When the REA came, my grandmother, a voracious reader all her life, treasured being able to read at night. She loved her Kelvinator refrigerator, but kept cooking on her wood stove. The best thing about having electricity was her electric iron. For years she had to heat flat irons on the stove, then iron my grandfather’s starched and sprinkled, white shirts. A lot of times those shirts were worn when he was baptizing in rivers. She praised her iron and the electricity that made it hot.

Ruth Moose, Pittsboro