Old Ice Cream Freezer Advertisement

15-year-old Helena wrote a hundred years ago today:

Sunday, January 22, 1911. Went to Sunday school and church this morning. Made ice cream. That is my sister made it and I assisted. I got the ice. Besse and Curt came out this evening. Just when Ruth and I were having a little spat all to ourselves.

 Her middle-aged grand-daughter’s comments 100 years later:

Grandma’s oldest sister Besse was married to Curt Hester, a butcher in Watsontown. My father can remember Curt and Besse working in the butcher shop

Today we think of ice cream as a warm weather food—but I guess in the days before refrigeration that maybe it was a cold weather food. It would have been easier to get the ice needed to make ice cream during the winter months.

I wonder what Grandma and her sister Ruth had a ‘spat’ was about.  Maybe Grandma wanted to make the ice cream rather than assist .

Where did Grandma get the ice?  Warrior Run Creek flows near the house, so maybe she gathered frozen chunks that were near the creek bank. .  . or maybe there was ice on the cattle watering troughs . . . or maybe had they set pans and buckets filled with water out to freeze the previous day . . .