Louise Harrell Remembers the Good Old Days

From Special Memories: A Collection of Stories by Chowan County Extension Homemakers

Those Were the Days by Louise Harrell

As I sit here and reminisce, I think of all the changes that have taken place in my time. Life was a lot simpler. People showed more concern for one another. People just trusted each other. We didn’t even lock our doors at night or when we went off.

I picked cotton to buy my wedding dress. I was paid one cent a pound. I couldn’t pick over 100 pounds a day. My dress cost less than $5. [Mrs. Harrell was married in 1941.]

When we got married we didn’t have electric lights, no running water, no indoor toilet, no TV, just a battery radio. We had a good time playing games with the children. It was a time when the doctor made house calls. I had six children and four of them were born at home. The last two was born at the hospital. The cost was around $50.

In the winter we had hog killings, wood cuttings and got together and cooked candy and pulled taffy. We invited the neighbors to help. In the spring we ladies got together and shelled peanuts so our husbands could plant them.

Nobody around had tractors. They just farmed with mules. Some people say they were “the good old days,” some say they weren’t. But I am glad that I lived in those times. It makes me appreciate what I have now.