Jack Remembers -- Wired

President Franklin Roosevelt had Congress form the Rural Electric Association (REA) in 1935 in order for the farmers to have electricity.  The for-profit electric companies fought Roosevelt and said they would supply electricity to the farms as soon as it became economically feasible.  We got electricity in 1941, and fifty years later my mother said if we had waited on the power companies, we wouldn’t have electricity yet. 

     I asked in another column who wired the farm houses when REA came through.  Larry Pittsenbarger grew up north of Maysville in Dekalb County.  They didn’t get electricity until after World War II.  Larry said an electrician followed REA and wired all the houses.  He said it was a two day job to wire their house, and they had to feed the electrician who also stayed overnight with them.  Larry said a lot of the farmers were so tight fisted they didn’t hook up after REA came through.  They didn’t need lights since they had coal oil lamps, and after all, they went to bed when it got dark.

     Kathleen Tierney and Madeline Woodward, 94 and 90 years old respectively, grew up and lived in Knox County near Edina, and said Knox County did not get electricity until 1957.  Madeline said her husband, Weldon, wired the house with an instruction booklet supplied by REA.  Like most of the people who responded, her first appliance was a refrigerator and a toaster. 

     My mother wanted a refrigerator immediately, but because we didn’t have the money, my dad traded the appliance dealer a Holstein heifer for the Frigidaire refrigerator.  Shortly thereafter, lightening struck a tree next to our house.  The lightening ran in on the electric line and burned up the refrigerator motor.  We had it repaired and if appliances today lasted as long as that Frigidaire, all the appliance companies would go broke.

Jack can be reached at PO Box 40, Oak Grove, MO 64075 or jackremembers@aol.com.  Visit www.jackremembers.com