re: What do ya'll think it was like living in the old days? Say 1880s

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My kids only know living in a $150k house.

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What is this? A house for ants?

I remember my grandmother saying more than one time that she did NOT miss the 'good old days'.

Of course, the 1880s was way before her time. My granddaddy and her were farmers during the Depression and WWII.

I can image life in the 1880s in Louisiana was pretty hot in the summers, with no AC. And it got pretty cold in the winters with just maybe a chimney and/or wood burning stove.

Then there was the Louisiana state bird, the hellish 'skeeters.

Hard work was the order of the day for the whole family.

The men were usually farming, cotton in the north, sugar cane way in the deep south, or cutting, hauling lumber in the swamp or in the forests.

The South was still recovering from the Civil War.

The women were usually at home taking care of the house and barn, milking cows tending the horses mules etc, working the gardens, preparing meals, bailing water...

Most of the children were in school but worked when they got home and helped around the house.

I can image life was pretty hard. No stores to go to on a whim, no refrigerators, you either walked, rode horse/mule or rode in a wagon to get somewhere.
Food could get scarce.

There was usually one doctor who took care of the whole town. There was no anesthesia for medical procedures, usually a few shots of whiskey to help numb the pain.

Same with a dentist, an abscessed tooth must have been hell.

A serious injury or disease was usually fatal.

Infant mortality was high.

There was the Saturday night social where the young folks could court each other.

There was church on Sundays and sometime dinner afterwards.

I am sure the parents would interact and spend family time with their children.

When the kids went to bed and were fast asleep, momma and daddy had their little time together.

I am sure that life was somewhat simple back then as there was no where near the BS we have to put up with today.

We have the advantage of looking back on history and reflecting on how things were back then.

No doubt things are a lot better today than they were back 140 years ago.

IDK if our best days are past or not but SOMETIMES to me it seems like the golden years of our nation
are a thing of the past.

The hellish conditions people in Appalachia in Eastern Kentucky endured with coal mining was abysmal in those days. It actually got worse for them in the 1900s and beyond and they've never really recovered. But they are hardy God fearing folk. Don't know how folks down there back in the swamps live, but I imagine there's a lot of similarities between them and those out in the hollers in Kentucky.

Yep, when the banks were failing, folks lost their money outright.
There was no FDIC to bail out the depositors. Losing their money was a life-altering, devastating blow that many never recovered from.

We have all heard of the old-timers burying their cash in mason jars and how banks were despised by them.


I remember hearing stories of how people would tie a string around the abscessed/rotten tooth and tying the other end to a door knob and then have someone slam the door.

That must have been horrific.

Reading up on it, an abscessed tooth was a major contributor to deaths over 200 years ago.

I am thankful for all the medical advances we now have today.