Decades of innovation: When the lights came on

Mrs. Powers might have been a tad irritated. You see, her husband had decided to take the day off, and she wanted to know why.

But Lindsey Powers, a farmer residing in the Turkey Creek community of Walton County, had a good reason. His life was about to change dramatically, and he realized it.

A Walton EMC employee told Powers his home was going to be the first to receive electric service — and it was happening that day.

“Occasionally I would go around and pull on the little cords to see when the lights [came] on,” Powers said, remembering his excitement in 1937. “My wife spoke up and said ‘You gonna wear the cords out before the lights ever come on.’”

“They finally come on,” continued Powers. “After dinner, I failed going to the field again. She said ‘Why you not going to the field this evening?’ I said I’m celebrating today. I want to sit here and wait ‘til dark comes to see how supper eats with a good light!”

Many more homes and farms across the local countryside would celebrate the miracle of electric power over the coming years.

“Everybody just had a light bulb hanging down from the ceiling at first,” remembers Jerry Morrow of Loganville. “I know of a family that got a refrigerator but didn’t leave it plugged in all the time. They were afraid it would use too much electricity.”

The Walton EMC customer-owner also recalls the difference electric power made to his family, especially after having electric service and then losing it.

“We moved several times, and sometimes we would move from a house that had power to one that didn’t,” he said. In the homes without power, he was forced to use an oil lamp for light to do homework.

Housekeeping without electricity was particularly challenging for Morrow’s mother.

“When she’d iron clothes, she would have to put an old solid iron on the wood stove to heat it up to use,” he said. “In one home, we had a washing machine but no indoor plumbing, so I had to draw the water from the well.”

Families living in homes connected to Walton EMC lines improved their standard of living one electric convenience at a time. “It was a progression of appliances that you got,” Morrow said.

The electric radio was the most important and welcomed appliance in the Morrow household.

“Up until then, we had a battery-powered radio and it required a battery almost as big as the radio itself. Daddy made us be very careful about how much we listened to it,” he said.

Electric power evolved from a luxury to a convenience to a necessity. The cooperative model that brought the first glimmer of light to dark Georgia nights still serves Walton EMC members today – efficiently, reliably and with the same dedication to service that made such a difference in the lives of Lindsey Powers and Jerry Morrow.