My first four years in the Little House were without utilities. Electricity and Telephone came in about 1946, when I was four years old. Those years were also the years of World War II. Interesting times. I think that electricity had to come first. The City of Tuskegee had a utility company, and Frank Carr, who had strong connections with our Milstead community, was mayor. He was an advocate for the expansion of the utility company, and instrumental in extending it into our community. The other opportunity for electricity would have been Dixie Electric Cooperative out of Union Springs. It extended its serves into nearby Shorter, just south of us.
Electricity was a huge addition even at the little house. Electric light bulbs replaced the kerosine lamps, including the Aladdin lamp that actually produced pretty good light. Electric appliances became possible. I think that we had a battery powered radio before electricity was installed, but afterwards the radio was “plugged” in. Chan was born that year, and I think that Granddaddy helped with buying a refrigerator, so that milk was a lot more secure.
Country humor attended new events like coming of electricity. I haven’t heard electricity called “juice” in a long time, but back in those days, that terminology was fairly standard. “The refrigerator is not running.” “Is there any juice getting to it.” And then the inevitable jokes that country folks poked at themselves. “If the juice runs out in the floor, and the dog drinks it, will it hurt him?”
And after we got electricity, the telephone came. An eight-party line. You could not use it if any of the other seven households were “on the line.” Naturally, that gave rise to some conflict. A few people could be very talkative, and that could be very irritating to other customers! Direct dialing was not available; calls had to go through an operator. You gave the operator the number, and she dialed it. Our number was 985r2. Our party-line was the 985 line. I think that Uncle Earl was 985r1. Uncle Buddy was 985 r 3. I think that Mr. Frank Pierce was 985r4. I don’t not remember the other four residences on that party-line. Uncle R.V. was 899r2, and that was a different line. When you picked up the phone, the operator would come on the line and say “Operator.” If we wanted to call Uncle Earl, we said “r1 on this line.” If we wanted to call Uncle R.V. we said “899r2.” To call anyone not on our line, we had to say the whole number. When we moved away from the Little House in 1950, I think the story was that no line was available. But whatever the reason, we did not get a phone again until after I had finished high school, and well into the sixties. I suspect that finances were part of the problem.
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