Homebodies - It struck me again how very fortunate I am
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- Published on Saturday, February 4, 2017
By Rita Friesen
The Neepawa Banner
It struck me again how very fortunate I am. In a simple way. I have running water. There is nothing onerous about doing laundry. Push a button and the clean water fills the big white box, it hums and thuds, and in 40 minutes, the dirty is clean. Small load, giant load, all the same amount of effort for me.
My mother had a wringer washer, filled by a black hose connected to the faucet in the basement. She also believed very strongly in pre-scrubbing socks on the glass washboard. More than one home accident involved a child and a wringer, curiosity sometimes has a price. If the clothes were not fed through carefully they could wrap around the wringer, and if the system worked, it popped open, it not, you had a heck of a mess and damaged clothes. And this was an improvement from the laundry system my grandmothers had. They hauled and heated the water before even starting the process.
The big galvanized tub gave way to rocker washer, and that gave way to a swish washer operated by a stationary engine. The heaviest laundry day was for the family of 14, grandma raised 12 children, with hired help often living in. So now it is simple me, one person, and all I do is push buttons or turn dials.
Saturday baths have gone through the same changes. Today I step into a shower, whenever I want, hand rails for safety and lovely adjustable shower head. All I do is turn on the taps and watch my step. My earliest memory of bath time was a that big old galvanized tub on the kitchen floor. Saturday night. Water heated on the wood stove, and thrown out after the last household member had utilized it.
I was 10 or so when the house burned down and in the new one, we had running water, first in the kitchen and then when times got better, the bathroom. No shower, but the wonder of running a bath more than once a week is fresh and fine. My mother taught us how to take what she called a ‘bird bath’. A sink full, not a tub full, and strategic cleansing mid week. I don’t want to imagine what it was like for my grandmother. How would you keep 12 children clean? My guess if that in summer the big farm pond would be an asset! One set of grandparents had a cistern under the house with a hand pump off the kitchen sink, all household water came from this. The other grandparents had a well under the porch floor and a hand pump at a sink nearby. An improvement to going outside to haul water in, summer and winter.
Drinking water. Changed a great deal as well. I grew up with well water, thrived on well water and miss well water. Have not gone to bottled water or buying jugs of water. Couldn’t face my grandparents if I did!
