before his mom could bring it in! Usually he would tell this story as he was drinking from one of the plastic creamers in the restaurant!
Another embarassing moment would be when mom would tuck the leftover rolls or bread in a paper napkin to bring back home. “No sense wasting it as they’ll just throw it out anyway”. And once home she would wrap it in a washed out bread bag to keep it fresh. (”Baggies”? - What are those?)
Those frugal habits die hard. In both her winter and summer home she has spots for the washed bread bags and the washed and smoothed out aluminum foil that she will use over and over!
1932 -1964 my DAD was engineer at Ice Plants in Miami and South Beach, Royal Palm Inc..
During WW2 they supplied ice to the hotels around the Miami and the Beach where all the Servicemen were housed. Each night he brought ice to our house and the neighbors.
During the war we raised our own vegetables, chickens, turkeys, ducks and rabbits. We also fished a lot in the surrounding waters.