when many families continued to refuse to sell their land in 1932 and 1933, proponents changed tactics. freeman hired social worker miriam sizer to teach at a summer school he had set up near one of his workers' communities, and asked her to write a report about the conditions in which they lived. although later discredited, the report depicted the local population as very poor and inbred, and was soon used to support forcible evictions and burning of former cabins so residents would not sneak back. university of chicago sociologists fay-cooper cole and mandel sherman described how the small valley communities or hollows had existed "without contact with law or government" for centuries, which some analogized to a popular comic strip li'l abner and his fictional community, dogpatch. in 1933, sherman and journalist thomas henry published "hollow folk" drawing pitying eyes to local conditions and "hillbillies." as in many rural areas of the time, most remote homesteads in the shenandoah lacked electricity and often running water, as well as access to schools and health facilities during many months. however, hoover had hired experienced rural teacher christine vest to teach near his summer home (and who believed the other reports exaggerated, as did episcopal missionary teachers in other blue ridge areas).