Well, my dad is ninety. If they were around today, my grandparents would be around 115. I think your older woman would be somewhere between those generations, let me explain:
Back then, they returned their milk bottles, Coke bottles and beer bottles to the store.
Yeah, to get the deposit money back. We used to ride to the park to scavenge for bottles to turn in for the deposit. You got two cents for a small Coke bottle, three cents for 12 oz one, and a nickel for a quart bottle. In the summer we could make more money collecting bottle in one day than our monthly allowance.
They walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.
My grandparents and grandparents drove everywhere after the First World War but there wasn't a 300 HP car until 1958.
They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts
As soon as they came on the market at an affordable price in the early sixties, the dryer was the first thing my grandmother and mom demanded be purchased.
Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every
room.
By the early mid-sixties we had five TVs in our home and a family of four. But that was only 45 years ago.
And the TV had a small screen the size of a pizza dish
That was before my time but I'm only 59. But I can get the feel for it by watching Amos and Andy on YouTube.
They refilled pens with ink, instead of buying a new pen
I don't recall anybody doing that, but like I said I am only 59 YO.
they didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn.
See comment above.
In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn't have electric machines
See comment above.
They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.
See comment above. Every wall in every room (except for the bathroom) had two outlets on each wall. My mother always complained about not having enough outlets for all of her electric kitchen gizmos. These included electric skillets and even an electric egg poacher.
they replaced the razor blades in a razor
My old man switched to an electric razor in the fifties.
kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus
There wasn't a bus and bikes weren't allowed at school, so we walked. It was uphill both ways as I recall.
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