This was rural Eastern Louisiana, so I wonder how odd this would have been to people at the time. Also, his own first marriage was at the age of 16, and he had

This was rural Eastern Louisiana, so I wonder how odd this would have been to people at the time. Also, his own first marriage was at the age of 16, and he had always spent a lot of time with cousins apparently. To further develop the image, his parents mortgaged their farm to buy his piano. I get an immediate sense of place and culture that was more similar to the victorian age than our modern world, or indeed other parts of the country at that same time.