by Emily Schilling
EditorTwenty-five years ago,
Electric Consumer commemorated the Golden Anniversary of the rural electric movement. The movement, which led to the creation of electric cooperatives throughout the country, began in 1935. On May 11 of that year, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7037, creating the Rural Electrification Administration, a federal agency designated “to initiate, formulate, administer, and supervise a program of approved projects with respect to the generation, transmission, and distribution of electric energy in rural areas.”
As part of rural electricity’s Golden Anniversary celebration in 1985, we asked readers to recount their memories of “E-day” — the day their homes finally received electricity. Readers’ reminiscences were sometimes poignant, sometimes funny and incredibly vivid despite the passage of time.
Howard Conner from Stroh recalled overhearing his father tell his mother the REMC was turning the “juice” on the next day and that the electrician didn’t have all the fixtures installed yet. Conner’s mother replied, “I guess I’ll have to get some pails and big kettles to put under the fixtures that are not up to catch the juice and keep it off the table and floors.”
Helena Jenkins, Evansville, was a youngster when her home was electrified. “Out of curiosity, I put my finger in an empty electric socket and the jolt from that is what I remember yet to this day,” she shared.
Electricity was a fifth wedding anniversary gift for Mr. and Mrs. Robert Heighway, Akron. “Lights you could turn on, with a twist of your fingers, were bright as God’s sunshine, after using coal oil lamps that had to be trimmed, filled and the chimney washed — a daily chore,” Mrs. Heighway wrote. “No more groping in the dark barn, when chores were later than usual due to the long hours the farmer spent in the fields.”
Many who witnessed “E-day” are no longer with us. But their stories, some of which we were fortunate enough to gather back in the 1980s, speak to us more profoundly than any history book could. These peoples’ lives changed immeasurably because of electric co-ops — and they never took electricity for granted.
“Oh, you young generation, who know nothing of yesteryear ‘without light in the country,’ ” Mrs. Heighway wrote back in 1985. “Stop and think of the wonderful thing called electricity.”
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to the May 2010 Electric Consumer table of contents