President ’ s Message
Innovations that improve our lives
News & Notes
National Archives
This newsletter is published four times a year by the MOUNTAIN VIEW HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION P . O . Box 252 , Mountain View , CA 94042 www . mountainviewhistorical . org
MVHA Board of Directors
President : Pamela Baird Vice-President : Robert Cox Secretary : Jamil Shaikh Treasurer : Melissa Rusch
Past President : Nicholas Perry Historical Data : Vacant Membership : Lisa Garcia Newsletter : John Cortez
Director-at-Large : Carol Donahue Director-at-Large : IdaRose Sylvester Director-at-Large : Melanie Kaye
Newsletter Design & Layout by Nicholas Perry and Melanie Kaye
MVHA Board of Directors Email : info @ mountainviewhistorical . org
For a video preview of the Downtown Walking Tour with Pamela Baird , visit :
https :// www . youtube . com / watch ? v = XriZywV7djA
Pamela Baird
President ’ s Message
By Pamela Baird MVHA President
Innovations that improve our lives
This issue and the upcoming February 2 History Event meeting will cover innovators and patent holders of Mountain View . The area in which we live has seen innovations , starting shortly after its founding , to today ’ s advancements in transit , connections and productivity .
Innovation can be life-changing or just a small increment of change . My mother grew up on a farm in rural southwest Iowa . Although nearly 90 percent of urban households had electricity by the 1930s , only 10 percent of rural households had access . Homes were lit with kerosene lamps , water was hand pumped , and cows milked by hand . There were no radios , water heaters , or small electric appliances like irons or toasters .
The cost of bringing power lines to remote farm homes was too expensive for private utility companies . The federal government created the Rural Electrification Administration ( REA ) in 1935 . This program helped finance the creation of local cooperatives , which built small power plants to provide electricity .
As my mother recounted the tale of my grandfather — he was instrumental in organizing the local electricity co-op . He drove from farm to farm to speak with the men about the advantages of joining the coop to have electricity brought to their farms . Many farmers didn ’ t want to spend the money to join or felt it wasn ’ t necessary .
Frustrated with the lack of foresight , he started speaking to the farm wives about how much easier their lives and those of their families would be if they had electricity . Only when women were consulted , was he able to convince people to join . And life was soon immeasurably better . My mother told me that studying with electric light was much better than with a kerosene lamp , not to mention indoor plumbing , refrigeration and electrically heated water .
Another innovation that my grandfather pursued was a different way of plowing the fields . The terrain of Southwest Iowa
Roy Fehr Innovative Iowa Farmer
is low rolling hills . The standard method of plowing was up and down the fields in a straight line . This sometimes caused flooding or washing away of recently planted seeds . My grandfather read journals and magazines about better plowing methods . After doing research he
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