Remember when… life got better with the flick of a switch?
Published on Friday, August 9, 2024, 19:47
- JC Harden was instrumental in bringing electricity to rural areas of Pike County.
The hot, humid summer days just keep going; we’re in the middle of the dog days, the presidential election campaign is in full swing, the water pipes are heating up, and tires are sticking to the hot tar on the highway.
The question everyone is asking is: How did people survive back then?
If Mr. JC Harden were still alive, he could answer that question for us. And he would tell us that before the introduction of electricity in 1937, rural Pike County was just as hot as it is today.
Mr. Harden of the Shiloh Community dreamed of having electricity and the amenities that come with it.
But he realized that electricity wasn’t going to come to rural areas of south Alabama on its own. So he went out into the country and talked about electricity and what it would mean to the farming community. He put down his plow and went to a town hall meeting to learn more about how to bring electricity to rural people. He asked questions and more questions.
This meeting gave rise to the hope that this would one day become a reality.
Harden knew that hope wouldn’t bring electricity to farmers. But he also knew that sharecroppers and tenant farmers couldn’t afford electricity. So he focused on painted houses where wealthier people lived.
Four to five customers per mile was the “magic” number to get into rural Pike County. Membership cost five dollars. For many families, that might as well have been five million dollars.
Harden began a campaign to convince farming families that life in the countryside could change at the touch of a button. Others joined him and are now fellow campaigners.
And what a “glorious” day it would be when electricity came to the community of Shiloh in 1937.
In 2024, it will be difficult, almost impossible, to even begin to imagine what life might have been like before the present and how difficult it would be.
Harden said they were too poor to own a refrigerator, but he treated himself to a block of ice about once a month. Otherwise, they relied on the well to cool their milk.
Since there was no way to keep the day’s leftover food cool, it went straight into the bucket to be fed to the pigs the next afternoon.
“That’s where the pigs got their salt – from the bucket of rinse water,” Harden said.
Pumps and toilet blocks were part of everyday life for the rural population.
“And at night we would take out the sinks and the chambers,” Harden said. “We didn’t realize what an inconvenience it was because everyone was in the same situation.”
Harden recalled the early opportunity to experience the modern conveniences he and his wife, Gladys, had.
After taking over his wife’s domestic duties following the birth of his child, he was just about to take out his wallet when a washing machine salesman knocked on his door.
Harden said that in those days a woman had to stay in bed for nine days after giving birth. He recalled the long periods she spent bent over a washtub.
So Harden happily unloaded a gas-powered, kick-starter-equipped wringer-washer onto the back porch.
Since there was no way to keep the day’s leftover food cool, it went straight into the bucket to be fed to the pigs the next afternoon.
“Those were tough times, but we didn’t know it.”
About a year after Harden and other men in the county began promoting membership in the rural electric company, the switch was flipped and life changed for the better.
The lines had been laid, the houses had been wired and the customers were waiting impatiently for the lines to be put into operation.
One day, around dinnertime, a light suddenly came on. Harden said he just screamed and screamed. “The kids were running from room to room in the house turning on the lights,” Harden said.
One neighbor called another: “Do you have power?! Do you have power?!”
“I got it! Oh, I got it!”
Harden said the happiest day of his life was for little things,”
As quickly as the switch was flipped, life got better.
People could stay up late at night because they had cold milk in the fridge to read with. For the first time, the bucket was empty because the leftover food went into the fridge.
Harden said the pigs were the only ones who didn’t benefit when the current came in.”
