When I was beginning life in the world in the early 1940s, people were digging out from the effects of the Great Depression, but our country was being caught up in World War II. Money was hard to come by. Many commodities were scarce, and some, like sugar, gasoline and tires, were rationed. The times were hard, and we didn't have much money to buy things; but I never remember thinking of our family as poor.
Maybe we were poor and just didn't realize it; but as I recall our situation, we never felt particularly deprived, and we never regarded ourselves as needy. I'm sure we didn't get all the things we might want, but we had enough, and we made do pretty well. With our livestock, and gardens, and fields, we raised much of our food on the farm, and I don't ever remember going hungry. By selling milk and eggs and chickens, we had money enough to buy decent shoes, coats and boots to keep our feet warm in winter. Once in a great while we might go to a movie, but most of our entertainment was the radio or music sessions on our own, or gospel singings at Shady Grove schoolhouse, or visiting someone and having fun playing games with cousins or friends. We didn't have TV until 1953, there was no phone until 1954. There were no credit cards, and the only debt our family had was the annual payment on the farm land. We didn't have luxuries, but we had the basics, even without much money. Well, OK, I had a fine red wagon and later a bicycle for Christmas in 1946, so I was pretty well off.
One of my earliest memories centers around the building of the big hay barn on the farm. It brought me to realize that trees on your land can mean that you are not poor. When my parents bought the farm in 1943, and Dad began building the new barn, he had very little money to work with. What money he did have was spent on nails, hinges, window panes and so on. But the whole project was made possible because of oak trees growing on our land; and by the sawmill located just over the east hill, operated by Ray Patterson and a partner whose name I think was Coughlin.
Dad and Grandpa would fell our oak trees, using a two-man crosscut saw, cut the logs to length, and haul them by horse and wagon over the hill to the sawmill. Dad paid for sawing the lumber by giving the sawmill operators a portion of the lumber. Our trees were paying for building our fine new barn, although no money was exchanged. The trees were wealth, just as truly as if we had sold them for money. They were our source of building materials for barns and chicken houses and sheds and fences and hay racks. So long as we could do with the rough-sawn oak lumber, we didn't really need a lumber yard. We could produce our own.
When I was born, I think Dr. Green charged my folks $25 to bring me into the world. It would have been $50, but Dad had given the doctor a ride to our farm and back and helped him with other things, so the money fee was only $25. In earlier times, it was not uncommon to pay the doctor in in-kind goods, such as a certain number of chickens, or several blocks of bacon, or two or three hams, or a quantity of garden produce. Farmers often helped each other with seasonal work, such as when harvesting grain or hay, trading labor for labor, with no monetary pay exchanged. I remember that several neighbor men came to help my Dad and Grandpa in putting up the rafters and roof on our new barn. They didn't take pay. They would say, you can do me a favor sometime, and my Dad would say, "I'm much obliged to you."
It was all a kind of an informal promise that neighbor would help neighbor as needs arose.
In earlier days, even preachers were often paid at least part of their compensation by in-kind goods. In one of my north Arkansas churches, a portion of my salary agreement included a regular supply of eggs from one family. In another area, the church maintained a frozen food locker for the pastor, and families were always stocking the locker with cuts of meat, frozen garden produce, and so on. Several churches I pastored used to "pound the preacher." To folks unfamiliar with that, it may sound like they were beating on him. But, no, a pounding meant that the people would bring the pastor's family a pound of this and a pound of that -- flour, sugar, canned goods, cured meats, cake mixes, baking soda, shortening, baking powder and so on. Often, people shared their gardens with us, tomatoes, peppers, squash, okra and other good stuff.
We were well off, just not much money!
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 10/29/2014