The High Cost of Living

By Reno Bailey

Just before noon on Friday, October 4, 1935, Dr. G. O. Moss drove over to my parents’ humble home, a 4-room unpainted tenant house on Trinity Church Road, near the intersection of Gantt’s Grove Road, about two miles from Mooresboro, to deliver their new son—me. After the doctor left, Daddy spent the rest of the day helping Grandpa pull fodder.

Daddy later got this enormous bill for $25. He was able to pay it from the proceeds from our cotton crop. Thank goodness I was born in the Fall.

Inasmuch as the date on the bill was wrong, 1934 instead of 1935, I recently asked Buzzie Moss, son of the late Dr. Moss, if I could get a refund. He thought not, guessing my warranty had probably run out.

The little house no longer exists. What remains is just a fallow field, with no evidence that anything important ever happened there; last time I drove by, I could see that no bronze plaque had been erected on the site.

Artifact and information courtesy Ruby Fraser Bailey