MennoNet.com

This first couple use cash only.
Watchet, Somerset, UK

Two more couples.
Toronto, Canada

Another in the UK

I have an old toaster like that first couple. Unfortunately the bakelite switch/connector is broken, and I haven't been able to find a replacement. (I've wondered if epoxy would hold up to the heat.) I did, however, find an old-style electric cord in a thrift store a decade or more back. Just need the switch. That's the kind of toaster my folks had. You pull down the lid on the side to flip the slice of bread over to the other side. I always like the way the butter melted into the line where the bread rested against the wire that kept it from coming right against the heating coils.

Scrolling on down through the pictures, I see that they also have a crank phonograph. I have one of those as well; it was my dad's, given to him by his Uncle "Banker Toews" when he (my dad) was 16. It was made in 1921, and also has a radio in it. There was an older one in the granary at my grandparents, dated from in the 1800, but the 1991 tornado took all of that away - to Kansas, I suppose. Mine also has the diamond needle type pickup head for the older 80 RPM Edison records - the ones that are about a quarter of an inch think, and made of ... bakelite. (It has two pickup heads, the other one uses steel needles.)

I wish I had kept it, to try to restore it, but when we were tearing down our original church house (1980) there was a non-electric vacuum cleaner down in the basement, under the stairs. It was made of wood, and it operated by use of billows. It was falling apart, so I left it there.

In the UK there is a culture of saving an object until it is used up and worn out (post WWI and WWII Thrifters). I am surprised that they are still able to find so many items from that era.

I understand some of the utility of this type of lifestyle. My primary sewing machine is a 1938 Singer treadle. Appliances aren't made today like they used to - my Singer can sew anything from thin apparel fabric to leather, while my electric machine struggles with denim.

There are downsides though. I hated my mom's wringer washer growing up.

When we got married, we were gifted a chest freezer that was almost 20 years old at the time. We got another 20+ years out it. Thing just wouldn't die. Meanwhile, the most expensive appliance I ever bought last less than five years.

So basically......they live like most of us did in our childhood??

My 3 slice automatic Toastmaster made in the 1950s just quit working. (We got it new in box a year or two ago.)

I think we’ve talked about the short life span of digital appliances before. They simply do not last as long as the analog old school.

Alternatively I would not want to wear the shoes from that era. Several hours standing or walking was uncomfortable even when the shoes fit properly.