Did June Cleaver ever have a dishwasher?

[danemodsandy]

Tomturbomatic:

"The Cleaver's big GE refrigerator was made just before GE's Frost Guard system was introduced. The top of the refrigerated food section had the famous serpentine coil which would freeze milk bottles or anything else that happened to be pushed against it and that was easy to do since the coil slanted down at the back so that the defrost water produced each time the compressor cycled off would drain into the trough under it. Defrosting the rollout freezer must have been a mess. Friends of ours had one and I thought it was neat that it had a pedal for opening the refrigerator door."

Tom:

We had that fridge when I was growing up, and I defrosted the roll-out freezer more times than I care to count. It really wasn't all that bad, for two reasons:

1) The freezer drawer pulled completely out. You pulled it out as far as it would go, lifted up on the handle, and then lifted the drawer away from the fridge. That gave you easy access to the entire freezer compartment.
2) The freezer had a drain in its floor, so the water formed during defrost had a place to go- to the drain pan underneath the unit. The drain had a plug on it, and the instruction manual advised you to pour a little water over it when you were done defrosting and the drain plug was replaced. The water then froze, sealing the drain against air entry.

The only really inconvenient part of the GE defrosting process was the shelf for the ice trays; it was hard to get your hand and arm into that narrow space. You also had to be careful of the lens for the freezer light, and the light bulb; both were fragile.

When you were through, you just lifted the drawer back into place and closed it. I also had the chore of keeping our Coldspot upright freezer defrosted, and I can tell you that I greatly preferred doing the GE to THAT!

The pedal for the door opener was a tremendous convenience, and how I wish they'd bring that feature back! To this day, I sometimes head to the reefer with both hands full, and only then do I remember that I don't have a way to open the door without using my hands. Modern refrigerators- even the most expensive- don't have the convenience features or the solid, bulletproof quality that GE did. It ran for my mom from 1959 up until the early '80s, and she was highly abusive of it, as she is with all appliances (Sorry, Blanche. Yuh are. Yuh ARE!).

 

[coldspot66]

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but Tony Dow was HOT back then!! Just had to say it!!!!

 

[bongobro]

Frost Guard vs. automatic defrosting

I came across an owner's manual for GE refrigerators circa 1962-63 (my mother had a top-freezer TC-314 that was automatic defrosting in the fridge and manual defrosting in the freezer; it also had those serpentine cooler coils at the top as danemodsandy mentioned). What a PITA!

There were two bottom-freezer models in that period--a Frost Guard model and the automatic defrost system Tomturbomatic described. I would suspect if Ward and June could afford their new house and a brand-new Plymouth Fury every year, they could have easily sprung for the Frost Guard model, especially since their refrigerator had what looked like the removable decorator panels (and the owner's manual said the TOL bottom-freezer model had both the decorator panels AND Frost Guard standard).

 

[estesguy]

GE Cleaver fridge

And those GE models had rounded circular shelves that rotated around a center spiral shaft, allowing the complete shelf to be accessed by rotating it. That allowed you to access things in the back, without reaching over other items.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Thank you for the link to the GMA show. It was interesting to see her pouring coffee out of the Coffee Master without using the lid on the lower bowl. It's a shame that went when the whole kitchen became GE. The show had a couple of reunions. Tony Dow was lifting weights in one of them and not wearing a shirt. Talk about high quality eye candy; that was no Russell Stover's. It was at least Godiva or better. Sorry, I can't do it justice; I don't know that much about luxury candy brands.

In the mid 70s, when Kenmore introduced the Dual Action Agitator, I seem to remember there was an ad campaign featuring Barbara Billingsley, Jane Wyatt and maybe Harriett Nelson, but I'm not sure if she was the third TV mom or not since she was so associated with Hotpoint appliances in the 50s. Who but a few of us would see Harriett Nelson and think Hotpoint or Hot Sons? The premise was that these TV moms knew a thing or two about doing laundry (more fantasy) and that they appreciated how well the Kenmore washed with the DAA. Of course when they played moms, there was nothing good about a DA hair style, which was my first thought when I heard the 3 initials, but 20 years later the DAA was very good. It seems so amazing how so much was made of non-standard hair styles in the uptight 50s and way into the 60s and now there are almost no standards of appearance.

I know all about lifting that drawer assembly on and off its track. We bought the 18.8 Spacemaker with Frost Guard in 1961. In the 70s and 80s, my brother had a bad habit of sticking a 6 pack of Coke in the freezer to cool quickly and then forgetting it. Neither he nor my mother used the minute timer on the GE wall oven that was very close to the refrigerator. When a can or two of Coke exploded in the freezer, the basket assembly had to be taken out to get to the stuff in the bottom. Of course, the wires making up the basket had to be cleaned also after a disaster like that. I think that GE had the best arrangement for a bottom freezer. All of the other brands had a side-swing door that had to be opened more than 90 degrees for the basket to be pulled out. The Frigidaire with the tilt out freezer was something else entirely. One thing we discovered about our refrigerated food section was that the vent behind the meat keeper could not be opened more than a crack because it would freeze the produce in the wide drawer next to the meat keeper. The owner's manual said that with the vent opened, fresh meat could be stored 7 days. We did not keep fresh meat for long periods so the drawer stayed plenty cold for weiners, bologna, salami, etc with the vent mostly closed
. We had a couple of the evaporator fan motors go bad at various times. When they did, it sounded like little puppies yelping faintly until the door was opened which caused the motors to shut off and make really strange sounds as they decelerated. When the compressor went bad in the mid 70s, my parents looked at the new refrigerators which were mostly side-by-sides if you wanted any capacity. Luckily they decided to have the compressor replaced. It's been fine since, kinahora (the Yiddish equivalent of knock on wood) and lives in my basement.

