In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Small Ohio town, pop. 7,000 in 1955. Went on one week vacation. Dad didn't lock our house doors!!
dreher
Member Posts: 8,891 ✭✭✭✭
So our family is getting ready to go on a vacation to the Wisconsin Dells. I guess this was a big deal in 1955. I don't remember anything about that vacation but I remember my Mom asking my Dad if they should lock the doors to our house. Dad thought that made sense so they started looking for the keys to the front and back doors. They couldn't find them!! 😁 There were questions asked about did they ever have them??
Mom and Dad lived in that house for about 10 years. Never once were the doors locked since we didn't have the keys!! We never locked our car either.
Contrast 1955 to today.
Comments
They lived in different times and with the liberal progressive laws demanding less morality and more and more debt with no good paying semi skilled factory jobs.Then it's only going to get worst.
serf
When I was single, I had to lock my car doors at night in the small town where I lived. Not because of thievery, but because the neighbors would fill it up with zucchini, squash, and other vegetables from their gardens. I guess they thought I was hungry.
We are just returning from the Dells, with a couple days added on at Port Washington.
And we don't lock our house. In fact, the keys are in the ignition of my work car at home.
Dad had lived in the same farmhouse since he was young. When I was in HS we went on vacation one summer and mom told dad to lock the front door.
He pulled out his keychain and tried to lock the door but the key was so thin it twisted off in the lock!
We moved to town (pop 1958! ) and they always locked the door -- but the key hung in a eye-screw at the top of the door.
We never had keys to the back door till after my father died in 1978. Mom had a new door installed with a keyed lock instead of the old thumb latch
back in the late 1970's I had a GF her family were all farmers (mothers and fathers sides all had farms maybe I should have been nicer LOL ) any way none of them ever locked a door . and the keys to the trucks and cars were usually in them .
her dad told me once if some one wants in they will just break the door or a window any way so why have the extra cost of replacing what they broke to get in .. Ok made some sense but we know locks are just to keep honest people honest so to me no temptation is some deterrent and better than none
my in-laws never lock there doors they lived back a long lane but said they had nothing of value to seal ( they were right about that ) I grew up my mom who was super paranoid so doors were always locked and I picked up the habit even now just walking out to the pole barn or mowing grass ( we ) lock the doors . 1st thing my wife does if we get in a car is lock the doors use to make me mad but I have got use to it , now as soon as I sit down hear the lock snap close I unlock my car door
we lived in the country, off a narrow township road, never locked doors. we had about 20 guineas and at least 4 dogs most of the time. also had 2 ponds great fishing, and bullfrogs galore. all fenced in. only had 1 instance of guys midnight frog giggin'. they didn't stay long when our Black Angus bull bellowed at them from about 10 foot away. he was kept apart from the herd most of the time.
Same way in the small town we lived in Maine until early 1980’s. In fact some town kids broke into summer cottage on the lake. We knew who did it because the family had things they could not afford or could not be bought in town.
Sheriff went to their house told them to return everything and don’t do it again.
Our house was never locked while growing up for the same reason.
My parents didn't know where the key was for the back door.
69-87.
I lock my garage now and the wife will check the doors multiple times before she goes to bed.
Never locked our car or house doors until the 80s.
Now days....all the time.
We never locked our doors until one Sunday evening in 1985. We came home from church to find that about 12 guns had been stolen. My mother became so paranoid that she would lock the door after I went outside. I couldn't get back in until she unlocked the door.
After I got married, we rarely lock our doors. Most of the time, our cars are unlocked with the keys in them.
No one came on the property after dark in the 60's unless they called
Back in the 50's many/most rural MidWest houses didn't even have locks on the doors. Crime and punishment were taken seriously and the stigma of even being suspected of thievery would black mark an entire family.
The locks we had when I was growing up were made out of a small rectangular chunk of wood with a nail in the center. This mounted on the door jam inside the house or out building. When you were inside you just pivoted the wood across the door.
The wind never blew a door open with one of these! 😁
When I was growing up we didn't even have doors to lock.
Yeah but some of us are young enough we weren't raised in caves. It was my grandparents who lived in caves and had utility dinosaurs for riding and farm work! Dad told me that when he was a little boy there were still a few dinosaurs left but they were the little ones because his parents generation had hunted down and eaten all the big dinos!! 😁