Picking Daisies: Green Stamps & Dishes in Detergent

60s Grocery Store Ad

Back when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's, we didn't have two nickels to rub together most of the time (as the saying goes). The odd thing about childhood and memories is that I never realized that we, like everyone in our countryside community, had to save money any way we could. Somehow Mom and Dad always made do, and we had everything we needed and most of the things we wanted. I remember it as a happy time... a carefree time.... and things just were the way that they were. Mom was a "stay at home Mom" (like the vast majority of housewives in our rural area in those days) and would make our clothes, cooked, cleaned, planted the flower gardens, helped out at the church, and did all sorts of crafty things. Dad went to work every weekday, grew a garden every year, and was "handy" around the house when it came to fixing just about anything. I was the oldest, so I got the new dress that Momma made, and then my sister wore the hand-me-downs (she got new homemade outfits sometimes too, but was the chief benefactor of all the hand-me-downs). Old clothes were used for things like quilts and rag rugs (after the buttons were cut off and saved, of course). Nothing was wasted. We just made do with what we had, and were happy in the doing of it. We were just like everyone else we knew… wages were low, compared to today's standards, but then so were the prices of things. Still, no one had "extra", so we got by best we could. Fortunately, there were ways to be savin' about things back in those days. Merchants even used the mind-set and way of life to bring people into their businesses... using marketing campaigns designed especially to entice those who had very little money to spend.

Everyone saved S&H Green Stamps when I was growin' up. The stamps came from the grocery stores, gas stations, and department stores, in exchange for buying groceries, gas or merchandise there (so says Wikipedia…. I only remember getting them at the grocery store). It was often my job to put the stamps in the collector's book (about the size of a checkbook with boxes on each page for placement of stamps).It was often my job to put the stamps in the collector's book (about the size of a checkbook with boxes on each page for placement of stamps). I can still remember how the glue on the back of the stamps tasted when I'd lick 'em and stick 'em. (UCK!) Once you saved up multiple books of stamps, you could cash them in for household goods of one sort or another at the Green Stamp Store, or through the catalog (that was as commonly found in a home as the phone book).

Mom and Dad once got a square card table with a dark green oil cloth covering on the top, along with four matching folding chairs from Green Stamps we saved. That card table was used a lot. It came out every time we had a family gathering… the men folk would sit around it and play Rook (our family's favorite card game) after the meal was served, while the women folk cleaned up the dishes in the kitchen. That card table came out every New Year's Eve and held a jigsaw puzzle that we'd put together while we watched TV and waited for the ball to drop on Time Square. It was brought out when we needed a few more places for people to sit when we had company over for meals.

Green Stamps weren't the only thing that was collected though. Many products came with things like dishes, glasses and/or silverware if you bought their brand over any of the others. Skippy Peanut butter and Welch's Jelly often came in decorative "jars" that could be used as glasses once they were emptied and cleaned. Sometimes they were fancy cut glass stemware, and other times they had cartoon characters printed on them (for the kids). If you were lucky, you could find the milk glass ones… always one of my favs. Glasses and dishes of all sorts came in things like powdered laundry detergent (Duz and Fab were two that put dishes in theirs). It was very likely that you remember seeing some of the wheat pattern dishes in kitchens you were in growing up. Glasses of all sizes came in Quaker Oatmeal boxes depending on whether you got the big box or the smaller box. At my Grandmother's pharmacy, Tar Heel Drugs, if you bought a certain amount of medicine there, you could get silverware. She ended up collecting enough to give each granddaughter a set of silverware when they got married. The products were always something you'd be buying anyway (peanut butter, jelly, laundry detergent, etc.), so the glasses and dishes were just incentive to buy that brand over another.

I still have some of the cut glass looking glasses, and the silverware Grandmother got me. I remember seeing the wheat pattern dishes in Grandmother's dishes. The oatmeal box glasses were a smokey color, and a few are still around in our kitchen cabinets today. They hold memories as much as they are a practical item to have around.

I think back to those times and can't help but think how horrified people today would be to open a box of oatmeal and find a glass in it. Even if the glass wasn't broken (and I never remember that we found broken dishes or glasses in those things) would they dare to use the product. We've become too sanitized in our thinking and expectations, compared to back in the day. Back then, we were just glad to find ways to save money. If something was being offered along with products we would normally buy anyway, then it was a win-win. It was a different mind-set back then. It was a harder time, but a kinder time. It's no wonder we get lost in nostalgia, wishing to go back instead of forward, sometimes.

(Keep scrolling for a few more pictures of the dishes, glasses, and stamps of that era.)