Water

We had electricity growing up but no running water in our house.  We walked to a spring about a tenth of a mile from our house and carried the water in buckets.  We poured this in big cream cans and went back for more.  Wash day was murder.  We had a cistern but it leaked and we did not drink that water.  We had a water bucket in the house with a dipper.  We all drank from the same dipper.  The year I went to college Dad had a well drilled.  It had to be deep to hit water.  The pump was at the bottom of the well.  My Mother was a clean person.  I know all those years without running were a burden.  She had indoor plumbing and a bathroom for the last 20 plus years of her life.

Our house was heated by a wood stove.  This was another chore for Fleta and I.  We gathered kindling each night to help get the fire going the next morning.  When it wasn’t the dead of winter, we had to find wood enough to take the chill off our house.  This was more than kindling.  We took an ax and chopped wood.  We carried it in our arms to the porch.

Most of the time we helped milk cows.  If we had a herd we assisted.  When we were not selling milk to Kraft we still had to milk a cow or two morning and night.  During school I milked at night and Fleta in the morning.

We were poor.  There was never enough money.  Dad often borrowed money to pay his taxes and paid it back over the next year.  Then the next year, he had to repeat this.  We were always in the hole.  In 1962, he took a job at the Feed Mill in town.  Each week he got a check.  I think he made $62.00 a week take home.  Now, this may be wrong, but I seem to recall this.  After this we had cash each week.  Mom could wash clothes at the Laundromat in town on Saturday and buy groceries at a store in Green Forest.  She did not have a drivers license ever, but she drove there and parked behind the store.  She drove just on the back streets.  Thankfully, she never had an accident.  In 1969, Dad drilled the well.  He retired in 1977 from the Mill.  

Our lives were laborious but we always had hope of a brighter day.  We never felt below others.  Our home was one of encouragement and love.  I’m not regretful of my childhood, but it wasn’t an easy life.

This is the cave where our spring was.  Dad had a black pipe in the spring and the waster ran out to this trough.  He made it of concrete in 1945.  Their first house was right by this cave.  The spring was strong.  I don’t think it ever went dry.  Going here to get water was scary and eerie.  The place was snaky.