In Ted and Clary's room, the walls are papered with newspaper. They were really poor. Also, there are candles on the Christmas tree. Even in the 1940's, people in rural areas that had electricity would only have a light bulb hanging from the ceiling and that was
shareMy grandparents both come from coal mining families, and they've told me stories of people doing that and it being pretty normal.
shareI've known lots of people to use newspaper that way...at my great grandfathers house we would just read the walls and the silly things in the newspaper back in the day.
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Turd Ferguson...enough said.
newspapers are so bad anyhow they should be wallpaper, and parrot floors
shareOh yeah. I've still got some family that have their houses (or at least one room) wallpapered with newspaper.
According to my Grandmother we are supposed to be related to Loretta...somehow. I mean, everyone in Kentucky is related in some form or fashion. Butcher Holler is....Eastern...I'm more South Central KY.
Missy
Years ago I went to the actual house in Butcher Holler. The house did have newspaper for wallpaper. I was given the tour by Herman (Loretta's Brother) He and his wife owned a store down the holler from the house. He sat on the porch and talked with us for a long time. It was really nice to meet him. What a great guy.
shareAh, Recently I went to the "Cabin on the hill in BUtcher HOller", where I enjoyed Herman's compan immensley. THe Newspaper wallpaper is still there, and spread with many signatures of visitors in MArmy and Daddy's room. Much in the way that the Walls outside Graceland have been SHarpied beyond redemption.
Herman's wife was not at the store when we visited, but his Daughter was. It was the most special, authentic and wonderful experience I have had in my life in the department of sightseeing.
We shot the *beep* with the them and others that wondered into the store and HErmans red headed Daughter mentioned she had just spoke with her aunt LOretta and that her arm was on the mend....I beleive Loretta had just had surgery on her rotater cuff.
I enjoyed stopping at garage sales that were within a couple miles of the old Webb homestead, there in Van Lear and Paintsville.
Recently I heard that HErman had surgery, and I was wondered if anyone had any news on that?
My grandmother had hanging light bulbs in the '60s.
shareThey did not have electricity in their cabin. The radio took batteries.
shareHonestly, that isn't that far gone even today. I grew up with my grandparents in a textile town in central NC. We had light bulbs hanging from the ceiling from our mill house, and you unscrewed them just a little to turn them off. This was the 1980's. My great-grandfather's place had newspaper on the walls.
shareNo kidding.
My grandma married a man who lived in a house with NO indoor plumbing (had a pump at the kitchen sink) and an outhouse. The walls had gaping holes covered by newspapers and wallpaper.
This was in 1973 in southern Indiana.
I remember well the "chamber pots" we used at night or in the winter when we couldn't or wouldn't go to the outhouse.
He'll be 85 in July and is still going strong!
"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"
I grew up in the 70s, and my grandma had an outhouse until I was 10-years-old. She had no heat --- just the fireplace and wood-burning stove downstairs. We slept on top of and under giant homemade featherbeds. She also used a ringer-washer (similar to the one Loretta uses in Topeka) even after she got the indoor bathroom.
shareThey lived way up in the holler. Remember that Doo told Loretta he was going to drive his jeep up there and take her for a ride and she told him he would never get the jeep up in the holler? It was very rural. They had mule trails but no real roads. So it would have been real hard for electricity to have been installed if they couldn't bring in the machinery necessary to install it.
shareMom told me when they first got electricity Grandpa got the biggest lightbulb he could to hang from the ceiling. Lots of wall papered with newspaper when I grew up. Grandpa said it was unsanitary to have a toilet in the house. My granddaughter, upon seeing a two-holer outside toilet, said "Which one is for the girls?". Grandpa took the electric stove Dad bought him and replaced it with the wood burning stove. Dad went back the next weekend, reinstalled the electric stove and threw the wood stove in the creek while Grandpa sulked in the barn. Grandma bought their first tv with her egg money and wouldn't allow Grandpa to watch except for the weather report because she had to pay for the tv herself. Grandpa, while having the first telephone installed, said it was dangerous because it would let in lightning.
shareWe had a place fairly far-up in New Hampshire and I clearly remember the neighbor using old maps as a wallpaper. My dad was in the paperhanging trade for years and clearly remembers this broker having his office done with those huge stockpage printouts.
shareMy mother grew up during the Depression and the house she grew up in had newspaper walls.
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