2006-01-04 - 8:02 a.m.
The owner of the farm, my Mother-in-law Mrs. Gladys Mabry, passed away recently. She was 90 years old and had lived in this area all her life. She was born in 1915 in not just a different time but a different age. When she was born there was no electricity in this area or phone service. Houses were lighted by lamps and heated by fireplaces. Children were born at home and old folks died at home. There were no funeral homes and when someone died the men of the community gathered to dig the grave. The cost of a birth was $0 as was the cost of a funeral.
Indoor plumbing was unheard of and outhouses were the rule of the day. Water was carried to the house by bucket from a spring or dug well and the coldest drink you could get in the summer was from that same well, there was no ice, except in winter. On sweltering summer nights there were no air conditioners or even fans to cool you and people sweated through the nights. Baths were a once a week luxury to be taken on Saturday nights so you wouldn't smell bad on Sunday. Horses and mules were the cars and tractors of the day here and wagons were the vehicle of choice.
Actually people who were around here when my Mother-in-law was born had more in common with folks 100yrs or even 1000yrs before them than with folks of today and would have felt more in place in the time of Jesus than in our modern age. My Mother-in-law was from a generation of people that has seen more rapid change in the world than any other generation before them and I doubt any after them will ever see so much change in one lifetime. She was a living link to a way of life that had been the norm for most of the history of mankind. With her passing, and the passing of her generation, we lose the living connection we had to that age and way of life that in many ways, in my opinion, made more sense than our present one.
She will be missed.
