This is a paper that I wrote after interviewing my grandmother for my Adult Development and Aging class. On a side note, the biggest thing I remember from that class was that I was a junior and the rest of the girls in class were seniors and about 5 of them were showing off their engagement rings the last few weeks of the semester.
In 1951, my grandmother was seventeen years old and living in Verga, New Jersey. The stage of young adulthood for her cohort was very different from my young adult cohort and lacked many conveniences. Her family consisted of her mother and father, four brothers, and 2 sisters. The family also lost two children: one was stillborn and the other died of unknown causes shortly after birth. According to my grandmother, it was not uncommon for families to lose a baby, but her family was atypical because it was larger than most. Typically, families of the time consisted of 3 or 4 children.
Family life in the late 40s and early 50s was very simple. Immediate and extended family members lived in the same area. Most women married their high school sweethearts after graduation and had their first child after about a year of marriage. My grandmother, however, did not get married until she was 20 and had her first child eleven months into the marriage. Men at this time got married between the ages of nineteen and twenty (slightly older than women); my grandmother explained that this happened because many young men enlisted or were drafted into the army when they turned 18. During this time period, she said, divorce was uncommon and unmarried couples did not live together. It was normal for the wife to stay home and take care of the house while the husband worked to provide money for the family. My grandmother said they did not have much extra spending money or savings. They generally lived from week to week.
Neither did my grandmother's family have much money for entertainment. Television became available shortly after World War II and it was a status symbol to have a TV antenna. However, television of the time was much different from television of today; all televisions were black and white, and there were only three stations that were broadcast for a limited number of hours each night. The main form of entertainment was the radio; listeners had to use their imaginations to picture the stories. The popular music artists were Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Patty Paige, Nat King Cole, and the Mills Brothers. Big Band Music was also popular. During leisure time, most people played cards or monopoly, and children typically made up their own games to play. While there were many magazines, my grandmother did not remember having any subscriptions.
The family's money was spent mostly on food, clothing, and the house. My grandmother and grandfather were among the first cohort to actually purchase their own homes. Previously, homes were rented and not owned. Even though they were able to buy their house, my grandmother said there was not much choice until a few years later when housing developments started growing. Unlike most families today who have two or more cars, most people in the early 50s had one car, but typically took the bus. Having a phone is taken for granted today, but my grandmother said when she was a young adult phones were on a party line that was shared by four families on a street. Each home's phone had a unique ring, but anyone could listen in on someone else's conversations. (It was not uncommon to have several eavesdroppers on the line.) The remainder of the family's money was spent on food. My grandmother grew up in an Irish family, so most meals consisted of meat and potatoes, with fish or spaghetti on Fridays. Supper was always a sit down meal with the entire family eating together.
Because of lack of health insurance, it was rare to see the doctor. According to my grandmother, most people did not go to the doctor unless they were "dying." Many childhood diseases were serious threats--whooping cough, diptheria, measles, mumps, and scarlet fever. My grandmother does not remember often getting medicine when she and her siblings were ill. Typically, the ill were quarantined. For example, if someone contracted the measles, they were quarantined in a dark room and a sign was tacked to the front door of the house. Adult deaths were generally blamed on cancer, although at this time the public possessed a very limited knowledge of cancer. The average life expectancy was sixty years old.
When my grandmother was a young girl, education was much more subdued. Children were respectful of authority. High schools did not have the behavior problems that today's schools have: very few students smoked in school, and drugs and alcohol were virtually nonexistent in school. My grandmother stressed the point that girls always wore dresses and skirts to school everyday. Students were taught the basics--English, History, Math, Gym. Other classes included Typing, Shorthand, and Bookkeeping. Some students were in the college prep track, but only fifteen to twenty percent of these students actually went on to college after high school. Most women were married after graduation, and men went into the service. Gender differences can be seen in the different gym classes students were required to take: girls learned to climb the rope, stand on their heads, play badminton and tennis; boys were allowed to go outside and play basketball, football, and baseball. In high school, health classes taught proper hygiene, but not sex education.
Unlike many of the other females in her cohort, my grandmother did not marry until she was 20. After graduating high school at 17, my grandmother worked in a Philadelphia bank for three years. For working a full week (forty hours), my grandmother was paid about $25 (which my grandfather contended was a very high estimate). Men earned much more money than women did. Women were only allowed to work clerical jobs; only the women who went to college were allowed to work some (but not many) male jobs. Most people (men) considered their first job to be their job for life; this is unlike today, when most young adults switch jobs several times before settling on one. My grandmother informed me that her workplace at this time was racially integrated, and there was no difference between whites and blacks. She claims that most of the racial problems were occurring in the south.
After marriage, my grandmother became a housewife and had six children. When raising her children, my grandmother simply used common sense and her mother's experience; she did not believe in using the self-help books that were becoming popular at the time. At home, my grandmother took care of all of the indoor work--cooking, cleaning, paying the bills--while my grandfather tended to the outdoor chores. Eventually when they were old enough, the children helped out with the chores. When taking care of her part of the work, my grandmother noted that she did not have many of the conveniences most young people take for granted today. There were no microwaves or toasters; irons were very heavy and had to be heated on the stove.
I am very glad that I selected to do this interview with my grandmother because I learned many family stories that I may have otherwise not heard. The interview made me realize how different American/South Jersey life was only fifty years ago. Although I am aware of all the advances that have been made in the recent past, I was not consciously aware of it until I started comparing my current young adult life to that of my grandmother. There are many things, such as health care, educational opportunities, and extra spending money, that I simply take for granted because they are what I have always known. As a young adult, my grandmother had to worry from week to week if she would have enough money to cover expenses while raising six children and maintaining a household. I do not think I could have managed all that she did at that age.
It is important to remember, however, that her young adult life was not merely different than mine, it was very specific to her cohort. Her cohort was born in during World War II and lived through and participated in Korea and Vietnam. The events that shaped their lives had very specific effects on how they viewed life itself. While it may seem as though their lives were very similar to those born the decade before and the decade after, my grandmother's cohort has many unique characteristics because of the events that occurred during their childhood and young adulthood. These effects have to be remembered when studying the psychology of aging since each cohort's experiences make them distinct from all other cohorts.
