Do you Remember ?

[DEACONLLB]

Couple weeks ago I was in our local wal-Mart shopping and I needed some pure Vanilla and looking in the spice section I ran across Watkin's pure Vanilla, Had not seen that product in years. Years ago there were Watkins sales men that came around the neighbor hood in a peddling truck with all the Watkins products and they were quality products. I did buy a bottle of pure Vanilla and it is still a great product. They also sold a Salve that was good for about everything that came along.

Deaconllb

[ironglows]

.
  OH yes; "the Watkins man"...I remember him well !  I can still recall Mr Bement !  The crazy thing was, that he looked very much like the picture of Mr Watkins, which was printed on many of their products.

   So, as a little kid, I thought when he came around, i was greeting directly with the man whose made the stuff !

  Watkins liniment for one, was popular long after the rural routes had vanished. 

   I find, after a short search...that apparently, some Watkins products are still available..on line or through Amazon.

  https://www.luckyvitamin.com/p-108424-jr-watkins-naturals-apothecary-pain-relieving-liniment-11-fl-oz?utm_campaign=NewCustomer&gclid=CjwKCAjwuIWHBhBDEiwACXQYsbVzPJ2tanVv2yk3MietzgyrM7pZWowOCVFSoGPaLBb255G8Krf9VBoCSGYQAvD_BwE

 Baking stuff too!   https://www.watkins1868.com/Extracts.aspx

[DDZ]

I was just looking for vanilla not long ago and was having trouble finding some that didn't cost a fortune. Almost ordered Watkins brand online, but ended up finding McCormick brand at a local store.

[ulav8r]

Menards also carries Watkins products.

Mother bought the vanilla and a few other products a few times.  Don't remember the salesman for sure, but I think it was Pinky Poole.  He lived about a mile and a half away, next to one of mother's aunts.

[Graybeard]

You guys must have lived in cities growing up. The only thing we had folks delivering in the days of my youth were milk and ice. Peddlers came around selling fruits, veggies and melons and the scrap iron man came around on his horse drawn wagon.

[Ranger99]

Not during my generation,  my parents
lived in the sticks in the no- utilities
times, and had what my granny called
peddlers that stopped at the different
farms and traded household goods for
fresh farm goods, eggs, chickens, butter,
fresh vegetables, etc.
They didn't sell any perishable food items.
Only dry goods and household things
and things like matches, sewing needles,
buttons for clothing, lamp wicks, etc.
I don't know and none of them remembered
whether or not the man was a Watkins
representative or not.

I have quite a few Watkins products here
myself, flavorings and extracts, and a tin
of Petro Carbo Medicated First Aid
Salve.  It's probably the best thing I've ever
used for scrapes and abrasions, and is
the finest thing I've ever used for scratches
from cutting briars and vines. After washing
off good, apply the salve to the scratched
up area, and it'll be healed in a day or so

[Ranger99]

McNess was the other peddler
that I was trying to remember
besides Watkins

[Ranger99]

The wally world grocery stores
around here have all sold the
Watkins brand extracts for some
time, but the salves and such are
kind of scarce. You have to find
a Watkins dealer, like an Avon
dealer

[ironglows]

You guys must have lived in cities growing up. The only thing we had folks delivering in the days of my youth were milk and ice. Peddlers came around selling fruits, veggies and melons and the scrap iron man came around on his horse drawn wagon.

  No..not really.  I lived country for sure.  We didn't have milk and ice peddlers, because manyhad at least one cow..or could swap for or buy milk from the neighbors.

  Ice..before we had a refrigerator..where I live, we have half the year as a natural refrigerator, and  "made do" the rest the rest of the year.  Some neighbors had quite cold "spring houses" where they got their water from.  They were good for keeping butter, cheese etc.

   Meat was either canned, smoked or salted...my folks did all three, as did many local farmers.

  First refrigerator the folks got was a Servel (brand) gas refrigerator..what a marvel that was to we kids !

[DEACONLLB]

I have mothers old flat irons, she would heat on the stove or in the fire place Then Colman came out with a white gas fired iron I still remember it was chrome and green had a very small tank behind the handle. I also have her old oil lamps.

Deaconllb

[ironglows]

.
  I am presently passing much of my Blacksmithing work and gear to a grandson.  I dug out some old steel trays containing chisels etc.  In one tray, I found 2 of those old almond-shaped irons, that were made to heat on the wood stove..and one could switch handles when ready.

[Bob Riebe]

Up here you can still see Watkins sales people at County Fairs, Threshing/Farm shows and Flea Markets.
They usually carry the full line.

[DEACONLLB]

I have a couple of those that you switch handles on but no handles, my late wife picked them up at an estate sale.

Deaconllb 

[ironglows]

I have a couple of those that you switch handles on but no handles, my late wife picked them up at an estate sale.

Deaconllb

  That seems to be a common situation..I must have about a half dozen of those old irons around..but no handles.  I suppose the reason being that, while one may have 4-5 irons on the stove, only one handle was needed.

  Then too the handle was composed mostly of wood, they deteriorated faster, when left derelict in a barn or junk pile.

  Somewhere I have an old flat iron with metal handle cast in.  I suppose they used them with a glove.

