Progress

With technology growing out of the industrial revolution, many of us have seen in our homes some things that exist for the first time. This is especially true if your home is in a rural area. I have already mentioned that in 1928 we got electricity and a telephone. A radio followed. It was a rounded wooden box made by Philco or RCA. 
 Mom cooked with a wood burning stove. Around 1933 the wood was replaced by coal. I remember the cost was $7.00 per delivered ton. In our southern climate our only heat was an open fireplace. Here coal also replaced wood. In 1934, someone got the bright idea that we should have a toilet to replace an outhouse about 100 feet from the home. My brother, 12 and I, 10, dug a cesspool about 6 ft. deep and 3 ft. in diameter plus a long leaching line. This was murderous digging in hard, red clay. We filled all with small stones retrieved by mule and wagon from nearby creeks. Dad tapped the public water line, enclosed and floored over the well and installed toilet, tub and sink. In later years, I was embarrassed that we were so backward. Then I read David Brinkley’s “Inside Washington.” He reported that in 1942 at the onset of World War II there were still 25,000 outhouses in Washington, D.C. The iceman cometh weekly in summertime and placed a large block of ice in a box. In 1936 Duke Power Co., our electric provider, delivered to every home a refrigerator. It was a brand name “Kelvinator” made by Nash, also an auto maker. Each month $2.00 was added to the electric bill to pay for the Kelvinator. Sometime in the latter thirties we did get a washing machine, the kind with rollers on top. I think we did get some type of electric range. I never remember a dishwasher.