12 comments

  1. Lloyd Wilson

    When I grew up could not afford a tooth brush used a twig from a sweet gum tree made an excellent tooth brush

    1. John H. Allen

      Lloyd, where I’m from, the preferred twig was black gum.

  2. John H. Allen

    Yeah — and I don’t have to go back very far either.

  3. Ed Pitts

    Black gum was what Grannie used.
    None of us had tooth brushes.
    Gum disease was common.

  4. Donald Wheeles

    When I was young it was black gum. I don’t know if sweetgum would have worked as good. It might.

  5. Donald Wheeles

    We used baking soda with our blackgum brushes..

    1. Norma Williams

      We also added salt

  6. Shannon Hall Jones

    Also, photographs were serious business, and according to research I have done, to smile in photographs was once thought to be foolish.

  7. Jerry McDaniel

    I got my first toothbrush when I was in third grade. A county nurse brought toothbrushes and a small tube of tooth paste (Colgate if my memory is good). She showed us how to brush our teeth and then we had a little red pill that showed the places we missed. My teeth were mostly red!

  8. Kenneth H. Haughton

    I have two missing, prominent in the middle of my smile and am often asked to smile…

  9. Locksley S Stubblefield

    Could be. But in the older pictures, before snapshots, you had to hold still because the shutter stayed open much longer.

  10. Lynette Bonds Boshell

    No!!!!

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