Rural Rewards and Blocks

Living in a rural area where the people population is less and small towns are your go to place for goods and services seems like a wonderful idea and a Mayberry experience. If you want to avoid others being in your face and place, if you want the government to stay out of your business more, if you want fewer restrictions on building structures and if you’d rather hear frog peepers instead of people voices, rural living might be for you. Well-water tastes better than city water. The air smells better unless you happen to live downwind from individuals who buy up real estate to run egg laying farms that are not favored close to towns or cities. If you want to cast your eyes on an ever changing country landscape complete with wildlife and experience stress relief, the rural experience might be for you. People in rural areas mostly know your name and sometimes your business, but if anything goes wrong, rural folks line up at your door, in the olden days. Today, they might show up on your social media page to help out.

Rural life offers rewards, but it also can be a stumbling block.

Growing up rural meant for me that I rode the school bus for at least an hour one way, depending on the year. Back then, I couldn’t join after school activities. I wanted to but knew the reality of the commitment. We lived in the area where my mom grew up, but when she was a child/youth her school was only a couple of miles away from her home. She could join activities and walk home after, as needed. My school was much farther away. Kids today in rural areas still have a long commute to school. At our district, there are school activity buses now where kids can participate after school and be delivered to centralized bus stops for parent pick up.

Remote rural areas can also draw in the criminal element. Because of the remoteness, rural areas are handy places for manufacturing meth and stashing stolen goods.

Inconveniences Linked to Rural Life 

Rural individuals go to their doctors less and often miss early diagnosis of chronic diseases (Saylor, 2012). If there are tests to be done, patients are sent to large cities quite the distance away.

Getting to any appointment anywhere can be difficult for the elderly or for anyone who does not own or can't borrow a vehicle.

Aging in place in remote rural areas is a concern unless you have family living with you or nearby. If those are in place is your house aging compliant and if not do you have the money to make it so. If you have passed the above obstacles, there is one more--a shortage of people who can help the aging population with housekeeping chores in rural areas.

Transportation

Unavailable transportation not only restricts doctor visits, but other important life things. Without transportation, the pursuit of higher education is a struggle or not attainable. In most cases, education is a way to escape poverty.

Employment opportunities cannot be continued if an individual does not have a vehicle or a ride to work. There are no city buses in the country and most of the time not a reality in small towns. However, in town individuals can ride a bike or walk to their destination. And without a job, it’s difficult or impossible to buy or maintain transportation. If an individual is lucky enough to have a car, then the cost of fuel can be a hindrance especially when the commute to employment is from a rural setting. Therefore, living in a small town is a better option, if you do not have access to transportation.

Shopping Choices

Choices of grocery stores are limited in rural towns and often are not as affordable without the competition. The same goes for buying clothing. What choices are there in a small town? Why not order online you say? We'll get to that later.

Emergency Services' Delays

If you live in the rural and become ill, do you have time to wait for an ambulance that might be traveling twenty plus miles to get to you?

Living in the rural, you might be an easier target for criminal activity since they also know that law enforcement does not patrol rural areas as much as (perhaps) they should. How will you protect yourself and property until county law enforcement can assist you?

Inclement weather takes down electricity on a regular basis in some rural areas. Are your lines the last to be fixed? These are issues rural people face daily.

Internet 

Let's talk about internet options and actual working internet. Internet connectivity in my mom's area was better ten years ago than now. Today, it is a pathetic or nonexistent reality in many rural areas. You might think that the internet is a privilege and not a right, but I argue that most things in today's business world are performed through online access: job applications, online medical care and education access, just to mention a few.

All over the United States, broadband legislation is introduced and not adopted (NCSL). Profit over people, in my opinion.

Schools

Many administrators and teachers do not want to teach in the far away land called The Ruralhood. In my 29th year working for a school district, I have lost track of the number of building administrators who have passed through our doors. Some used the district as a stepping stone, some left because they wanted a school closer to home and some exited due to the noncompetitive salaries we offered at the time. The same goes for getting good teachers and keeping them.

