Before it exploded one night, I went to a four grade, two room schoolhouse and we had textbooks from the 1940s. - James Nicoll

Aha! The Alien Planet Canada series, where the planet the characters are marooned on seems to be Manitoba. Bad bad world building.

My grandfather for example only died twice, once during the war and once in the 1980s.

We discovered at one point that the brick wall of the pillar would hold up a sock pretty well. This led to sorting socks by putting them on the wall, which in turn led to mosaics built entirely of socks. Mission drift is a hazard in all pursuits, including doing the laundry.