Behind my kitchen chair sits a gorgeous behemoth that is basically silent. Its color is an iridescent white and it possesses two polished chrome handles. Among the upper crust, it goes by the name of a refrigerator. It has always seemed to me that “frigerator” would get the message across but this device insists upon being called a refrigerator. I suspect that no new kitchens in this country are without refrigerators. But that was not always the case.
The Carr family had no refrigerator until about 1936 or 1937. For all the years prior to that time, our needs in the refrigerator business were accommodated by an icebox. For those rare individuals who do not understand the workings of an icebox, it was simply a device with an insulated box at the top in which ice would be placed. The rest of the groceries were placed below the ice on shelving on the theory that as ice melts, vapors go downward as distinguished from upward.
The ice in the top of the icebox had to be replaced periodically, on the order of every other day. To facilitate this end, there was a card given to each owner of an icebox with numbers across each of the four sides. If the card was placed in one position, the card would read “25 pounds” at the top. Turned on its side, the card would read “50 pounds.” Turned once more, the card would read “75 pounds” and, finally, if the card were turned once more, it would read “100 pounds.” The card was to be placed in the front window of the residence so that it could be seen by the iceman as he drove down the street.
Most of the customers in the St. Louis area were served by the Polar Wave Ice and Coal Company. The icemen drove flatbed trucks with stakes that prevented the ice from scooting off into the street. In the morning, the deliverymen would go to the ice factory of Polar Wave and take their load of ice for the day. It was covered by a tarpaulin which seemed to protect the ice from melting, even in the torrid summers of St. Louis.
The iceman had two basic tools at his disposal. First there was an ice pick that he used to chip away at the ice so that the proper size could be delivered to the residents who had ordered it through their sign in the front window. The other tool he had was a set of tongs that he used to carry the ice in one of his hands if that was his pleasure. I have observed icemen for a number of years and it seems to me that, according to my memory, most of them had a burlap sack over their right shoulder and would use the tongs to take the ice off of the flatbed truck and place it upon their shoulder. I cannot believe that carrying ice that weighed as much as 75 pounds on the shoulder would be beneficial to the health of the icemen. But that was their job and in the Depression they were grateful to have employment.
At this point it should be noted that our esteemed and treasured friend, Frances Licht, reports that her father was an iceman when he came to this country. After a time, he gave up carrying ice up the long stairs for delivery in tenement houses and elected to become a baker. His name was Kaplan and I think it showed good sense for him to get out of the ice carrying business and enter the baking business.
We did not live in a tenement in Missouri. We lived in an individual house that had about a 75-foot driveway. Near the end of the driveway, if one made a left-hand turn, he would encounter about four or five steps that took him to the pantry of the Carr home. In the pantry stood the icebox. A hole had been drilled through the floor of the pantry so that as the ice melted, the water that resulted splashed onto this unpaved piece of the property. Getting 50 pounds of ice from the street, up the driveway and then up the stairs and into the icebox must have taken a great deal of muscle from our iceman, who worked for the Polar Wave Company. I have never given much thought to how hard the icemen must have worked. In retrospect, they deserve our respect for making life a little easier in the depths of the 1929 Depression.
Somewhere along the line as an enormous concession to our decadence, the Carr family was introduced to iced tea. Iced tea was a big drain on the family budget because to make it required chipping away at the ice in the icebox. This would mean that new ice would have to be bought or else the groceries in the icebox would be unrefrigerated. From time to time, we enjoyed the delicious treat of having iced tea. Curiously, some 75 years later, I still enjoy iced tea and I drink it in every season of the year. I suspect that it is iced tea that has preserved my long life as a senior citizen.
In reciting this piece of American history, I do so with no nostalgia whatsoever. The use of iceboxes was primitive. It merely meant that things were kept a little cooler than they would ordinarily be in the hot weather of St. Louis. And I am here to tell you that if anyone yearns for the good old days, he is more than welcome to them. For me, I am delighted with my Whirlpool refrigerator and have been for many years.
