Have you ever seen a photo of Harry Reid's boyhood home? Here's one.

[Siwsan]

It was in Searchlight NV. His father was a miner. His mother a laundress. The home had no indoor toilet, no hot water, no phone. He moved 40 miles away to live with relatives so he could attend high school.

[Joinfortmill]

1. Amazing journey.

[Demovictory9]

2. very basic

[planetc]

3. The amenities of this house are identical to those my grandparents enjoyed at their farm.

The farmhouse was larger, but the outhouse was outside. Water could be pumped in the kitchen, but Grandma would still have to heat it from there. What I mean is that lots of people in this country lived with few modern conveniences until FDR started to bring electricity to farmers in the 1940s I think. (There are photos of people lining the route FDR's funeral train took. He was a dynamite president.) As I recall that farmhouse, I realize it was engineered for maximum comfort using the available means. There were three bedrooms, one on the first floor and two upstairs, and all of them were heated by the chimneys that served the stove in the kitchen and the smaller heater in the living room. There was no air conditioning, but Grandma's sewing machine (a treadle model Singer) was positioned so it caught a breeze in summer from between the window it stood in front of and the front door. So, if you were shelling peas on a hot afternoon, you took them out to the front porch, and enjoyed the view from the porch as you worked. Probably you counted your blessings too.

I would just like to comment that poverty was not always abject, or soul crushing. Most of the people in that farming community lived the same way, and children learned to earn what they wanted. There were a lot of healthy attitudes and healthy fun, and it produced people who could live to be 97, as my mother did. So I don't think Mr. Reid was necessarily harmed by his parents' poverty. But I do think his understanding of how many Americans lived was considerably deeper than some of the Congresscritters we have now. Joe Manchin springs to mind.

[Siwsan]

4. My father grew up VERY poor, on the north end of Flint

For him, it was a character building experience. He was a star football player in high school, went on to join the Marines and used the GI bill to go to college and become a teacher/football coach/counselor.

And, I have his mother's treadle sewing machine!

Her niece lived in a house, in Mount Savage, MD, that didn't have indoor plumbing or electricity until well into the 20th century.

[PortTack]

6. Sadly and shockingly ppl in WV and other poor southern states still live like this

[Meadowoak]

9. Kentucky too, there are a couple of homes that look just like that

Just down the road from me, proud Republicans too. I don't get it either.

[PortTack]

23. Thx manchin and turtle!! Sooo proud they must be while they live the high life and vote down

Legislation that would help these ppl!

[sellitman]

26. Yeah, and they are

Usually tRump voters.

Go figure.

[Chicago1980]

29. They vote to live like that.

Not one of the conservative republicans that they continually elect has ever done a thing to help them.

[left-of-center2012]

17. "the outhouse was outside"

That's the best place for it.

[ShazzieB]

22. Yes, that's why it's called an OUT house!

[Bayard]

5. The first memories of my grandparents

My Mom's folks, were in a house like that....outhouse, water pump, and all. It was hidden back in the South Carolina pine woods.

My Mom was a life-long Democrat, and loved Hillary Clinton. She always wanted her to run for president, but didn't live long enough to see it.

[TomWilm]

7. My childhood home also had no indoor toilet, no hot water, no phone ...

Here in Denmark, it was still not that unusual in the 50-ties. No car, but a stable for my fathers horse...

Those times is not that far away, here and in the US - picture is from 1977:



But very much yes, it IS an amazing travel, from Harry Reid's poor upbtinging to the highest office. That kind of Social Mobility is way too seldom, even in the Land of Opportunity,

[NoMoreRepugs]

8. Hey ManChin - get off your ass so your constituents living like this

have a chance. The Harry Reid saga isn’t going to happen often.

