On summer nights before televisions flickered and the buzzing sound of appliances, a teenage Gay Sullivan would return home from visiting friends and carefully roll her hair in pins. “There weren’t any curlers or fancy products—no shampoo or hairspray like today,” she laughs. “I twisted it up, secured it with a bobby pin, and then crawled into our feather bed to sleep with the curls.”
Stormy nights brought their own lessons for her. “I remember that whenever there was thunder and lightning, my mama would say that God was working. We would always get into bed and stay there until the storm passed. That’s when I actually learned there was a God,” Gay recalls.
This is how the conversation began with 98-year-old Gay Sullivan, a long-time member of Tri-County EMC, as she reflected on life before the founding members of Tri-County EMC worked to bring electricity to homes and families like hers. Electricity wouldn’t reach her family’s home until she was about 13. Until then, daily life was marked by simple routines and traditions that today’s generation can hardly imagine.
Life Before Electricity On Saturdays, Gay’s family would head into town with baskets of fresh eggs and homemade butter, trading them for a small cut of beef. “Every Sunday morning we would eat beef—it was a real treat for us,” she says with a smile. Without electricity, there was no refrigerator to keep food cool and no electric stove to make meals easy. Instead, the heart of the home was the wood stove. “We cooked on the wood stove, and you could smell the coffee in the morning before you even got out of bed,” Gay recalls. “There was a reservoir on the stove that kept water warm, so we could use it for baths or washing dishes.”
Chores filled the rest of Saturday—hauling wood, polishing kerosene lamps, preparing for the week ahead. In the evenings, the family piled into the car to see Roy Rogers or Gene Autry on the big screen. “That was our entertainment,” Gay says. “We didn’t have a TV; we’d listen to the radio, and my granddaddy played the fiddle—though the dog didn’t like it,” she adds, laughing.
Sunday mornings were always reserved for breakfast and church. Breakfast was a real event—two long benches sat on either side of the table, with a chair at each corner. After the meal, the dishes were washed, but the table was always reset right away, ready for the next gathering.
Mondays were laundry days, with a wash pot fired outdoors if the weather allowed. “The sheets always went in first, then the clothes,” Gay says. The scent of fresh laundry dried in the open air is something she still treasures.
By age 11, Gay was helping with tobacco to earn money for clothes. “At about 10 o’clock, you’d get a MoonPie and a Pepsi,” she recalls. “And I still like a Pepsi.” Money was scarce, so neighbors leaned on each other, even sharing license plates to afford a trip to town.
The Turning Point Electricity marked a turning point in Gay’s life. For a family accustomed to bartering eggs for beef, cooking on a wood stove, and hauling water for washing, the arrival of electricity brought conveniences they had only dreamed of. The very first purchase they made was a refrigerator. “The first thing we bought was a refrigerator,” Gay remembers. “That meant we could finally keep our beef and have butter without worrying it would spoil.” What once required careful timing and constant work—cooking, preserving, and planning meals—suddenly became easier.
Electricity didn’t just power lights; it shifted the rhythm of life itself. It made homes safer, meals easier, and new opportunities possible. Gay remembers the local champions of electrification, people like Mr. Lewis Outlaw and Mrs. Daisy Smith, who went door to door to sign families up. “Towns had it, but we didn’t in the country. They worked hard so folks could get electricity.”
A Legacy of Transformation When asked if she misses those days, Gay shakes her head. “No,” she says. “It was a hard life. I wouldn’t want my children to have to live like that.” For her, electricity marked the beginning of a new chapter—one filled with convenience, opportunity, and dignity.
The story of Gay Sullivan is the story of countless families across rural America. Thanks to the vision of community leaders and the persistence of Tri-County EMC’s founding members, electricity brought not only light to darkened farmhouses but also hope, comfort, and progress to an entire generation.
“I’ve been grateful for it every single day since the lights came on,” Gay reflects.