I am glad that the defrosting of the freezer in the older model was not so bad. The main thing I thought about was with the frost at the top of the freezer the dripping water would soak the sleeves and then the rest of the shirt you were wearing while you were trying to get the last of the frost out of the coils and that ice cube tray shelf. Unless you had long arms, you almost had to get your head in to reach all the way to the top at the back. Then you could get drops of cold water going down your neck.

Before frost free freezers there was this bit of folk wisdom that said ice cubes froze faster if you used hot water. On the surface, it makes no sense, but when you consider how the frost formed thickest on the coldest part of the freezer which was the shelf for the ice cube trays, it became easy to explain. On a heavily frosted shelf, a tray with hot water melted down through the frost to the metal shelf with the evaporator coils bonded to it. This brought the tray in perfect contact with the cold metal and a film of water that further helped transfer the heat to the evaporator. This was better than having a layer of the insulating frost between the ice tray and the evaporator so the cubes did, indeed, freeze faster when made with hot water when the freezer was heavily frosted.

 

[danemodsandy]

Tomturbomatic:

Other things I enjoyed about that '59 GE were the vegetable crispers (they lifted out easily for cleaning, and they were porcelain-on-steel), and the butter and cheese keepers, which really did a great job of keeping butter spreadable and cheese tasty. The turnaround shelves were not as big a boon as the advertising would lead one to believe, at least in my estimation; small things tended to get pushed off them towards the back, and despite knowing that the shelves could be swung out, you really didn't often do it. I did, however, appreciate shelves that were both metal (anodised aluminium) and non-rusting. Rusty wire shelves are disgusting, and I hate hate HATE tempered glass ones- ever break one? Expensive!

The GE we had had the open meat pan, wedge-shaped to fit the contours of the bottom shelf. It was also anodised aluminium; GE changed it to plastic the following year, according to an online friend of mine who owns a '60.

I remember Mom saying that the fridge had been expensive at $400, equivalent to nearly $2700 today. I'd gladly pay $2700 to get something that well-made in today's market.

 

[tomturbomatic]

DDM, our crisper and meat pans are porcelain with the big chrome fronts. Our butter keeper had the S-M-H settings and ours had the swing out egg bin in the door, not just exposed hollows, but a nice blue bin It could be unclipped from the pivot post to be washed.

Rusty shelves are disgusting, but if you treat them with Naval Jelly or somethign similar, give them a bit of the wire brush on the drill, they take epoxy paint beautifully and really modernize the look of the box inside. My GE 25 cu ft top freezer in the kitchen has glass shelves and one of the first things I did was seal between the shelf and the frame with silicone so that leaks did not drip all over everything all the way to the bottom. Modern glass shelves are sealed to help prevent just such messes. And unlike most of today's refrigerators, the inside our 1961 GE treasure is all porcelain.

Compared with the price of a washer, dryer or range, the refrigerator at close to $600 did seem like a lot of money, but obviously a good investment We had to have the hot gas defrost valve replaced about three times and some of the fan motors, but it has been a very good refrigerator.

 

[danemodsandy]

Tom:

"Compared with the price of a washer, dryer or range, the refrigerator at close to $600 did seem like a lot of money, but obviously a good investment We had to have the hot gas defrost valve replaced about three times and some of the fan motors, but it has been a very good refrigerator."

Tom:

I agree! I can tell you this- if I ever have the good fortune to run across a 1959 model for sale within reasonable striking distance, it won't matter how nice a refrigerator I have at the time- it is GONE, to be replaced with the GE.

This pic shows the exact model we had; it's the bottom-mount reefer on the left. Ours was white, not turquoise. This was one model off the TOL; the TOL version was a bit taller, and had a larger freezer with the textured bright metal beauty panel on its front.

 

[stevet]

just for you Coldspot..

Hey Coldspot.. Tony Dow seemed to get into some serious weightlifting as he got older. Hope this picture is not inappropriate. There are a few more of him hanging around the web.. I also remember him playing a circus strongman in another show..He was pretty big looking in that one.
Here you go!

 

[a78jumper]

We got a GE dishwasher in 1965, a Filter Something or Another. It was a top loader, and there was also a little spray arm under the cutlery basket. It was replaced in 1976 by a built in Kitchen Aid. As for the GE Fridges my parent's first one was a 1958 model much as described here-foot pedal to open door, revolving shelves, open meat basket and a manual defrost freezer. It was their beer fridge until about four years ago whe it finally expired from old age.

 

[pturo]

"You were pretty hard on the Beaver last night, Dear" An acutual June Cleaver line at the breakfast table. I don't know how our parents ever kept a straight face. I don't remember a dishwasher ever in the background of the kitchen.

 

[rp2813]

It's been many years since I've watched an episode but if memory serves me, June always did the dishes by hand, often with Ward's help for drying.

She didn't get the credit she deserved for "Airplane!" which has to be my all-time favorite movie. I will have to pull up that link to her reprisal when I get home today!

 

[toggleswitch]

oh LAWDY we'ze getting naughty in the PINK zone? YIKES!

~was HOT back then!! Just had to say it!!!!
JOHN YOU SHOCK ME. *LOL*

~I don't know how our parents ever kept a straight face.
It didnt' mean a thing back then.

My turn, then.

 

[pturo]

HYSTERICAL, TOGGLES! And she looks like a June Cleaver contemporary.

 

[pturo]

HYSTERICAL, TOGGLES! And she looks like a June Cleaver contemporary.