Lifestyle Changes in the Fifties: ACs and TVs

A happy 1950s housewife with air conditioning. (Photo from Internet)

Two technological advances that changed life in the 1950s were air conditioners and television. In the beginning of that decade, almost no one had air conditioners. Houses were hot places during the hot summers, and after our family had eaten supper, we went outside to catch the evening breezes, and our neighbors did the same. We lived across the street from the Bowens, old people who sat in chairs on their porch and always waved when we came out. We kids ran around and played while our parents sat in lawn chairs and talked. Many people went for walks in the evening. When they came by our yard, they would greet my parents and sometimes stop to talk for a few minutes before continuing on their way. When it got dark, we’d go back inside and often listen to the radio programs while our parents did things with their eyes and hands, such as my mother knitting or sewing, or my daddy fixing something or other. At other times, they read newspapers or magazines and talked to us kids.

On hot summer nights—and there were plenty of those in the drought years of the early fifties—we kids slept under the stars out in the back yard. We had a roll-away bed and cot that we kept in the garage and brought out at bedtime. My younger brother and I slept on the roll-away bed, and my older brother on the cot. It was much cooler outside at night and actually got chilly in the early mornings. At some point during the night, we would get under the cover, which we’d ignored when we went to bed. Our dogs, sometimes we had one and sometimes two, had learned not to bother us while we were sleeping, but our cats—we usually had about three—came around at times during the night for naps on the bed with us.

Me and my brother David in the back yard, about 1953.

My brothers and I wore as few clothes as possible during the summer. We didn’t wear shirts and ran around barefooted except on Sunday mornings, when we went to Sunday school and church. We slept in our briefs, and in the mornings when we woke up, we slipped on a pair of shorts and were ready for the day, often not going into the house until our mother called us in for breakfast. Since kids ran around loose in those days, we were often awakened by one of our friends who was already up and had come around to play or ride bicycles.

When I was about nine years old, my dad bought an evaporative cooler and put it in one of the north windows in the living room so it would be in the shade on hot summer days. These early air conditioners, also known as “swamp coolers” with “squirrel cages” worked by evaporating the water that dripped down through the shredded wood pads lining the walls of the air conditioner box and blowing the resulting cool air into the house. In order to save on electricity, my mother turned it on only when the temperature reached 100°F outside. She would close all the living room windows and doors so that it cooled off just that room. We kids could go in there only if we sat in front of the air conditioner to cool off. No toys or running around were allowed, so we usually didn’t stay in there long before going back outside.

Over time, though, air conditioners came to be used more and more, especially when the compressor types got cheap enough to buy and run. The result was that people didn’t sit out as much in the evenings and so did less visiting with neighbors and passersby—or enjoying the sky with its sunset and coming of the stars.

Happiness was a TV set in the living room. (Photo from Internet)

Television had much the same effect. Although TV was becoming common in the cities as early as 1949 or 1950, it was unknown in west Texas because there were no broadcast stations in the area until KRBC-TV began in late 1953.  The first television set in Roscoe was at Medlock’s Furniture store, which also had them for sale. It was placed in one of the show windows and turned on, and in the evenings a crowd would gather on the sidewalk outside to watch this wondrous new invention. People often stood there for an hour or more watching programs like “I Love Lucy” or “The Honeymooners” with Jackie Gleason.

At first, TV sets were too expensive for most people to afford, costing about $500, which was more like $5000 in today’s money. They had small black and white screens and came in a large console with many tubes in the back that had to be replaced when they burned out. They also required a large TV antenna on the roof of the house, so it was easy to see who had TVs and who didn’t.  Although the knob on the set had settings for twelve normal channels and one UV, the only channel available in this area was channel 9, KRBC-TV. It didn’t really matter to anyone, though. TV was such a novelty that most people would watch whatever was on. Broadcasting started in the morning at six or six-thirty and closed at ten-thirty at night. If you got up in the morning before broadcasting began, you would sometimes sit and watch the test pattern until it did. In the evenings, you didn’t turn the TV off until you listened to the national anthem while watching a waving flag and fighter jets fly in formation.

