and cool water
August 31, 2011 (Wednesday)
On these hot days we are being advised to drink plenty of water. When my sisters and I were living with our grandparents we had plenty of cool water to drink. It was in the ice box.
We purchased blocks of ice at the corner grocery. I brought many of them home, one at at time, tied with cords so that I could grasp them and carry the block of ice. We also had a big pair of ice tongs with handles I could grasp. It might be 10 lb one day and 25 lb on another day. The ice kept very well because the door was rarely opened. I smile when I think of it now because it would most surely be an antique today.
Made of wood with metal handles, it had three compartments. The one on the left was for the ice, and the one on the right was for the food. In the middle, separating the two side compartments, was a tank for the water, which was poured by hand through an opening in the top of the ice box. Underneath was a pan that collected the water from the melting ice. Here’s a picture of a similar ice box.
Before our parents divorced and we began living with our grandparents, we had an electric refrigerator. It had a compartment for ice cubes, but no room for frozen foods. Atop the big white “Frigidaire,” as it was called, was a tower about a foot in diameter that looked like a stack of white pans. As I recall, it was about a foot high. It housed the coils that radiated the heat from the cooling area. This picture shows one like ours, as I recall.
I don’t know why the “Frigidaire” didn’t come with us to our grandparents’ house, but I’m glad I have the memories of the old ice box. It was old, but it always delivered cool water from a little faucet on the front of it. Someone would remember to fill it with water at bedtime so the water would be cool the entire next day. Ah, those were the days. Who needed air conditioning when you could have a real ice box?