My parents were very concerned when my birth was imminent and the only caregiver available was the midwife that delivered their first child. Most of the ladies gave birth to their children at home, especially in the rural areas. Transportation was not available other than horse or mule drawn wagons or saddle horses. By the time you would ride a horse for five miles and bring back a doctor, in all probability, the babies would already be born before the doctor would arrive. Mid wives were used in many of the communities in those days. Apparently I was a strong, healthy baby and made the journey into the light of day without any apparent difficulty.

My life was uneventful other than the perils of growing up in rural Kentucky and dealing with the normal childhood diseases. Many of the vaccinations that are given to young children these days were not available in the 30's and 40's. I remember getting one vaccination for typhoid fever and the knot is still in my arm. The health nurse had to catch me on the run and harpooned my arm with a needle that went into the bone. The needle must have been a foot long.

I hear people comment now and then about how great it would be to go back to the good old days when life was not as complicated as it is today. What I remember about the, so called, "good old days" is:

The walk over the hill on a cold winter night to the out house and returning to the cold house and getting back in my straw tick bed where it would take an hour to get warm again under four layers of home made quilts. Fresh straw was used by many families to stuff the bead tick.  One of the main problems with using straw was getting all the saw briars out of the straw.

The trip to the big spring to carry fresh water for the use of cooking, drinking and bathing.

The one-mile walk twice a day to school. One pair of shoes each year did not last the entire year so during the warm months we would go bare footed wherever we went. The bottoms of our feet would become very hard and tough--we had no problem doing foot races on gravel roads.

Doing my schoolwork plus any other reading from the light of the coal oil lamp or the light from the burning wood in the fire place. My father was an electrician and wired many of the old farmhouses in the county but the electric lines had not been run to many of the rural areas--electrical power was not available.  I guess I was 12 or 14 years old before the lines were installed in Snow community.

Taking a bath in the old wash tub during the winter months and bathing in the creeks during the summer.

THE FARM HOUSE

NATURES EDUCATION

Growing up in rural Kentucky revealed many secrets of nature such as learning types of herbs to use for various medicinal purposes, wild vegetation that was edible and roots and tubers that could be gathered, dried and sold. In the fall of the year we would always pick up black walnuts, hull and dry them and then pick out the kernels for sale or for cooking. We also learned to hunt and trap wild game. Some of the game was for eating and some would be skinned, the fur boarded, dried and sold. A Possum in those days would sell for 25 to 50 cents and that was pretty good spending money for a 6,7 or 8 year old boy. I learned at a very early age not to catch a squirrel by hand. I chased a ground squirrel under the floor of the old house and cornered him up by the chimney, reached out to grab him and that is when he bit me through a finger (lesson learned). My grandfather bought and sold scrap iron and furs. He would have a pile of scrap iron lying around most of the time that he had purchased from other people for the purpose of resale. He would also have a fur shed full of skinned and boarded animal furs that he had purchased. My brother and I would dig scrap iron from the bank of the creek that ran through the property and sell it to him for a nickel or dime or whatever he would give us. In most cases he would give us more than it was worth.

Most of our food was grown on the farm. We always had a vegetable garden and mom would can vegetables, fruit and meat for the winter. When we could afford to raise a meat hog we would have salt cured meat during the winter months. I guess I was a teenager before I had ever tasted beef. Tropical fruit and many other foods that we take for granted these days were not available in this area in 30's & 40's. Our after school snack in summer time would consist of taking a salt shaker and a cold biscuit to the garden and getting a tomato, onion or cucumber to go with it. We did not have the store bought food that most kids are accustomed to today. My grandfather Stearns always had a milk cow and we always had fresh milk. I learned to hand milk the old Jersey cow and had that as a daily chore for several years. Mom usually had chickens that provided eggs, frying chicken and stewed chicken. When finances would get tighter than normal, (normal means there was no money, tighter than normal means that there was less than none--food was gone also) the chickens would probably go to the market (which was a country store) to be swapped for items such as sugar, flour, corn meal, salt and dried beans. We learned to fish and hunt and would bring in squirrel and rabbit and on occasion a possum, coon or ground hog would be eaten. We caught fish in the old farm ponds (usually catfish or carp).  

We manufactured our own toys to play with. We learned to make our own slingshots, pop guns, truck wagons, toy guns etc. We used our imagination and creativity to design and manufacture things to play with. The woodland behind my grand parent's house was located on a steep slope with fresh water streams and caves. There was a big variety of vegetation, trees and vines growing in that area. We would cut wild grapevines loose from one end and use it as a swing to cross over the steep ravines. We had several grapevine swings strategically located throughout the woods.

 I remember experiencing the days of rationing during WWII--items such as coal oil, gasoline and sugar. I believe there were other items that were rationed also. The following pictures show the mileage ration identification folder and ration tickets used for purchase of gasoline. (Click pictures for larger image)

LEARNING TO DRIVE

The first thing that I learned to drive was a mule drawn wagon. Of course you were driving the mules and they were pulling the wagon. You had to learn the commands for the mules such as whoa for stop, get up for go, gee and haw for turning right or left. A well-trained pair of mules or horses would follow the verbal commands. The first vehicle accident I ever had was when a pair of mules got scared and started running with me, a wagon and a load of tobacco sticks. The sticks were loaded across the wagon and every time I would pull on the lines to slow the mules I would scoot closer to the front. I eventually had to jump off the wagon and the mules, wagon and sticks ended up in a fence. Neither the mules nor I was hurt, but we had to do some major repair to the fence and wagon.

I guess I was twelve to fourteen years old when I started learning to drive an automobile. My dad owned a Model A Ford and that is the vehicle that my brother and I gained our first driving experience on. The road in front of our house was dirt, not much more than a wagon trail and the drives leading from the road to the houses were dirt. During the rainy seasons they were very difficult to get over with an automobile. Many times the old Model A would be stuck somewhere in the mud and would have to be dug out by hand or get a team of mules to pull it out. In later years my dad purchased an old Army surplus jeep. The jeep was four wheel drive and, in most cases, would make the journey over the old dirt road with very little difficulty. The jeep was used to plow our garden a few times also. I remember my dad, my brother and I taking turns driving while one of the others followed the plow. We used a mule/horse drawn turning plow that was hooked behind the jeep with a chain.