* 93 YEARS AGO   "1914" *
This is my Dad, Jim Hooper, on Gratiot Ave. Schirmer's Drug Store is far right.
Notice!       Not an auto in sight.

          To all....Yes it boggles my mind!....that I have been around for all but 15 years of the 103 they are talking about. We had an outdoor toilet, no bathtub, no car, no refrigerator. Went to the grocer every day for perishables. Car ?....Are you kidding?...everything shanks mare or trolley later.
          How about a Doctor? He came to the house with a small black bag full of little bottles of pills. The Lord may have known what was in them. Never sure he did. Charged $2.00 which my folks said was too high. You provided "Hospice" for your older folks. My grandfathers died in our home. One of them with throat cancer they said he got from preaching, during the summer months,through open windows, to people seated outside the church. The other died from a bedsore, unheard of today.
          My Dad got his 30 cents an hour as janitor of a school and yes my mother had me, at home ( 13 lbs. believe it or not) on a hot, 90 degree' July 24th night. She said: "it was the night the Bliss & VanAuken lumber company burned down".
          Prices on food were great.... the problem, no money! At the butcher shop...I remember they gave you liver just to get rid of it. Heart disease and diarrhea are still around....I know.
          I don't remember anybody in our neighborhood having a servant but I do remember if a neighbor was ill everyone tried to help. Never remembered any of the 230 murders in the U.S.in a year?.... not too bad when you think of it....just what one might expect on a busy week-end nowadays.
          You know, I thank God that I "suffered" through all that "misery" because what we did have is becoming rare or impossible....a real family....complete with a loving mother, at home, and a father whose whole purpose in life seemed to be dedicated to doing whatever necessary to make our house, a home.
        And you know? We never locked our doors, even when we went to the Eddy Band Concerts on a Saturday night. Come to think of it....maybe it was because we didn't have anything worth stealing..........................JH at 93....Looking Back