Back to the 50's, no thanks!

Six days of school and girls-only? I am so happy to live in 2018.

My grandmothers official name is Elisabeth, but everyone calls her Lisette. She was born in 1942, in the midst of the second World War. So the first three years of her life weren’t that easy. She was the youngest of two sisters. Her father sold newspapers while her mother took care of the kids. In their free time they kept vegetables and fruit. My grandmother had to help her parents picking fruit and vegetables on the field.

Until my grandmother went to secondary school, she ate 4 times a day. They ate in the morning, at noon, at 4 o’clock and in the evening. For breakfast they had bread with ham, cheese or salami. At noon she went home to have a hot meal and at 4 o’clock she ate bread with chocolate at school. In the evening, she had a bread meal again. In the evening she usually had pudding or something else with bread.

When she started going to secondary school, they just had three meals a day, like we do now.

At school, there were only girls, no boys. And they didn’t have a gymnasium like we have. They did their gym exercises just next to their school desks or outside. While their school days were structured in a similar way as ours, they had a different week schedule.

They had to go to school on Saturday morning. On Wednesday, they had a full day of class, but Thursday was a half day in those days.  They also didn’t have the same holidays as we have now. Our summer holiday is from the 1st of July until the 1st of September.  When my grandmother went to school, it was from the 15th of July untill the 15th of September. They also didn’t have a spring break or autumn break but they had a couple of free days like the 8th of May and the 15th of November.

Later, my grandmother studied to become a math teacher. She stopped working when she got her third child. But she wasn’t lazy. Next to taking care of my father, my aunt and my uncle, she started doing a lot of volunteer work.  She still does the voluntary work with a big smile! She also helps her nine grandchildren a lot with math or other things from school.