An Old Family Tradition

Tom Walls, LeRoy’s Grandpa (left of picture) and Lloyd Walls, LeRoy’s Dad, leaning on Lloyd’s 1936 Ford. 

Photo by

  
Margaret Walls  

Written by 
LeRoy Walls 
CEO 

It would be difficult to measure the huge impact the coming of the Sears-Roebuck catalog had on Ozark hill folks. The Sears catalog started coming in the early 1900’s. The radio came in the late 1930’s and television in the 1950’s. Each of these brought the Ozark hill folks more into the mainstream of American life. These major steps opened us up to a larger world but each also led to taking away our uniqueness.

Prior to the 1950’s the Ozark dialect and terminology used was alive and well. We had been protected by the late arrival of rural electricity and natural isolation that existed in our sparsely populated area of the Ozarks. The colorful Ozark language and the rugged individual style of those who made a hard living in our hills always made my home area so very rich and meaningful to me. With progress this life has now been lost for all time.

The Sears-Roebuck catalog made us aware of all the wonderful items that existed in America. Most of these we would never have -- we could only "wish".

We had a huge mailbox over by the main road. We could hardly wait for our orders of basic needs and farm supplies to show up at our box. Even baby chicks came to our mailbox by way of Sears-Roebuck. My dad also ordered all the electrical supplies he needed to wire our house when electricity finally got to our farm in 1949.

But the final use of the Sears catalog, and the focus of this family tradition, was in our outhouse. The catalog was often read while a person was doing their business. Since we got a spring-summer catalog and a fall-winter catalog, we had new pictures to be looking at every six months. My interest in the women’s lingerie section wasn’t a shared family tradition but something that I discovered on my own.

The catalog’s real use was to serve as toilet paper. Since it didn’t come in the form of a soft roll, the first tradition was to avoid the slick colored photograph pages. It’s a good thing that real toilet paper came along since today’s JC Penney catalog is 100% slick paper except for the Index. The second tradition was on how to tenderize the catalog pages. You do this by tearing out the page and wadding and unwadding it as many times as desired to suit your sensitivity.

My Dad passed down these important traditions to me, and his father no doubt passed it to him. I for one am thankful for these and many other family traditions.

12/31/1999