My father and aunts grew up in the Ozarks around this time. I visited the area several times during my childhood and teens in the 70’s and 80’s. I was also back there for my grandmother’s funeral about 10 years ago.
My dad, born in 1938, remembers when they got electricity, one of the last areas of the country to become electrified. Assuming he was at least 5 years old (in order to have a memory of this event), that means they got electricity in 1943 or later.He said that the really big deal about electricity was hot water.
My grandparents were subsistence farmers who raised their own cattle, horses, pigs, and chickens as well as grew a large vegetable garden. My aunt was a champion squirrel hunter, for the reason another poster stated - it was something they ate a lot of.
The land there is rocky and the people there are hard; you think they would all rely upon each other but there is a toughness and unwillingness to share. My aunt said she could not remember one time going over to a neighbor’s house for dinner, or even being offered so much as a glass of water at someone’s house, that they would visit with each other for short periods and then leave with no refreshments.
My grandparents still had their farm until my grandfather died when I was age 7 (he was about 60 years old); it was exactly what people imagine when they dream of an ideal rural life. The work was hard - up early every morning to milk cows, tend to the animals. My grandmother sold the farm after he died, and there are very few people anymore who live as they did, so completely off the land.
At my grandmother’s funeral, all my aunts and my dad were remembering her, and saying that they were raised somewhat like the animals - that there was always a concern for their physical health and money for doctor’s and dentist’s visits, but they imagined that grandma had never once given a thought to their self esteem.
As far as the discussions of poverty going on, from what I know, people had lots of land, and could live off it, so, yes, they were poor in the sense that they had very little money but they did have resources. The school was a single room schoolhouse and the education was apparently excellent - my father and many of his friends had scholarships to a very well known school where they were on the debate team. All of my aunts have advanced degrees, and two are college professors.
People did make a lot of their own things; my aunts talk about their clothes all being made by their mother. I remember that my grandmother was always knitting, crocheting, or sewing - never had her hands empty - usually using inexpensive fabrics and yarns from the five and dime. My dad’s whole side of the family is frugal and practical, and even though several make fair money, they seem to have little interest in acquiring fancy things but delight in little fancy soaps from the dollar store or an attractive potholder from Walgreens. They can all cook huge meals out of flour, some lettuce, and a few pantry items - it always amazed me how my dad could make such great dinners out of the things that were starting to go bad in our fridge - and have a great capacity for work.
- After I wrote this, I realized that I had not been entirely truthful in my writing. My dad had 4 sisters, but recently the oldest died. She DID live a obviously elegant life. In fact, her life was so the opposite of how she grew up that one can only surmise that she was trying very hard to leave the Ozarks behind her. The last home of hers I visited, in the elegant Capital Hill district of Washington, DC, was the sort of design that immediately makes you uncomfortable in her home - all the precious items and overly fancy sofas. She liked fine wines and was a gourmet cook who had expensive appliances in her home. When her husband’s ex-wife died, she adopted his then teen children who spoke at her funeral (they are now adults with families of their own). One son said that when they were first adopted things were not as fat as they were later, but that my aunt always lit candles at dinner back in those leaner times, that she always was trying to make her life appear refined. You can be sure she did not learn that from my grandma.
