Those are wonderful memories!
My mom was born in 1921 and grew up in the Roxbury part of Boston &
we could never believe that there was a farm with cows next door to my grandparents house.
She used to always talk about her father "Pa" getting up early to stoke the coal furnace
and warm up the house.
There was an ice man, a milk man, a rag man, and an egg man that used to come to
their neighborhood.
One of her favorite "treats" was to go to the corner store they called "Hughesies"
because Mr Hughes owned it - and get dill pickles from a barrel & saltines.
"Pa" had a beautiful garden (he worked as a gardener for Franklin Park) and
my mother especially remembered his glorious hollyhocks.
When you mentioned about the curtain stretcher! oh boy! my mother used to
always talk about having to do that. My grandmother always told her daughters
(the boys were exempt) "Many hands make light work!"
When they heard about Pearl Harbor on the radio, my mother remembered that she
was sitting on the radiator reading a book (it was cold that day).
Her sister Patsy was a great dancer & taught them all to jitterbug after
rolling up the dining room rug.
During the war, Ma & Pa were home with their daughters Millie, Margaret, Helen (my mother)
and Patsy ( the "baby"). On VE day, Patsy had a sailor escort her home & she
must've leaned on the doorbell when he was saying goodbye. All the bedroom windows immediately went up and her sisters all yelled out: "Are you allright out there Patsy!"
They were gonna come to her rescue like the Cavalry if that sailor was taking any "liberties".
HA! 
One of my own favorite memories is of my Dad raking the leaves to the curb and then
burning them. That had to be one of the best smells in the world. On a cold day,
the kitchen windows would get steamed up & I remember the wonderful smell of
my mother's beef stew!
Thanks for sharing your memories!!!
Mary Ann