COMMUNITY
February 2004
 Mary Ford |
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(Read the previous stories in the series.)
Mary Ford, born in 1916, will soon be 88 years old. Because there was no hospital when she was born, the event occurred at her Charlotte Hall home. Mary was one of nine children and has lived in Southern Maryland all her life, though many of her own children have moved out of the area.
Mary’s parents lived near the railroad tracks that lead to Lexington Park. Some of the men who built the power lines lodged at their home for several weeks in the 1930’s—back when electricity was new to Southern Maryland. According to Mary, the arrival of electricity created great excitement in the community; everyone was talking about it.
While her parents had electricity at their home nearby, and Eleanor Canter, Mary’s employer of 30 years, also had electricity, Mary and her husband, John, did not. With 10 children, heating bath water in a large metal tub in the back yard was no easy chore.
John worked nights at Indian Head. During the day, he boiled his work clothes, dark with coal dust, in a tub over a fire to get them clean. In 1964, John Ford passed away, and Mary’s father built her a new home—a new home with electricity—for her and her 10 children. She couldn’t have been more ready for it.
Most of us today don’t remember a time without electricity, and we take for granted the convenience it brings to our lives. Mary Ford has been living in her home and has been a SMECO member for 40 years. She’s seen many changes over the years, but she’ll always remember how life was different—before electricity came to town.
 Annie Butler Curtis |
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Churning homemade butter by hand. Carrying butter to the store to exchange it for sugar, molasses, or kerosene. Picking up wood chips to start a fire in the kitchen woodstove. Heating water on the stove for the laundry and washing it by hand with a rough, wooden washboard. Boiling clothes to get them white. These are the chores that kept Annie Butler Curtis busy when she was young.
Annie attended the one-room schoolhouse where her father, Abraham Butler, taught in Mechanicsville. The girls sat on one side of the room, the boys on the other; the woodstove sat in the middle. Although students didn’t go on field trips like they do today, they did attend a field day at which all the schools in the county were gathered. At one such field day, Annie won first place in the fifth-grade spelling contest.
The Butler family bought their first car in 1925: a Ford. On their way home from their grandmother’s house in Mechanicsville, the Butler family stopped at a small store at the Route 5 intersection. From inside, they could hear the radio playing. Mr. Butler asked the kids if they wanted to listen. There they sat, outside the store, listening to a radio for the first time.
Annie just turned 87 last month, but she remembers well the world of her youth. She feels lucky to have lived in two worlds: the old and the modern. Her family started receiving electric service about 70 years ago. The first thing they got was lights; no more filling kerosene lamps and washing lampshades. Then a washing machine; she was glad to be rid of the washboard. Then an electric iron; no more heating the heavy irons on a hot stove.
Now, Annie says she wouldn’t want to be without her microwave oven.