That is a very neat gun. $20 seems like a joke to us now, but in 1936 rural Arkansas that was a lot of money. The average U.S. salary at that time was about $475 annually and I guarantee you it was much less in Arkansas. Probably more like $275. That gun might have cost 6% of the average man's pay for the year in this state. We assume the owner of a coal company located in a city with the same name as the owner was likely doing a bit better than average.

The average level of education for American adults in 1941 was middle 8th Grade. That figure drops as you go back in time. My paternal grandparents quit school after the 3rd and 5th grades, respectively. Most folks in the 1930s had not received a lot of formal education and reading letters and notes written back then makes this obvious. Spelling and grammar errors are common.

PS: To show how rare a college education was back then, a degree was not required to be a licensed school teacher. A HS graduate could be a public school teacher. And an officer in the military wasn't required to have a degree, either. My uncle was drafted in 1942 after one year of college and was immediately commissioned as a lieutenant based on that level of education.

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