Hard times

Bonham Daily Favorite, April 8, 1915

Civil War Times Are Duplicated, Says L. C. Penwell of This City, Who Was Here on the Ground At Time.

We are experiencing some very hard times just now, because of a partial failure crops, together with the low price of cotton and the great European war.  A feeling of uneasiness and doubt seems to prevail, but I believe we have crossed the Rubicon, that the worst is over and that the bright sunlight of prosperity will soon shine again.  God's chosen people can not be kept down long.

We are partly to blame ourselves for these hard times, because of our extravagance.  Besides, I think sometimes that our imaginary wants bother us more than our real ones.  We are living in an advanced age, and all, whether able or not, are trying to keep up with the procession.  I think it is about time to call a halt and take a retrospective view of the situation and profit by our experiences.  As I can scarcely write an article without referring to the past, this will be no exception.

​The present hard times remind me of the sixties, the dark days of the Civil War.  We were cut off from the outside world and forced a rely almost entirely upon our own resources.  People lived pretty hard, but you did not hear half the complaining that you do now.  We dressed in home-spun and home-made clothing and lived at home and boarded at the same place.  Our victuals was plain but wholesome and not much of a variety, and consisted in many instances of corn bread, mast-fed pork and beef killed off the range any time of the year, and far sweeter and more tender than meat we have now.  We had sorghum molasses and many raised fruit.  Never since a boy have I tasted anything that will compare with the large, blood-red, juicy Indian peach of early days.

For awhile biscuit were a rarity, and you would often see a cow-lot full of calves and not enough cream could be gotten from the cows for coffee.  For coffee we used barley or rye, toned up with a little okra.  Sure-enough coffee cost $8.00 a pound in United States or $16.00 in Confederate money.  It was, therefore, just about as scarce as hen's teeth.  We made our own candles, and quite a number had honey.  Many raised barley and the bees lived on that and the sweet prairie flowers that bedecked the earth like Joseph's coat of many colors.

As I have said before, times were hard here, but not as hard as they were further east, near the war zone.  For an eye-opener I will quote the rules and regulations of the Confederate Hotel at Withville, Virginia, November 14, 1864.  This is authentic, and was given me by a neighbor who was living there at the time.  Of course Confederate money was used in this transaction:

Board and lodging per day        $30.00

Single meal                                          10.00.

Lodging per day                                 5.00

Keeping a horse per day                15.00

Single horse feed                                 5.00

Extra charge for fire in room       10.00

How is that for high?