[Ranger99]

JMHO-  it'd probably be a case of
heirs finding the handle and not
knowing what the handle was for.
I've been given things like that
that were half of something, and
seen old stuff at estate and garage
sales that I could tell an important
part of something was missing, but
whoever was running the sale didn't
know anything about it or what it
was or was used for
I have several things like that now

[oldandslow]

I have mothers old flat irons, she would heat on the stove or in the fire place Then Colman came out with a white gas fired iron I still remember it was chrome and green had a very small tank behind the handle. I also have her old oil lamps.

Deaconllb

We lived out in the sticks when I was growing up. The Watkins man came around regularly and was about the only peddler that did.

I have my mother's irons also. They were known as "sad" irons as she said it made a person sad to use one. I was in third grade before we got electricity and I was almost seven years old when I was able to start school because of not being six when school started on September the first. No allowances made for being close. You either were or weren't and if you were the latter you waited until next year.

I have my parent's kerosene lamps and one was my father's before they married in 1927. My father threw out anything in the house that could be powered by electricity when it became available. What a difference it was from squinting to see with a coal oil lamp, waiting on a kerosene cookstove to heat up, and using it to heat those sad irons. We even got a jet pump so we had water pressure in the house instead of the small amount provided by a tank on a tower.

[ironglows]

.
  We has natural gas lights in one house where we lived.  We kids so often 'horsing around', would break the mantles...  It didn't take much more than a breeze from a passing towel or cardboard, to break them, once they were burned.

    Yes, the light was very dim, compared to incandescent bulbs.

    I recall visiting friends who lit their home with a gas lantern (white gas, pump up variety).  Those were quite bright, but the continuous hissing sound was a bit annoying.

 

[Graybeard]

Never heard of Watkins before this thread.

[Bob Riebe]

  For decades I though Watkins was started in Watkins, Minn. thirty miles from my home town, now I know it was started in Plainview, Minn. way down in South Eastern MInn. 

[DEACONLLB]

Speaking of oil lamps I have one that is like a chandelier. it is on a chain that is hooked to the ceiling and you reach up with a rod with a hook on the end and pull it down to fill with oil the chain is spring loaded so it will go back up has a very decorated glass shade. My mother cooked on a 3 burner oil stove for years had a big glass jar you filled with oil.

Deaconllb

[DEACONLLB]

Bill never heard of Watkins products us older guys are full of things other members have never heard of just ask us but don't start with Bull,

Deaconllb

[Bob Riebe]

Bill never heard of Watkins products us older guys are full of things other members have never heard of just ask us but don't start with Bull,
Deaconllb

In an odd similarity, the other half's niece put on a celebration this week-end and many really liked her baked cake; she went on to say it was due to she found through a magazine article White Lily Flour.
Others ooed and ahhed about how do you get it as they never heard of it and she said she got it on-line but it was not cheap with shipping.

I told her come down to Gopher Bargain Store in St.Cloud, Minn. (120 miles south but before Corona BS, she drove there on the way to work at least once a week)  they have a lot of it for half the price you pay online.
At that Gopher has a LOT of products I had never heard of because they buy out grocery stores from coast-to-coast, but if one really likes it . best to buy a goodly amount and store it as once it is gone, tain't no more.

[ironglows]

.
  Lilly may have been different..but I recall as a teenager, when a fellow rented our farm tenant house to a fellow who worked in the Pillsbury mill (with grain silos) in Buffalo.

  He told me that he worked where the bags were filled..  ..Maybe 5,000 bags of Pillsbury, 4,000 bags of Gold Medal and 3,000 bags of Robin Hood... all from the same dispensing chute, made his day.. 

  Speaking of old stuff..who remembers this tool...who used one  (it is laying on it's side in photo)

[Bob Riebe]

It looks similar to a potato planter.

[DEACONLLB]

I would have to second Bobs answer as that is what I was going to say before I read Bobs. I never saw one in person only pictures and then none of them had that other thing on it what ever it is.

Deaconllb

[DEACONLLB]

Ok Here is one for you old timers may have to have lived on a farm to know what it is. You use it to make a great product for the kitchen table.

Deaconllb

[oldandslow]

I can't see it real well but it resembles a potato chip slicer one of my grandmothers had. The other had one that made them with ridges. Basically the same rig, a wooden board with a blade set in it that you slid the potato back and forth over the blade and the slices dropped thru a hole beneath the blade.

[Ranger99]

Ok Here is one for you old timers may have to have lived on a farm to know what it is. You use it to make a great product for the kitchen table.

Deaconllb

Looks like a corn cutter

[mcbammer]

  Just got thru using one  yesterday, got 3 qts . of cream style corn put up in the freezer . 

[ironglows]

.
  Lilly may have been different..but I recall as a teenager, when a fellow rented our farm tenant house to a fellow who worked in the Pillsbury mill (with grain silos) in Buffalo.

  He told me that he worked where the bags were filled..  ..Maybe 5,000 bags of Pillsbury, 4,000 bags of Gold Medal and 3,000 bags of Robin Hood... all from the same dispensing chute, made his day.. 

  Speaking of old stuff..who remembers this tool...who used one  (it is laying on it's side in photo)

  It's a "corn stabber"..  Top is to the left, and you can barely see the handle showing.  Stand up ..corn in can stab bottom "duck bill" into dirt..push forward..2-3 kernels drop from can through duckbill.
   The pad in fron does action as it contacts the ground.
  It is stab, push plant...stab, push ..plant..right along the row.