One of the first TVs in town was in the Boys Club hall, which was in the back of the City Hall building. It had comparatively excellent reception because its antenna was placed atop a telephone pole behind the hall and was larger and a lot higher than the ones on houses. On Saturday afternoons in the summer, the baseball “Game of the Week” was broadcast, and old men would come around and sit in the metal lawn chairs placed in a semi-circle before the TV. Along with the kids, a dozen people or more might be there watching and commenting on the game, no matter which teams were playing. And during the World Series, the crowds were even larger, and we all basked in the wonder that such a thing was even possible and we could watch it for free.

Watching television when there was only one channel—or even later when KPAR-TV, channel 12, began broadcasting in 1956—was a shared community experience even for those who were watching in their homes. Not only was the entire family gathered around the television, but the next day at school or work, one of the main topics of conversation would be the programs that had been on TV the night before since everyone was watching the same ones.  Favorites were "Gunsmoke,” “Have Gun Will Travel,” “Life of Riley,” “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “Dragnet,” “Wrestling from Chicago,” and others. On Saturday mornings, kids watched “Howdy Doody,” “The Lone Ranger,” “Superman,” “Lassie,” “The Little Rascals,” and “Mr. Wizard.”

There was also a lot of local programming with many shows emanating from the studios in Abilene. One of these was “The Slim Willet Show,” brought to you by Western Chevrolet. Slim Willet was an Abilene disc jockey who was also a country singer. He became famous with two hits, “Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes” and “Tool Pusher from Snyder.” Every week he would tell jokes, sing a couple of songs with his band, and showcase local talent. Another local show was “On the Farm” with Harry Holt, who always talked about area farming and ranching conditions.  Another was “Cooking with Virginia,” which came on in the mornings. Virginia also occasionally showcased local talent and once invited the Roscoe Boys Club trampoline team to be on her show. As one of its performers, I felt very privileged to see first-hand what the TV studio looked like and how the shows were made. Later on, when KPAR-TV had their studios outside Sweetwater, we also performed on a March of Dimes Telethon and got to see what their studio was like.

As in other small towns all over Texas, television killed the local movie theaters. I don’t remember when the Joy Theater finally closed its doors, but it was only two or three years after the TV broadcasts began. The drive-in theaters, such as the Midway, between Roscoe and Sweetwater, hung on longer than that, but eventually, they too closed down for lack of customers. Television also had the effect of keeping people inside their own homes in the evenings, and, as more channels became available in the 1960s, this effect became even more pronounced. Even community social gatherings like church or the baseball games saw attendances steadily fall as time went on.  

In the early and mid fifties, pro football games were available only on the radio because they were played on Sundays and were therefore considered somewhat scandalous for being on the Sabbath. I think it was 1958 before they regularly played on television in west Texas and other places. However, after Texas got the Dallas Cowboys in 1960, that all changed, and preachers soon learned to have the morning service over by twelve o’clock in the fall so people could get home in time to watch the Cowboys game.

In short, air conditioning and television were both rightfully hailed in the fifties as great technological innovations that improved people’s lives, but in doing so they also diminished the social life of the community and, over time, increased the isolation of families from their neighbors and from nature itself.

Editor's note: The original version of this article ran in the February 22, 2017 Roscoe Hard Times.

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GIRLS' SUMMER BASKETBALL GAMES END THIS WEEK

Roscoe's girls' basketball teams will conclude their summer basketball games on Monday and Tuesday. Here’s the final schedule.

 All games will be played at Snyder Junior High.

Monday, June 28th, High School Division
Gym 1- Junior High                                Gym 2- Junior High    
4:45     Roscoe JV vs Post JV                 Blackwell V vs Highland V
5:30     Post V vs Hermleigh V              Snyder JV vs Roscoe 9th
6:15     Rotan V vs Blackwell V              Post JV vs Roscoe 9th  
7:00    Borden Cty JV vs Ira JV            Roscoe V vs Snyder V
7:45     Ira JV vs Roscoe JV                   Borden County V vs Post V
8:30     Snyder V vs Hermleigh V         Rotan V vs Ira V          
9:15     Roscoe V vs Borden Cty V         Highland V vs Ira V    