However, the quality of education in our district has never waned. I can't speak for other rural schools, but our district through the years has provided excellent learning opportunities with up-to-date technology for both college and trade school bound students. We also have a vocational school. Not only have we kept its doors open, but in the next five years, with the support of our community, we will build a new vocational school so that our students and neighboring rural school districts' students may learn a trade.

Housing 

Housing is also a rural and small town problem. Well, let me clarify. Often rural communities and towns lack not only in quantity but quality housing options, places where humans should live. It's easier to be a slumlord in rural places. 

Final Thought 

As the rural child grows up they are faced with life decisions that includes where they will call home. Will they live in a rural area where the benefits are soul pleasing or in a city where opportunities and conveniences abound? Many of our career bound students do not return after college, which is sad, but I can't blame them. Sometimes the land of opportunity wins out over soul pleasing. I mean, we need to pay the bills.

Do you live in or ever have lived in a rural area? Did you experience any of the issues listed above?

Sources:
RHIHub
Problems of Rural Life Support the Rural Landscape Saylor Academy, 2012
NCSL: Challenges facing Rural Communities

Sewing Part 2: Good and Proper

Sewing as a teenager, and as an adult, allowed me to get more wearables for my money. This skill was demonstrated to me by my mom, grandmother and aunt. My freshman year of high school, I repurposed a couple of other hand-me-downs into garments that I could wear to school. After that, I sewed clothing from patterns and took a home economics course, and it changed my everyday life.

Learning

The wife of our school superintendent, Mrs. Ferrell Mallory taught our home economics classes, similar to the FAC’s class of today, but not really. She taught many life skills for the average girl of that day, which included managing a household and sewing and cooking. There could have been something about child rearing, but I don't remember that part. 

When it came to sewing, Mrs. Mallory was strict. Our sewing had to be good and proper with nothing handed into her for a grade unless it was nearly perfect. Tearing out seams and re-sewing garments again and again was tedious work, but it became the normal and I (eventually) appreciated the outcome. Mrs. Mallory's skills and knowledge base seemed vast to me. During my time in her class, I ate Baked Alaska and caviar for the first and last time. My group tried our hand at a soufflé. We also learned to cook several dishes, including her version of American Asian food. I tried it out on my family, but--um, they didn't like it and said so. Mrs. Mallory taught her students how to identify furniture styles including Duncan Phyfe and Queen Anne. It matters for nothing these days, but I can still identify styles of furniture. She walked our class to her beautiful home, a block away, to see firsthand the styles of furniture she had taught on. I loved it! We also walked downtown to a fabric store. There we viewed and discussed fabric. This aided our class in creating fabric books for class. 

One more note before I move on. Even though she taught us how to dress a table, use our manners and get in and out of a car properly while wearing a dress, Mrs. Mallory never said or implied that we owed our future husbands these skills, or even that we needed husbands. She taught what she believed were important (girl) skills for the day. However, she also encouraged us to be what we wanted to be.

The First

The first garment I sewed for my class was this jumpsuit. I made it from a funky rust color, ribbed double knit in the short version (surprise, surprise). Everything I wore was short: dresses, skirts, halter tops, shorts. This jumpsuit was a perfectly sewn garment. Trust me on that. Eventually, I made another short version, from another double knit, but the color was either purple or blue and white. I wish I had photos of me in one. I didn't like wearing the heavy double knit of the 1970s, but that is what we had to work with and wear. I also made garments from corduroy and cotton.

At that point in time, I would ask my mom for my clothing allowance to purchase fabric and patterns to make my wardrobe for each school year. In the long run, I got more for the bucks. However, I remember the first time the huge Sears (and Roebucks) boxes arrived at our house, a few weeks before school began. I was the only family member who did not have clothing inside, except for underwear. I was sad. My mom was sad for me. Such is life.

