On The Spot

My birthplace was a country store that was both our home and my parents business. In 1942 we left Kentucky, and moved to Detroit where Dad worked in an automobile plant that had been converted for the war effort. We were there three years when Dad got the "itch" for the hills of Kentucky. In 1945, we returned "home" where he tried his hand at farming. Our house was without electricity or plumbing, and we drew drinking water from a cistern. My mother cooked on a wood burning stove. For laundry she used homemade lye soap, and heated the water in a cast iron kettle over burning coals.