Since I’ve been writing the “Looking Back” column I have become fascinated with what life in Rockdale was like 100 years ago in 1922. That’s before television. Air conditioning was invented in 1902 but not widely used until it was perfected in 1933. At this time, Rockdale still had an icehouse and the workers delivered the ice to everyone’s homes.
In this week’s “Looking Back” there was an estimated crowd of 5,000 people at the 4th of July celebration put on by the American Legion Carlyle Post 358, the same post we have today. That means at least half that crowd came from out of town.
I can’t imagine any event lately that has drawn that many people to town. There was just nothing else to do, so a picnic event was a big deal.
I also enjoy the flowery language use to describe the social events in people’s homes. The mention of all the actual flowers that decorated the homes seems to have been important.
Those flowers were probably necessary because bathing back then was not what it is today. Nor was the washing machine, if you were lucky enough to have one. Perfume and flowers covered a multitude of smells.
I hope you enjoy reading it because that column is a weekly labor of love and takes me about two hours to compile. The newspapers from 100 years ago are on a website, but I am unable to copy and paste from it so I have to type everything out after deciding which stories to report each week.
The 40-years-ago and 20-years-ago stories are not online, so I use our bound archives to get those memories. Each year of the paper is bound into a big book, so I look through those and then type the stories into my word document.
The 10-years-ago memories we have online at the office. I can copy and paste those which makes things a bit easier.
And it might take less than two hours if I didn’t stop to read things. It’s kind of like cleaning out old boxes full of stuff from the attic. It takes a while to decide what to keep and what to throw away because you want to look at every single thing and sometimes read every single thing.
The stories in our current times are so bad that going back to a simpler time in Rockdale’s history is a welcome respite for me each week, but of course I am not wearing my rose-colored glasses. There are things I don’t report in “Looking Back” like the local Ku Klux Klan organization giving money to the Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls, while doing God only knows what on the other side of the railroad tracks at night.
There was also a dentist who advertised 100 years ago and in his ad each week it says “No work done for Negros” which makes me wonder if that was a warning for Black people or an assurance for white folks. There is a lot not to be proud of in the pages of our history, but luckily both the good and the bad were recorded for all to see in the pages of The Rockdale Reporter.
I believe we are either now in — or will shortly be in — the time period 100 years ago when my great-grandfather, John Esten Cooke, was taken ill and my great aunt Agnes Cooke (Wallis), his daughter, quit college and returned to Rockdale to run the paper until he recovered. Agnes was the grandmother of my cousins Bethany, Brian, Susan Wallis (Cole) and Sharon Wallis (McDaniel).
It’s always an interesting read, and in a few short years the great stock market crash of 1929 will appear in the paper. I’ll be very curious to read and report how Rockdalians fared during that awful time. kyle@rockdalereporter.com
THEY REALLY SAID THAT?
“A road trip is a way for the whole family to spend time together and annoy each other in interesting new places.”
—Tom Lichtenheld
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