Helen Lena Cousins, my mother, was
born 100 years ago today, on Friday the 13th of February 1914. She was
born near Half Rock, Missouri, in rural Mercer County. If you don’t know where
Half Rock is, it is a few miles southeast of Topsy(!).
Mom married my father, Hollis
Seat, in 1935, two years after they graduated from high school in Grant City,
Missouri—the same high school I graduated from 22 years later. She passed away 13
days after her 94th birthday in 2008, having lived most of her long
life in Worth Co., Mo.
In 1914, Helen was the second
most popular baby girl name (after Mary). Perhaps it was such a popular name in
the 1910s because of the fame of Helen Keller, who turned 34 in 1914.
(My father used to tell about a
Helen Hunt who worked in the lumber yard at the same time he did in the late
1930s. When customers needed help finding something they were looking for,
sometimes they were told, “Go to Helen Hunt for it.”)
In thinking about my mother
being born 100 years ago, I began to investigate some into what this country
was like in 1914. There had already been a lot of changes between then and the
world I first remember, from about 1944. And the changes between 1914 and now
are very great indeed.
The population of the U.S. was
just over 99,000,000 in 1914; it has now more than tripled to over 317 million.
The average lifespan has also grown greatly: in 1914 life expectancy in the
U.S. was under 55 years and now it is over 77.5, more than a 40% increase.
Woodrow Wilson,
about whom I wrote
recently, was President when my mother was born—but her mother did not vote
for him. In fact, no Missouri woman voted for Wilson, as women in Mo. were not
given the right to vote for President until 1919.
In 1914, Ford Motor Company
began using a moving assembly line, dropping the cost of a Model T to $440. It
also initiated an eight-hour workday and a daily wage of $5, which was
excellent for the time. That reflected Henry Ford’s belief that well paid
workers would put up with monotonous work, be loyal, and, most of all, buy his
cars.
Speaking of cars, there were
already around 1,500,000 motor vehicles on the road in 1914, about 10 for every
660 people. Now there are over 250 million passenger vehicles, around 10 for
every 13 persons in the U.S.
There have also been great
changes in the availability and use of electricity, telephones, toilet
facilities, air travel and so forth. I wonder how old Mom was she when she first
had access to electric lights and an inside toilet at home—many years after
1914, I’m sure.
One hundred years
ago the most significant world event occurred in June 1914: an Austrian archduke
was assassinated. That led to the beginning of the Great War (now known as
World War I) on July 28—although the U.S. did not enter the war until 1917.
Since that tragic
event is so significant, I plan to write more about it later this year. And it
will be interesting to consider how much the world’s political situation now is
similar to what it was in 1914.
In their 12/21/13 issue, The Economist wrote that there are now “uncomfortable parallels
with the era that led to the outbreak of the first world war.” Do you see any of
those parallels?
