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Under normal conditions, when the Musick home in the Antioch community in Hood County needed painting, the males would tackle the job, but 1943 was not a normal year because of the war in Europe and the Pacific. Thus, in this year, Jean and her sister, who were both members of the Tolar 4-H Club, did the painting during their summer vacation.
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Around 1930 the Texas Agricultural Extension Service began urging farm families to make new cotton mattresses to improve their sleeping comfort. A decade later the Extension Service began a cooperative program with the United States Department of Agriculture to greatly expand the mattress making program. Extension agents were trained to make the mattresses, and they trained others to start cooperative programs. In the program, low income families were provided fifty pounds of cotton and ten yards of ticking, which was all the material required for a new mattress. During 1940, 164,197 mattresses were made in this government-sponsored program. An additional 11,038 mattresses were made for people whose income was high enough that they had to purchase the mattresses. As all labor was provided by volunteers, the total cost of a new mattress was approximately $6.50. One of the several steps in making a good mattress was beating it repeatedly with what appears to be broom handles. Here some volunteers at Aquilla in Hill County are beating one of the 107 mattresses that had been completed by that volunteer group by the end of summer 1940.
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