Growing up in Louisa – Appliances!
Weekly feature . . . by Mike Coburn
A fellow named C.B. Wells came to our little town and opened an appliance store approximately across from Town Hall. I have no clue where he came from or where he went a few years later. Nevertheless, it was a time that appliances were a major thing that came into their own just after World War II. It was as if the war itself had pushed technology to do all it could to help the troops, and those industries now were able to turn their attention to the domestic market. Everything from refrigerators, toasters, mixers, and televisions were selling like crazy. Housewives were all excited over vacuum cleaners to replace those old brooms, and ‘pop-up’ toasters. The big market though was for the whole family of the day, televisions.
A couple of hardware stores also had a line of TV’s, but Mr. Wells promoted his new store as if he was the best local resource for these and a variety of other new appliances. I know we had already bought a refrigerator a few years before his store opened, but we were ripe for a TV. Few households had them but we had been guests at other people’s homes and seen them do their magic. I remember standing on the sidewalk in front of his store and watching a program being broadcast all the way from Huntington. I couldn’t hear the audio part because the TV was behind glass, but the magic of seeing these pictures was enough to mesmerize this little kid.
Finally the day came. I have no idea whether money was saved up, we got a tax refund, or if a loan was floated, but it was years before the invention of plastic charge cards. The stores in those days often set up personal ‘accounts’ that allowed for partial payments that followed. I recall that we had accounts at Bradley’s, Carter’s, and other stores so it is possible one was set up with Well’s Appliances, too. I sure hope we paid it off!
The new ‘floor model’ console television was set in a corner of the living room and a wire went outside to a small antenna that was on the roof. We had tried the ‘rabbit ears’ but they didn’t work for us. Early pictures were very grainy, but we didn’t know that wasn’t the state of the art. Sometimes there were ghosts, which were images that echoed the real picture and blurred everything until scenes were hard to make out. We would ‘put up’ with fuzzy pictures until we all thought we needed glasses.
My great grandmother was from a different generation. She never got her mind around the miracle of broadcast pictures that were received, unscrambled, and shown on the tiny screen. She absolutely refused to walk through the living room unless she was properly dressed because she said the man in the box would see her. After all, he was considered to be company and we shouldn’t parade out in front of him. I remember that many program hosts of the day would thank us for taking them in as invited guests.
It was on a Halloween night that someone threw a street sign, a stop sign I think, through our living room window. The sign broke all the glass and the wooden framing, but worse yet, it knocked a chip in the TV cabinet. It turned out that the TV was alright and continued to function. Try that with one of the new flat screens and watch the glass crystals fly. This solid wood cabinet was better made than the TV itself. We kept it for some time, likely to pay it off before considering a new one. I think our next one was a modern tabletop model that had a much bigger screen.
Mr. Wells moved in next door after he married Opal Lyon. I remember him having a tower put in on the property between Lizzy Shannon’s house on Franklin and Mr. Rice, an attorney that lived two lots down. When building the tower I recall seeing a man high on the triangular tubular tower when it broke apart below him. I watched him fall through the air screaming just like in the movies. I don’t know if I shut my eyes or if his falling body was blocked by Lizzy’s house, but I didn’t see him land. I just knew he was dead, but I was told later that he lived. He had landed in the back of a truck and broke a number of bones, but he would heal over time. I was relieved. The tower still went up but had guy wires this time.
Sometime later Mr. Wells cleared out his store and left town. I assume he divorced Opal because she stayed behind and continued to work at the Board of Education downtown. I remember I liked her and spoke with her during a visit home just before she passed.
With the Queen celebrating her 90th birthday a week or so ago, I recall seeing films of her wedding to the Duke of Edinburgh and then later I watched her coronation. I think both events may have been broadcasted on that first TV. It is possible that instead I saw it at the Garden Theater, but the timing was close enough in my memory it’s confusing. In any case, the world had grown smaller when we could see an event so far away.
As I pointed out earlier, the world was changing as relating to how a housewife would clean the house, cook her meals, or wash the clothes. Stores were full of steam irons, waffle irons, electric skillets, blenders, mixers, vacuums, toasters and the like that modernized our homes in a period not much longer than a single decade. Progress had been made, but wait a minute! Our little fuse boxes couldn’t handle the load.
Remember the TV program ‘Green Acres’ where they had to figure the math on amp prior to turning on an appliance? That was funny but all too true. I got good at screwing in new fuses and figuring out the limitations. Our homes now have moved from the forty or sixty amp boxes to over 200 amps. I know I have two 200 amp boxes and some on the transfer switch for the generator. I still have to reset a breaker now and again, but usually it’s the fault of the appliance itself. Things have changed.
With satellite, cable, Neflex, Blueray, and streaming internet, it’s changing faster than I can identify which remote works which device. Passwords are everywhere and the potential for more inventions obvious. I have a mysterious Droid I can barely use. I’m learning slowly, but we old folks need some of our grandchildren around to do the technical stuff, so we can watch a favorite program or movie. They are good at making popcorn, too. Ain’t life good?
