Thursday, February 20, 2014

My Grandma's Diary Part Two


Three weeks ago I posted one weeks’ worth of entries from my Grandmothers diaries seventy-five years ago.  I promised to pass along what I thought I could learn from her daily life.

From these few entries I found of her love for, Lux Radio Theatre and playing cards. Her daily life was full of work and hobbies but for this blog I will consider only her radio listening and card playing.

What was Lux Radio Theatre?

By going to this site - https://archive.org/details/Lux03 - I was able to find and listen to the same programs my grandma listened to when she was younger than my oldest child—pretty cool!

Card Playing

In the day and age my grandma was out and about and active, mostly in groups they simply referred to as club. The game of choice was often Pitch.

Why Pitch? It is fast paced, often with winners moving from table to table. Score could be kept by who wins at the last table or an overall accumulation of points throughout the night. Six point or seven point pitch was popular but later gave way to ten point. Both of these games were played with partners. If the game was individual it was four point.

For being high point for the night a small prize was always awarded. In my grandmas diaries she often went to club even when it was snowing and below zero. It was a good chance to catch up on the local news and gossip, get together with other women and best of all, win a prize.

As for men and card games of the day, they like the women, played pitch and playing in groups with husbands and wives was a popular entertainment for many years. But men sitting down to play cards, it often was played with only two men, the game of choice? Cribbage.

 

2 comments:

Oscar Case said...

Around our house in my childhood, the card game was either poker or 500 rummy.

Neil A. Waring said...

I know they played some versions of rummy also, not sure which version. I think those times might have been pretty good times.