
Drying canning jars in the Ozarks/ Library of Congress
ALAN writes:
People who lived in the Missouri Ozarks 85 years ago were poor in material possessions, but they were not poor otherwise. They had a wealth of moral fiber, common sense, imagination, self-discipline, sense of responsibility, respect for neighbors, and gratitude for simple pleasures.
Imogene Snider was one of them. She was the youngest of eight sisters. More than fifty years afterward, she wrote about growing up on their family farm deep in the Ozarks in the 1930s. Reading the memories of such people helps to keep things in perspective. They are an antidote to the unspeakable excess of the modern world.
Awash in that excess, modern Americans take for granted such things as water, electricity, supermarkets, insulated homes, push-button heating and cooling, instant entertainment, and dozens of flavors of ice cream available on a moment’s whim.
Keep all of that in mind as you read these few portions of her lengthy reminiscences:
“The parlor was a special room…used when we had family gatherings and on holidays… We kept our best pieces of furniture in the parlor… There was also a piano… We entertained our friends by playing the piano. Music was a great part of life at our house…. Seven of the eight girls in our family learned to play the piano… I spent many lonely hours at the piano for it was a great source of recreation and entertainment for me in the days when we had so little diversion or entertainment…
“The winter nights were long and very lonely, and we had little for entertainment. We strained our eyes reading by the yellow glow of the smoky kerosene lamp, and our reading material was very limited. We were not allowed to play cards, so sometimes we played dominoes…
“Sometimes we borrowed a lawn mower, and I pushed it by hand a mile or so down the road, mowed the lawn, then pushed it back down the road home…
On decoration days in May and June, they would go to local cemeteries to decorate graves: Read More »