[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by LovesZenith

I asked her today about that, and the story was pretty interesting. In 1951, they had two kids (Joe, b. 1945, and Geraldine, b. 1946), and another baby on the way. They didn't have much, as my grandfather at the time was struggling to keep a job. (He had problems with alcoholism, leading to his premature death at 60 in 1985). His brother was an apprentice electrician, and did the wiring himself. My grandmother took me around the house, showing me all the lights with pull chains. The lights were all slightly different, something I've never noticed, but they were all painted to match. She told me, since they were tight on money, that they got the fixtures (3) from a building that the brother's boss was called to inspect before it was torn down. The building was built in 1891, and wired in 1916. So, the brother was free to take the fixtures after they had removed them to demolish the building. Therefore, they had salvage light fixtures, (already out of date in 1951) and they were just included in the wiring of the house.

I knew, there had to be a reason for that wiring installation. In the big cities, any newly built home, had to be built, wired, plumbed by licensed contractors and inspected before occupancy. There were minimum standards, that had to be met.