Life in the Twentieth Century

MANY YEARS AGO ON A FARM in Lee County, seven miles northwest of Keokuk, Iowa on December 24, 1916, at approximately 6:00 A.M., I arrived into this world with the aid of Dr. Lee Coffey. He had stayed the night attending my mother for the arrival of her second child. Doctors then were general practitioners and usually delivered babies in their own homes. During my lifetime there has been great progress in all areas of life-which I think most of you will find interesting. In this autobiography, my purpose is to relate how people lived when I was little and how each family was a self-supporting enterprise, so to speak. People worked together to provide everything they needed for their own survival and always helped any other family member that was in need. They also shared with neighbors and friends.

This book displays how different life was without electricity and acquaints you with many of the different appliances developed for family use in my lifetime. I wish to portray the advancement and progress of productivity using the many inventions that were developed and made available to the general public during this century. Most of the everyday drudgery that was necessary to survive has been eliminated. This way of life is probably inconceivable to the younger generation. Also I desire to describe the growth in transportation-from horse and buggy and dirt roads to four or more lanes of paved highways all over the continent and to jet plane travel, worldwide.