Every other Monday morning, I go to a local nursing home and play the piano for a group of singers from Mount Calvary Baptist Church. The group, mostly seniors, is evenly divided between men and women and what they lack in close musical harmony, they make up with their enthusiasm. And the audience obviously looks forward to the visits. But this column has nothing to do with the visits or the singing but rather has to do with a conversation I overheard while waiting for the group to assemble.
The speaker talking to a friend stated that he grew up on a farm in the days when conveniences were scarce and that included a modern water source. Yes they had a hand pump on the back porch, but they needed to supplement that with other means of collecting water especially for bathing. The answer was a 55 gallon steel barrel located in a strategic place so that water running off the roof of the barn would funnel into this container. But there was not always enough water to provide for the family’s bathing needs so another source had to be found. It was a hand dug well located near the livestock barns. The water drawn from the well was generally used only for non-human consumption unless one’s thirst was overwhelming.
Our family did not have electricity until the early 1940s so we had no indoor plumbing, only a cast iron hand cranked water pump on the back screened porch right across from the ice box. The water source was generally reliable but occasionally, the pump would lose its ‘prime’ so a container of water had to be available to get it ‘primed’ and producing water. Unlike that dug well source, the hand pump provided all the family’s needs, consuming, washing and bathing included. But I digress.
The speaker told of his family’s use of the 55 gallon barrel. If necessary, water could be drawn from the hand dug well to provide sufficient water for bathing needs on Saturdays. It was the day when everyone became ‘clean’ and ready for church the next day when the starched shirt would be worn along with shoes even if it were summer time.
In our family, without running water, for bathing we used a large galvanized (17 gallon) tub which was also used for washing clothes on Monday morning when the wash pots were fired up. Being extraordinarily practical it was not thought wise to change the water in the tub each time a family member bathed, so…
This practice was also followed by the family who used the 55 gallon barrel. Since I was not involved in the conversation, it is not clear to me just exactly how the bathing was carried out. I envision the size of the 55 gallon barrel and wonder just how the bathing was accomplished, how one could enter the water and in fact get out especially if you were a junior member of the family. And who got to bathe first and last?
There is a saying that cleanliness is next to godliness and if so, I am glad I have a better water source today and a shower.
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Bill Lee, PO Box 128, Hamer, SC 29547