Tuesday, June 29th, Junior High Division
Gym 1- Junior High                              Gym 2- Junior High
5:00   Borden Cty JH vs Roscoe 7th   Snyder JH vs Ira JH
6:00   Snyder JH vs Roscoe 8th          S'water JH vs Hermleigh JH
7:00   Ira JH vs Hermleigh JH            Rotan JH vs Roscoe 7th
8:00  Hermleigh JH vs Highland JH Borden Cty JH vs S'water JH
9:00   Borden Cty JH vs Roscoe 8th   Highland JH vs Snyder JH      

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WEATHER REPORT: SUMMER ARRIVES

Summer sky.

We’ve been getting summer heat for the past couple of weeks, but summer didn’t officially arrive until Father’s Day on Sunday. The exact moment was 6:32pm CDT. That’s when the sun reached its farthest northern point in the northern hemisphere. It was also the longest day of the year from sunrise to sunset. Here in Roscoe, the sun rose at 6:35am and set at 8:52pm, so we had 14 hours, 16 minutes, and 51 seconds of sunshine that day. So, since Sunday, the days are now getting shorter.

Sunday was also the hottest day of the week, reaching 101°F that afternoon. It followed several days when the high temperatures reached 96° or 97°. However, on Monday afternoon a norther blew in with strong winds, dropping temperatures into the seventies for a couple of hours before climbing back to 87° later that afternoon. Yesterday felt hot and sticky although the temperature never got above 91°, as humidity and lack of wind played a part.

There was no rain this past week, so the farmers who didn’t already have their cotton planted probably do now. Conditions are good for a good start this year with plenty of deep moisture from the rains we’ve had since the last week of April.

The forecast is for continued heat for the rest of this week with clear or partly cloudy skies. The high should reach 99° today and 98° tomorrow and Friday. Saturday’s high will be only slightly lower at 95°, and nightly lows should be in the low seventies.

Scattered showers are possible starting early Sunday morning as a cold front moves through. Forecasters are currently giving us a 36% chance of rain during the day on Sunday, 42% Sunday night, and falling to 30% on Monday.  

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† RETA LOU (HANES) COOPER

A funeral service for Reta Cooper, 92, of Roscoe was held yesterday, June 22, at First United Methodist Church with Pastor Doug Downs officiating. Interment followed at Roscoe Cemetery directed by McCoy Funeral Home. She went to be with Lord and Savior on Tuesday, June 15, at Ascension Seton Highland Lakes Hospital in Burnet, Texas. Family members were present at her bedside, praying and singing her favorite hymns.

Reta Cooper and her twin sister Reba Kidd were born in Roscoe on January 11, 1929, to the late Grover and Louella Hanes. She married Weldon Cooper on July 25, 1953. Reta and Weldon lived in Roscoe most of their lives, raising four daughters. They were members of Roscoe First United Methodist Church. Reta was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Family was extremely important to her. She devoted her life to caring for her family.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Grover and Louella Hanes, and her husband, Weldon Cooper, and his parents, Herbert and Hattie Cooper. She is also preceded in death by two of her children, Jimmy Lawson Cooper and Rebecca Cooper Morgan, as well as her siblings Jewell Michael, Grover Morris Hanes, and John Hanes.

She is survived by her twin sister, Reba Kidd, and three daughters, Cynthia Duncan of Sweetwater, Janice Harris of Davenport, Florida, and Debbie Downs and husband Doug of Burnet. She is also survived by eight grandchildren, Luke Downs, Sarah Gutierre, Dustin Harris, Anne Parrish, Tyler Morgan, Bryce Morgan, Luke Morgan, and Rachel Morgan; and six great-grandchildren, Alianne, Chaska, Nabi, Isaac, and Mateo Downs. She met her newest great-granddaughter, Bailey Gutierre, before her passing.

Reta was truly the matriarch of her family. She leaves behind many beloved family members and friends. She will be deeply missed by everyone. She was filled with child-like faith. God received his angel home on June 15, 2021. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Pallbearers were Luke Downs, Dustin Harris, Tyler Morgan, Bryce Morgan, Charles Morgan and Albert Solis.

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