Grandma’s Drop-Down Table

In the mid-1950s, my Grandma Austill moved to an apartment in downtown Sikeston, above the Collins Music Store.  I remember taking a set of very steep stairs to reach her apartment.  At the top of the steps, there was an open landing area leading to the several apartments.  Once Grandma opened the door to her two-room, one-bath apartment one was always impressed at how fastidious she kept the two rooms.  She was a second generation German-American, and they believed that cleanness was next to Godliness.  You could not find a speck of dust on her floors. 

The apartment had a room in front where she had her bed, a chest, a chair and table with a lamp and a couple of other things in that space.  Then you went through a small hall with the bathroom on the right and her closet on the left.  She had a tiny kitchen, with a divider between the small stove, refrigerator, and dining area.  The divider was where she kept her dishes.  The dining area was small, a standard table and chairs would not fit into the designated eating area provided because space was only about four feet by five feet in size.  Instead of a standard table, she had a fold-down or drop-down table, and two thin benches, one on each side of the table, where she ate her meals.  The table and two benches worked like a Murphy bed.  You opened double doors of a cabinet.  Inside, the table and two benches were mounted to the kitchen wall.  The legs fit into specials sized wells cut into the back of the cabinet for storage. To use them, you unhook the latches, drop each down to the floor and place each leg on the floor to stabilize the table and benches.  When you are through eating, you do the reverse to put it back into the cabinet. Not once did I ever hear my grandma complain about a lack of space.  She loved the little place she made her home, and I loved visiting her in her unique place with the “special” table for two.  She would have preferred a standard table and chairs, but she never complained about the effort it took to take down and put up the table daily.  She was content staying home; she did not have the drive or need to travel and see the world.

Other than work, church and the grocery store, she rarely went anywhere.  She would have much rather people visit her in her apartment than to go and visit others.  She had no car and walked to work, shopping or to visit my family.  In a small town in the 1940s and 1950s, a person could live without a car.  I am not sure if that is true today.  Few of us today could be as happy and content with so little space or items of comfort as she was throughout her life.  When I want to travel, but don’t have extra money for that special trip, I think about my Grandma Austill.   I am truly blessed and can learn from her lesson of being content with what I have and with the good Lord above.  She was about minimalist before it was in vogue.  As an adult,  I am thankful for the many lessons she taught me, however, I will pass on having a drop-down table to use daily.

Next week, I will tell of my first meeting with my husband, and the results of that meeting.  I was a wee girl at the time.