In my original post, I wrote: “The reason why people fled the area after World War II.” There was a primary reason which was the lack of jobs, but there were other reasons as well. Men returning from service after World War II either couldn’t wait to get home and never wanted to leave again or they knew there was a broader world with many opportunities. It’s the latter group who left the area in search of those opportunities. That’s about all that needs to be said about the male half of the community. What about the women? Again, there were two groups. During the war, some had stayed home and others had gone off to help in the war effort. Like the men, there were some who couldn’t wait to get home and never leave again and there were others who knew about the many opportunities and never returned. For reasons that I’ve never been able to completely explain to myself, in the population left, there were more women than men. There were almost no jobs for women other than waitressing.
Towns declined until in many there were only two businesses. A bar and a gas station. The town name remained, but it had no government and you might have to go 25 miles to another town to get groceries or healthcare. Some of the women turned to sex work using the bars. Men who hadn’t found a marriage partner in high school or had lost their spouse for one reason or another had difficulty finding a single woman. That meant there were marriages between a woman who was a sex worker and a man who obviously knew her past. There was a song by Hank Williams that came out in 1952 that became an anthem for these couples. The second line of the song is “It makes no difference what you used to do.” The song was written by Hank Williams as well as sung by him. Its title is “I Could Never Be Ashamed of You.” Many artists made covers of it but you can listen to him singing it at this YouTube address – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xLx1Bg9RSQ
