As I have been reading the above named articles in our county paper by two or three different persons, I thought I would write a few lines in connection with that period of time.

I can remember many things that people had to undergo then, that we are happily exempt from today. Nearly all the wearing apparel was made from cloth made by the mothers and daughters of 50 years age, some being made of wool taken from the sheep’s back and some from cotton raised on their farm.

I know by experience what it is to make cloth. I have taken wool just as it came from the sheep’s back and have helped to shear them too, pick the burrs out, washed, carded, spun, washed again, colored and wove into cloth and cut and made garments for the whole family from it, without any sewing machine, either. I have also taken cotton just as it came from the patch, picked out the seeds, carded, spun, reeled, colored, wove into cloth and made same into garments. Do I want to go back to that drudgery? No! Surly I do not.

The lady of the house can now buy as much nice cloth as she wants with thread and trimming to match and sit down to a good sewing machine and soon have herself and family clothed in style; or if she prefers, buy the garments already made. Does that look like times are better? Sure, they are much better. Women and girls can have time for recreation and study now, but not so then.

I also remember the first days of my school career. They were spent in an old tumbled down, one room house with no windows, one door, logs split open and holes bored in each end for legs to be put in, the flat side up for seats for the children. Of course the children’s feet did not touch the ground. (for I don’t think there was any floor in the house). Everyone was supposed to bring a “Blueback” spelling book, and such a racket, as everyone spelled out loud. I don’t know whether the pupils knew what they were saying or not. I was so taken with my lesson, ba, ca, da, etc, I did not pay very much attention to anything else, and when time came for writing each one who was fortunate enough to have paper, pen and ink would go to a plank that was along one side of the room where a log was sawn out to give light, and try his or her hand at penmanship. Oh! those halcyon days of ignorance.

But don’t think, dear reader, that I look back with contempt on the people of those days. I pity them. If you needed a doctor in those days someone had to ride or walk probably 8 or 10 miles for one, it didn’t make any difference how serious the case might be. No telephone, no autos, no conveniences, such as we have now. Of course I refer to rural districts, and especially to Northeast Arkansas.

In those days church houses were scarce and far apart. Instead of getting to go to church and Sunday school every Lords day, there was church only once a month and it so far away if the weather was bad you couldn’t go at all.

In conclusion I will say that we ought, every one of us, to be thankful to our Creator that we are in this good “Old Land of The Free and Home of The Brave”. In a land of Bibles and God fearing men and women, in a land that is growing better all the time. Signed: Rebecca Rice

Pocahontas Star Herald, 25 April 1924