Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Work and Play

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As the worn photo shows in the farm scene there is a thrashing process going on of wheat or oats.  The horse power  was the use of real horses to haul the grain but a gasoline engine would have run the thrashing machine.  The engine would sit a ways away from the thrashing machine and a long wide belt would connect the engine to a flywheel on the thrashing machine.

My grandfather, Leroy Brown, was the tallest one in the row of men with the writing of dad above his head.  He was not a rich man even though he had a wife and three children.  I was told that he dug graves for a living and apparently worked as a hired hand during the fall harvest season.  It was told that he owned a barber chair and cut hair on weekends for neighbors and relatives. My mom told that no one would pay him for cutting their hair. My grandfather died in 1937 from TB.


The baton twirlers are working hard to entertain the crowd while the high school band plays a rousing marching band song.  It was the era when many girls were needed to decorate the band with batons and also sometime pom poms.  As a band marched down the street the majorette would have a couple of rows of girls in uniform marching behind helping to introduce the band members that were following.


A newer generation of baton twirlers and pom pom girls stand to attention for a group photo found in an old Murray High School yearbook.



Country school teachers were paid very little to help educate the children of the farming community.  A man could be a school teacher but an unmarried woman was usually the norm to hold the job.  My mom was a country school teacher having had a special training class taken her senior year of high school.  She took over the job of a future sister-in-law who had married and became pregnant.  Both conditions were not accepted while being a teacher.

Others are posting blogs about this weeks theme of Inverse Work, on Sepia Saturday.  Click HERE to go to the other blogs from person around the world. 




5 comments:

La Nightingail said...

Those pom pom girls must have posed for that picture in the mid 60s? I was a pom pom girl in the late 50s and we thought we were pretty daring with skirts that just brushed the tops of our knees. Woo-hoo! :)

Helen Killeen Bauch McHargue said...

Somebody had to do the grave digging...not a pleasant job I'm sure, but maybe, like other unpleasant necessities, you plain get used to it and it becomes just another job. I've come to love the old photos with writing on them..somehow it makes them even more personal. Love the pom pom girls.

Barbara Rogers said...

Lots of jobs being talked about here. Wonder why nobody paid for hair cuts, though. I helped one hay threshing, and was glad that I was just a volunteer who happened to be visiting. I'll always take my hat off to farmers!

Gardening with Juanita said...

A wonderful part of history. So much has changed since then some good some bad. I enjoyer the looking back. Most of the books I read are about times gone by. I would not want to go back I like this push button time. I am to old for the wash board

Anonymous said...

Larry I am trying to find my old school .
Scarborough Village School when I went at 7 years old. Then they held you back if you were a January baby. That would be year 1948 I was allowed to go to school.

I wanted to see archives of school class pictures .
My school comes up and of course the old must be torn down of course. Yet I am sure pictures you have way back must be in some Archives. I know they are yours but I have only one small picture of me back then at that school. This school was in Canada. Do you have an Idea how to find class pictures Archives from that far back. I am sparkle7@hotmail.ca other then back to my Imagination. Your History is so interesting. Actually I wanted too to find my best friend in my class. Her name is Oceanea Fox. I guess her first name is Greek. My maiden name was Carol Smith.