My great grandmother paid her electric bill of 2.28, her East Chicago water bill of 2.10, and her telephone bill of 4.26. Her social security check was about fifty dollars.
Her fire went out and the (hopper?) ran empty and she had to get up early and start the fire herself. Her youngest son stopped by and check the furnace for her. She did a little work around her house, and a Mrs. P. went out and got groceries for her.
She notes that her mother was born on November 4 in 1856, ‘the day James Buchanon was elected.” She spent the day and night with her youngest son and his family (‘those kiddies are wonderful’).
Her social security check came in, and she says on election day there was too much snow, rain and wind to go out (I believe she was in her eighties then), and the Democrats ‘won again which is too bad.’
On another day she said there were such winds and storms off the lake (she lived on the edge of Lake Michigan), that her youngest son had come for lunch (he seems to have done that most days). She notes that furnace is working okay for now, but she is fearful of it’s going bad any day again. “Poor dad. He tho’t he was getting a good furnace.” She also made a ‘sack dress’ that day.
She makes frequent reference to her electric blanket (which she had her son connect and plug in for her) and how wonderful it is not to be cold at night anymore.