collard greens

 Managing Without Electricity

     It is hard to picture the number of things that had to be done by hand when I was a kid because we had no electricity. Think how much longer it would take to do each of a hundred tasks. Consider that there were no switches to turn anything on or off. There was no light until someone struck a match. There was no heat until someone built a fire. There was no way to heat the family’s food or milk in a baby bottle without building a fire in the stove. Guess what? Minnie Fendlason Sylvest, my mother, nursed all of her thirteen children. And ten of us lived to be grown. Remarkably, there was a doctor present for each birth. Minnie’s grandfather was a doctor. Vince would graduate from Coyne Electrical Institute in Chicago, Artie would finish a two-year course at Normal, Dixie would graduate from Normal with a bachelor’s degree, Johnnie would become a registered nurse, Spurgeon would graduate from Louisiana Baptist Seminary in New Orleans, Frank would graduate from LSU, Pauline would become a registered nurse, Ard would graduate from LSU, Ruth would complete two years at Louisiana College, and Royce would get his master’s degree in sacred music from Louisiana Baptist Seminary. Our respect for the medical and health care professions is traditional.

     Light was an interesting challenge. We had about six kerosene lamps, of which we kept about two in good working order at all times. You would call them “hurricane lamps” nowadays. Kerosene could be purchased at the grocery store. Almost every family had a galvanized one-gallon can with a spout and a screw-on lid to keep the kerosene from spilling. A gallon of kerosene cost us fifteen cents. That was the same amount we got for a dozen eggs. Most of the time we had no money, so we traded a dozen eggs for a gallon of kerosene. The closest store was six miles from our house. We had no motorized vehicle, so we had to hitch a ride to get to or from the store. There were very few vehicles on which to hitch a ride. During the school year I would take the empty gallon kerosene can on the school bus with me. I would carry a dozen eggs with me in an empty shortening or lard can. Shortening came in a half-gallon tin bucket. When recess time came, instead of playing like most of the other kids, I would get permission from the teacher to walk the two blocks from the school to the store with the eggs and the kerosene can. I would give the eggs to the storekeeper, and the storekeeper would pump the kerosene out of a tank into our can. Then I would take the can back to school with me and haul it home on the school bus. Try to imagine getting on a school bus in the twenty-first century with a gallon of kerosene.

     A gallon of kerosene would last about two weeks in the wintertime when days have more hours of darkness. One of the processes of growing up was for a kid to learn to carry a kerosene lamp carefully without dropping it or breaking it, because it could easily set the house on fire. Can you imagine a ten year old carrying a kerosene lamp, ever so unsteadily, because his/her mom was so ill she could not get out of bed? That was one of the concerns of the parents of children in a home that had no electricity. During the months of the school year, there was the possibility that an adult could hitch a ride to town on the school bus and walk back home with the kerosene or other purchases.