Learning how to sew was awesome and changed how "much" clothing I owned and later how I decorated my home. Come back next time and I'll show you patterns (several) of the day, in Sewing Part 3: The Fashion of It

Laura Ingalls Wilder Love

If you know me at all, you might remember how much I love the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. In grade school and while we lived in Illinois, I began reading the Little House books. Our teacher read to our class Little House in the Big Woods, and well, you know how it goes, I was hooked on the books. It was after I’d read my favorite of the books, The Long Winter, that I decided I would write the author a letter.  

Guess what? She had already passed away. I still feel a little bitter about that. 

I'm so pleased that I live near Laura's adult home in Mansfield, Missouri. I visit there at least once a year. So you might imagine my happiness when they announced last year (or it could have been the year before)that a new museum would be built. 

It is built.

It has opened. 

I have visited. 

The old museum was wonderful, but a bit small. The new museum is larger and has a few additional items that were not on display in the old museum. If you get to Missouri, travel to Mansfield, stop by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum and visit her homes. 

You’ll get to see the farmhouse.

And the rock house that their daughter Rose built for her parents (my favorite). 

Sincerely,

A huge Laura Ingalls Wilder Fan since grade school!

Have you ever read the LIW books? Visited any of the Ingalls' home sites or Mansfield, MO? 

Orphan

Little Orphan Annie and the Gila Monster Gang

"A story based on the famous newspaper strip Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray." Copyright 1944.

This is my mother’s book. I’ve read it a few times because I love the story. She allowed me to be its caretaker.

I accept.

Minnie Writes Home

 

 

 

My paternal grandmother, Minnie Pitts Powell, attended beauty school. While there(I believe), she wrote to her parents using this postcard.  

 

  

 

 

During one of our conversations, she told me that what she really wanted to be was a nurse. Her parents didn’t think that nursing was an honorable profession, since she would have to see naked men, so she became a beautician.

Minnie wrote home, but addressed it to herself.

 

 

Photo: Minnie as a child. Cora Pitts, photographer and older sister, took the picture.

 

Minnie wrote home.

 

 

Dressed for the Carnival

 

Most little girls dream of being a princess, I was not an exception. Between my mother Joyce Dugan Powell and my paternal grandmother, Minnie Pitts Powell, I had all the fancy dresses to wear that I could want. 

One of my favorite dresses was one made by my grandmother for my first grade school-carnival in light blue. Dressed in this miniature gown, with ringlets per my mother, I walked arm in arm with my co-candidate who was also my second grade boyfriend.

I still have the dress although it has faded—like me. Appropriate.

School Time, ahh!

The grade school that I attended in the early sixties had no kindergarten. My school career began in first grade. I learned a lot from my first year in school.

I remember walking in the front doors, big doors. Then I had to walk up a flight of stairs 10-20 and down the wood floored hallway where all the high school classes were held. I had to walk past the big kids. It seemed like a long hallway.

I smelled food cooking. The cafeteria was in the basement or what seemed like the basement, but in realty was probably the first floor.

I loved my first grade/second grade teacher, Mrs. Looney. She was so kind. My school contained two grades in one classroom. Mrs. (Beulah) Looney was my teacher. She was born on the fourth of July and lived to be over a hundred years old and only spent three or four in a care center. I learned some basic life experience in my first grade year...rural street smarts I like to call it.

I learned I could have a boyfriend who would push me in my swing at recess. (Yes, that is David to my right. He was also my carnival candidate partner. David was an older man--second grade.)

I learned that those siblings that go to school feel superior over those who have to stay at home.

I learned once you go to school, it's a downhill push--meaning you'll always be expected to attend.

I learned that in a rural area you can't get away with anything, because...everyone knows everyone in your family.

I learned how to read. "Tom! Betty! See Flip run." (Susan said this in case you're interested.)

I learned I could walk through the neighbors' yards all by myself to get to the school. (My mother watched me the entire way, but I didn't know that until much much later.)

I learned that hot dogs can make you and the entire school deathly ill if not cooked properly.

I learned what it took to get me to the next level: second grade.

I learned to make friends.

I learned that school makes you tired.

And that was my first school experience.