Talking with Grandma O

Rachel Webster

Doris Overton

83 years old

Grandmother

Sound Recording:

Sound was played on a thing called a Victrola. Doris told me that in order to get sound you had to turn it with your hand. As if cranking it. The Victrola could be found in the living room. (When I asked her if it was located in a family room of some sort she informed me that people didn’t have things like that back then. It was funny because I meant a living room, but the term family room meant something different to her.) Frank Sinatra was a big recording artist and almost everyone knows him. It was fun to listen to records and music, but you were considered extremely lucky if you got to go see someone live. There were only a select few artists who were popular, so everyone essentially listened to the same thing.

Radio:

Music became more public and mainstream when people got radios in their homes. Funny comedy talk shows were highly popular and music became more diverse. You could hear new bands and artists. Radio made a lot of people famous simply because it was the only form of entertainment for a while. Baseball games were always fun to listen to.

Television:

1956 was when my grandma got her first TV. She was just starting a family and this was an essential to any home. Television changed how the family dynamic went. Often you would find your family eating around the TV watching their favorite sitcom. Some popular ones were I love Lucy and Dick Clark’s dance show. She said mainly the TV seemed to target toward the children and teenagers. Shows that were on back in the day were “wholesome” and not “filthy”. Everything was a little bit simpler and not many provocative things ever got talked about, especially for the whole world to see.

Movies:

As soon as I brought up movies my grandma got very excited. This was the form of entertainment that she said was the best. Everyone went to the movies because tickets were $.10. Movies were absolutely hilarious. Because people had to rely on their actions a lot she said the actors were more talented and well rounded. As sound became important, in order to be in movies you had to be able to sing and dance and also look good. Shirley Temple and Charlie Chaplin were big names that came up in the conversation and most people know them now. Gone With The Wind (My grandma told me, I simply must watch it because it is the best movie of all time) said that this movie was the start of a revolution. Not only did someone say a curse word but also there were “colored” people that got fame from the movie. It was a wonderful tale about life in the south.

My Grandma O told me to put at the end of this that although she may not remember a lot of things she tried.

🙂