[dchill]

10. I don't see the cable hook-up.

[reACTIONary]

11. This is what is called a....

... shotgun shack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_house

[Hortensis]

12. Mineral Man and I were discussing that even in the 1950s, and much more

so before, NORMAL was much poorer than now. Not that this was normal for areas with vigorous economies. But people in general had less materially than people of the same socioeconomic level now. I'd say @750-1500 square feet was common for working class homes in Southern California, and more nicely built, but there were houses like this was when newer also.

But this was Searchlight, NV, a happy place probably for kids to run around, but boy, as said, some journey.

[demigoddess]

13. one of my earliest memories is my grandfather building

an outhouse in his backyard. My dad's grandparents had one in their yard and also a pump for water. No running water in their house. Until they died. In the 70s.

[iluvtennis]

14. Wow 😮. n/t

[smirkymonkey]

27. That is pretty much my reaction.

Just speechless.

We need more Harry Reids, who know what it is like to be raised in poverty and who retain their compassion for the poor and working class, and fewer DJT's who care about nothing but personal wealth and power.

[iluvtennis]

30. +++ agree. n/t

[karin_sj]

15. Wow, from such humble beginnings

To a great and powerful politician, who never forgot that he was there to serve the people and do the best he could for his country. Unlike 99% of the people on the other side of the aisle.

[blueinredohio]

16. We had a well on the back porch for water and an outhouse in the 60s

[Nanuke]

18. MyGrandmother's House...

…got a running water spigot in her kitchen in the late 60’s. Before then, she would get her water from a pump well near the creek that ran 1/4 mile from her house. She had 10 gallon (?) metal water cans that visitors would fill and cart back and forth to the pump in their cars. We used a metal dipper to get a drink out of a can.

The kitchen water spigot made it easier to wash clothes in her wringer washer.

She had no other indoor plumbing and used an outhouse until she passed in the late 70s.

Her house was heated with an oil burning “stove” located in the central part of the house. If we visited in the winter, and got to sleep in one of the bedrooms, we saw our breath in the room by morning (this was rural Minnesota).

If she had a lot of visitors, the boys slept in the attic under animal robe skins and you could see the snow falling through spaces in the slats of the walls.

When my cousins and I gather, all we can talk about was how great it was at Grandma’s house when we were kids.

[BobTheSubgenius]

19. An AA friend of a friend was born in 1938; haven't seen him in years, so I wouldn't be suprirsed...

...if he's passed on. He was born into a share-cropper's dirt-floor shack in rural Mississippi. I think you can picture the rest.

[ProfessorGAC]

20. My Mom's Parents Didn't Have...

...indoor plumbing in the middle of a town of 60,000. In the 60s.
But, the house wasn't a shotgun shack like the one Harry grew up in.
That's a primitive start in life!

[AllaN01Bear]

21. a friend of mine and i were just talking about living in these kind of houses when she was younger.

she lived in a fish camp, no running water , etc. had kerosene lamps out house and a wood stove . shed wash her dishes using sand and then rinse them using boiling hot water from the stove and same with clothes . a friend of mine whom i know from church went with her ex to meet his mother , who lived in elco nev at the time . same situation. water was from a well and when she was done with dishes , would throw water overboard on to the floors and wash floors that way.

[panader0]

24. My dad was born in the small town of McGill, Nevada in 1914. His dad was a foreman at the

Kennecott copper mill in town. All of the houses were identical, company houses. He said that
he and his buddies would gather in the evening and discuss driving to Ely, a slightly larger town
to the south. He got a football scholarship to Cal, where he was friends with Louis Zamperini
and went on to be a Lieutenant Colonel in the
Army Air Corp and fly 50 combat missions in WWII. Another guy from a small Nevada town that
went pretty far.

[JI7]

25. And he did not feel resentment about the term "white privilege"

and knew minorities faced prejudices that he didn't. Same with Bill Clinton and many other white people that grew up poor.

In fact it probably made them more empathetic to what others go through.

[cally]

28. Could you provide the link?

I’m curious if there are more pictures if I click on the arrow below