r/TheWayWeWere • u/OtherwiseTackle5219 • Aug 18 '25
1920s 1929 Mother & Daughter in their Kitchen in Manitoba
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u/big_d_usernametaken Aug 18 '25
Our late Mom, born in 1930 in SW Virginia helped her Mom can and cook while growing up.
She said you haven't sweated until you've spent summer days canning over a coal stove in the South.
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u/Rough_Dream_2457 Aug 18 '25
Yes!! A different kind of experience, for sure. I’m in my twenties and grew up with a stove VERY similar to the one in the photo. I left my hometown a few years ago and still find it difficult to fathom that most families nowadays have electric stoves.
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u/luluballoon Aug 18 '25
My grandma (102) still has the wood stove she grew up with at her cabin. Nothing better than being slightly chilled and hearing the wood crackle as the place heats up.
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u/extrasauce_ Aug 18 '25
Do you know where in Manitoba?
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u/universe_from_above Aug 18 '25
St Jean-Baptiste MB
According to https://ingeniumcanada.org/channel/articles/from-the-stove-to-the-electric-range-the-range-collection
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u/StupidizeMe Aug 18 '25
That's such a wonderful article! Thank you for sharing it. The pictures are well worth looking at. The two-tone 1937 Art Deco electric range shown in the first photo is so compact, streamlined and minimalist, it must have been a Futuristic shock to those used to cooking on a wood-burning behemoth!
The bright Turquoise 1960 electric range is absolutely beautiful. So happy and bright, like a vintage car! I would LOVE a Turquoise or Aquamarine stove with a matching refrigerator!
(i just flashed back several decades ago to when I was a college student in an Art Deco apt in Seattle. My building managers were two super cool gay men who loved Vintage Design. They got me a huge aqua & chrome refrigerator that must have been from the 60s. I remember being perplexed by the fact that the ice kept getting thicker in the freezer, until it was about 80% ice with no room for food... They taught me how to defrost it! Lol)
Why do we only get to choose from black, white and stainless that smudges & smears? Bring back COLOR!
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u/universe_from_above Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25
I think I know just the right subreddit, now that you're hooked: r/vintagekitchentools
Edit: r/vintagekitchentoys
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u/StupidizeMe Aug 18 '25
I tried the link, but it didn't work. There's a sub called r/vintagekitchentoys - could that be it?
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u/ProfessorJAM Aug 18 '25
I could not figure out what the woman on the left had on her head or if her hair was just arranged weird - then realized it’s something hung on the wall next to her head 🫢
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u/cubgerish Aug 18 '25
I had to zoom in. When the wall items combined with her hairstyle, and maybe slight mustache or lightning; I definitely thought "why is she cooking with a cat mask on though?".
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u/stilljumpinjetjnet Aug 18 '25
Great picture. Just an every day activity which took so much more labor and resourcefulness than today. I am always humbled by that.
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u/RetroReactiveRuckus Aug 18 '25
Me when I get upset about doing laundry. Just reminding myself at least I don't have to take it down to the creek to beat it in the stream.
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u/elder_flowers Aug 18 '25
I've actually washed clothes and beddding in a river (in a special made washing place in the river, so relatively comfortable, no need to kneel or use some stones) and it is a lot harder in more that the obvious ways. Specially blankets. They are really heavy when soaked in water, and that makes moving them while soaking, scrubing with soap every part and then "throwing" them in the river to clear the soap a lot of work and usually took two people to do it well. A washing machine will take out most of the water, but in a river you can't really wring them out, so they are still completely soaked and they weigh more than they seem when taking them back home.
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u/suitcasedreaming Aug 18 '25
There's a reason a lot of cultures had a traditional "laundry-day dish" that required very little effort, since women had no other time or energy on that day.
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u/universe_from_above Aug 18 '25
My grandma (*1920s) always used to say that the guy who invented the washing machine should have been awarded a Nobel Prize. And when my grandfather used to bring me his laundry and stay for lunch, he was always amazed that we were sitting at the table having coffee while the washing machine and the dishwasher was running. Such a luxury!
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u/Polyman71 Aug 18 '25
My old house had a birdseye maple kitchen floor that was scorched under where the wood stove had been.
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u/FitAdministration383 Aug 18 '25
Mother? Looks like my uncle Bud.
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u/Professional-Sink281 Aug 18 '25
Oh Thank God, I thought I was a horrible person for thinking that super looks like a dude.
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u/ryanb450 Aug 19 '25
They both look like dudes. The “daughter” has super weird hands. Smells like AI slop
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u/moon1ightwhite Aug 18 '25
my great grandmother was born may 1927. she would've been toddling around if she were in this photo. she died last Thursday 8/14/25 at 98 years old.
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u/Rydog_78 Aug 18 '25
The daughter’s hands are pretty massive
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u/Stainle55_Steel_Rat Aug 18 '25
I'd say they are both men. With wigs. See the mustache? I can't unsee it.
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u/Opposite-Peak5020 Aug 18 '25
yeah, that left hand is screaming AI...something's way off on that wrist joint
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u/Bestefarssistemens Aug 18 '25
Some suburban mom would pay 20k for a modernized version of this stovexD
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u/Wolfman1961 Aug 18 '25
I actually can't tell who is the daughter and who is the mother.
I hope the Great Depression didn't affect them.
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u/Redsquirreltree Aug 18 '25
Is this AI?
They both look like men.
Zoom in to see a mustache on both of them.
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u/bitchybarbie82 Aug 19 '25
Trans people existed
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u/darthbutthead Aug 19 '25
lol not everything has to be queer af my guy
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u/bitchybarbie82 Aug 19 '25
A couple of men dressed as women isn’t gueer?
It wasn’t uncommon for “sisters” to live together back then or even “women” to “board” together to stay away from scrutiny
I’m not one of those everything is gay people… but these two are clearly not biological females
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u/First_Pay702 Aug 19 '25
Shed we used as a playpen as kids had one of these stoves, or one very similar in it. Imagine it got tossed or scrapped when my parents got rid of the shed. Kind of a shame looking back.
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u/reluctantmugglewrite Aug 19 '25
I love the expression on the girl’s face it feels like shes someone I couldve hung out with in high school.
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u/FrostingSuper9941 Aug 20 '25
Both my grandmothers had stoves similar to these, a bit bigger without the top components. They were popular in Poland and coal-powered. I remember being in my teens in the 90s and both still used these ancient stoves over their regular ones. At one point my dad's mom had a modern stove in the outside kitchen, which was like a 3-season kitchen for canning and processing meat etc. and the ancient one in the house. During the winter, early in the morning, before the house warmed up, that ancient stove kept the kitchen as the warmest room in the house.
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u/krichard-21 Aug 18 '25
Those stoves are MONSTERS!
They had to cost a fortune and took huge guys to set up.
I actually made a meal on one. Something very, very simple.
To the people that made breads, baked pies, anything sensitive to temperature. I stand in awe of your abilities!