Generally parents have known their children were gaining weight because they outgrew their clothes. Not all homes used to have bathroom scales to the extent they are common items in many homes now, so parents didn't know exactly how much their children weighed.
If there wasn't a scale in the home, the parents had the option of waiting for a visit to the doctor's office where the nurse had the patients stand on a scale before they were seen by the doctor. The lollipop scales, so named because of their shape, seen in most drug stores in earlier years was an inexpensive way to get weighed as were the fortune telling penny operated scales placed in various places such as movie theaters, grocery stores, and amusement parks.
At a farm store a youngster might have been given a chance to stand on a platform scale used for weighing bags of grain or boxes of other items, and no penny was needed. Some farm kids may remember this exercise of strength and the grimace on their father's face as he lifted the 1940's Hanson hanging scale up with the child clinging tightly to the rope tied onto the link at the bottom of the scale.
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| Very simple outline of the scale my Dad used to weigh me. |
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| White penny weight scale in front of Keystone Inn. |
A link to the past!!
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed!
DeleteBTW your Hydrangea are magnificent!
DeleteThanks, Paul. I like them too.
DeleteI can remember at Woolworth's at the back of the store was a set of scales where for a penny (cent perhaps in the US) you had a record of you weight and a colletable picture on the other side. Needless to say I weighed myself often trying to collect the different sets. One set was of railway steam engines!
ReplyDeleteI can see how a collection of pictures of railway steam engines would have been sought after by a young boy. My son was fascinated by trains when he was young.
DeleteI must join the ranks of the questionable value of being able to remember, in this case, scales non-digital.
ReplyDeleteThe type in front of a store... I mean, what a different world it must have been! "Er honey? when you go in to town to grocery shop, be sure to remember to weigh yourself."
lol
I think weighing oneself at a store BEFORE buying groceries would certainly put a curb on the kind of groceries one bought.
DeleteThanks for such a wonderful glimpse of the past , Pat . Lovely story .
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
Moon
https://aslifehappens60.wordpress.com
Glad you enjoy the glimpse of the past. :-)
DeleteThis was a fun trip down memory land, Pat. While I never had the hanging scale experience, I do remember a time when most homes didn't have a bathroom scale. Weight was checked at visits to the doctor, and then with the advent of school nurses each child was weighed and measured each year, along with a rudimentary eye test involving reading the eye chart hanging on the back of her office door. This was often the first notice would get that their children might be having some reading difficulty in class.
ReplyDeleteI still have some old report cards showing my height and weight on them. It was kind of fun to compare measurements when my children were growing up. Funny, but I don't ever remember my vision being tested until I went to have my eyes examined when I was in high school.
DeleteI always love your tales of lovely things like this. And the mention of Woolworth's in the comments above - what a trip to the past!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed this story from walking back in time.
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