In this post, I’m going to show you an example of what my parents would eat for a school lunch in the early 1960s. They attended rural public schools and all the students brought their own lunches.
Baloney Sandwich
Mom’s school lunches nearly always had a sweet baloney sandwich, with buttered white bread. If lettuce was in season, they would add lettuce. (Since I’m writing this post in January, no lettuce.) “Everyone we knew thought brown bread was terrible.” (By the time my siblings and I went to school, Mom had changed her mind and we got whole wheat bread!)
Dad’s family kept chickens, so he and his eleven brothers and sisters almost always ate cold scrambled eggs sandwiches for school lunches.
Peanut Butter Crackers
Saltine crackers (which Mom’s family called “soda crackers) and peanut butter went in almost every lunch. Some of Mom’s classmates would get crushed chips from a chip factory worker and Mom thought that looked pretty good until she actually tasted the salty crumbs one day and decided peanut butter crackers were better.
Canned Peaches
Dad’s family put canned peaches in their lunches. No Tupperware, so they used baby food jars.
There were no plastic baggies available, so the sandwiches and crackers were wrapped in wax paper. Some families used the wax paper bags from cereal boxes.
Note for the frugal: A 75-foot box of Reynolds wax paper costs $1.62 at Walmart.com. It takes about 16 inches to wrap a sandwich if you make a double fold to seal it. So 75 x 12 = 900, 900/16 = 56.12. $1.62/56.12 = .029 cents (rounded). A box of 200 Ziploc baggies cost $6.48 at Walmart.com, so $6.48/200 = .0324 cents. So, yes, wax paper is cheaper, unless you get the Great Value baggies, which cost $1.57 for 200 sandwich baggies. $1.57/200 = 0.00785 cents!
Since Mom’s family lived on a dairy farm, they usually had chocolate milk to complete the meal. Dad says, “We mostly got water. But one school I attended had white milk and chocolate milk available for a nickel.”
Have a great day! ~ Susan
I rest my case. My children are spoiled.
At least our generation got bananas and Keebler crackers and yogurt.
Hi Susan,
I enjoyed reading your blog.
Oh yes, I remember bologna sandwiches and saltine cracker spread with peanut butter! 🙂
To this day my husband despises packed lunches! They (as children) had dried out bread, spread with apple butter in their school lunches.
Dried out bread with apple butter? Times must have been tougher than the bread.
Thanks for commenting! I’m glad you enjoy my blog.
Hmm. Reminds me of school lunches with Lebanon bologna sandwiches that tasted like bananas. Looking back, I should have put the bananas in zip-lock baggies.
Remember stewed crackers and milk? I remember eating some of those soggy creations. Jolene thinks they were a Depression-era holdover.
Yes, the problem with bananas was that they made the whole lunch smell.
I only had the stewed crackers once or twice. I think Mom and Dad got outvoted on that one.
I can smell the bologna sandwich and the peanut butter crackers – in a rusty (!) lunch box!
Yup, nothing like that lunchbox aroma!