I said earlier that the Whirlpool was basically silent. But that comes with a caveat. If someone trips the icemaker to spew ice into glasses, the Whirlpool makes one hell of a racket. But that is a small price to pay for the convenience of having the Whirlpool at my beck and call. I can assure you that it is significantly better than having to chip away at the recently delivered ice to put in the iced tea glasses. This country and, I suppose, every civilized country has made a great move in providing refrigerants for those items that need refrigeration. From my own experience, I can tell you that the refrigerator is significantly better than any icebox that was ever invented.
Now let us deal for a minute with the Polar Wave organization. Its full name was the Polar Wave Ice and Coal Company. In the summer, they delivered ice to our houses and, in the winter, they delivered coal. The same men delivered the ice as delivered the coal. That was another test of the endurance of the truck drivers. Under our front porch was a large bin where coal would be placed. There was an opening at the side of the house where a chute could be placed that would permit the delivery of coal from the trucks that brought it to our home. The trucks would be backed into the driveway and the chute would be attached to the opening in the truck, the other end being placed in the bin which could be opened for coal delivery. Fortunately, by the time I came along, coal trucks could be tilted to the side, so a five-ton load of coal would be backed up into the driveway, the chute would be attached, and the driver would tilt the truck bed and the coal theoretically would fall into the chute and then into our coal bin. It never worked perfectly, of course, and the driver had to make sure that the chute was relatively clear or else the coal would be backed up into his truck. This was a messy operation, with coal chips to be found on the lawn after the truck had departed.
Curiously, I find that the Polar Wave Company is still in existence. They don’t deliver ice any more, nor do they bring coal to a house. Somehow they have made the transition to refrigeration and to the delivery of oil and/or natural gas. As I said in the beginning, buying ice and coal from the Polar Wave Company aroused absolutely no interest in terms of nostalgia. It simply aroused a thought that tells us that life is easier today than it was 75 years ago.
That is my story on refrigeration, heating, and the Polar Wave Ice and Coal Company. I regret having to deal with iceboxes and I regret having to deal with coal furnaces. Furnaces have to be shaken and the ashes scooped out and the ashes delivered to a place that accommodates a walk. In my case, we lived about half a mile from the nearest streetcar stop. It was my job to carry the ashes out and spread them in such a fashion as to constitute a path. I will tell you again that carrying those ashes out was not a pleasurable encounter.
Now that I have recited my encounters with refrigeration and heating, I find that the experience was not an exhilarating one. It is simply a piece of how life used to be lived in this country. I hope that those who chance to read this story will give full appreciation to such men as Mr. Kaplan, who lugged 50 pounds of ice up the steps to a fourth-flour apartment in a tenement. Boys, that is not easy work. And so I leave you with the thought that this experience with how things used to be may be enlightening. Perhaps that is about all an old-timer can do. I am greatly pleased at being able to recite this history but I find it unexhilarating. And so I suggest that we leave things right where the matter comes to a rest.
E. E. CARR
February 1, 2010
Essay 435
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Kevin’s commentary: With this essay, we wrap up 2010 in Ezra’s Essays. As far as I know, we are now free and clear to move onto 2009, where I think I will go in chronological order. 2013 is posted as it arrives, 2012 was posted in thematic groups, 2011 was posted utterly haphazardly, and 2010 was posted roughly alphabetically. This one concludes the year mainly because it was a corrupted file and it took me some time to recover to working order, so naturally I procrastinated on doing this for as long as possible.
With regard to the content of this essay itself, I’m forced to wonder if my grandkids will enjoy a life that is as proportionately easier than mine as mine is to Pop’s. I’m not sure how that will be possible but I guess if I could predict such an advancement I could make myself rich by patenting and inventing it. Nevertheless I think that at time of press, I have it pretty easy here in 2013 but still I hope that this statement sounds absurd when and if it is read seventy years from now.
The other noteworthy thing here is that this essay touched on depression times, which means in back to back essays, so far as publication on the site goes, we’ve forayed into 2/3rds of Ezra’s taboo subjects, which is a little neat. In my opinion the remaining 1/3 isn’t nearly as interesting anyway, so I consider this a great week in the history of the site.