The home into
which I was born was a small frame house with a small cellar dug out underneath
where canned fruits and vegetables were kept.
We had no running water, no electricity, no indoor plumbing. As the saying goes, instead of two rooms and
a bath, we had two rooms and a path. I
remember the outhouse. It was a
one-holer. At night "slop
jars" beside the beds were used and washed out the next morning. Baths were either with washcloths and a pan
of water or in an old-fashioned washtub.
I do not mean bathtub, but washtub, the galvanized one in which Mom did
the washing with a scrub-board. I
especially remember the washtub baths.
They seemed special in some ways since they were only to be had during
warmer weather and always outdoors. Even
then the cold water from the spring had to sit a while to be warmed by the
sun. There were special times when we
went to the creek and took baths, but the creek was a little far. It was on the edge of our farm and always a
delight whether we went there to bathe or to fish. The soap we used was called lye soap, which
is made of hog's fat and lye. I remember
being at my Carter grandparents' house when lye soap was being made in a large
cooking vat over an open fire. The lye
soap was always made right after hog killing time.
The spring was
about 50 yards behind the house. It was
cold and refreshing as it ran out from the side of the hill. Rocks were used to dam up a little area so
water could be dipped out. It also
served as a place to store milk and butter.
Of course with no electricity we had no refrigerator and being so far
from a town neither did we have an icebox.
I do not recall ever seeing an iceman delivering ice "down under
the hill." So, the spring was the
source of our water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. It had to be carried to the house by hand in
pails or buckets. Our drinking water was
in a pail from which we all drank with a dipper. This was the custom everywhere. Everyone we knew had a pail with a dipper for
people to help themselves. Even at the
General Store in McDaniels customers could help themselves to a dipper of
water. It was the precursor to the water
fountain, but not nearly as sanitary. Although
we moved from there when I was six years of age, I still remember those trips
to the spring.
Heating and
cooking were done using wood. Even as a
child I had heard of coal being used in stoves, but that had to be bought. We used wood cut from the timber on the
property. Usually in the fall of the
year Dad would make sure that logs were cut and split into firewood for the
wood-burning stove which heated the house and for the kitchen cook-stove. Mom records one wood shortage time:
Loyd had never had the measles until after
Richard was born. We never knew where he contacted anyone with
measles, but he had a real bad case. It
was in the winter and he was confined to the bed and house for a few
weeks. Barbara also got the
"bisease" a little later.
While Loyd was unable to go outside, we ran out of firewood. A deep snow was on the ground, but I knew
where a post was lying buried in the snow.
I dragged the post into the barn shed and chopped it up with the axe for
firewood, until some neighbors came and cut wood for us.
In
the experiences that I share in this book I hope you will get a sense of what
it was like from my perspective. I know
that others of my generation had more conveniences than we did, but then they
lived in less rural areas of the country.
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