Thursday, October 23, 2008

ANOTHER HOMESPUN MEMORY

Long ago and far away, when I was a child in middle Illinois where the cornfields stretched to forever, the ritual that is bathing was quite different from that of today. Every Saturday night, my mother poured a few buckets of rain water from the cistern into our galvanized tin bathtub, added a teakettle full or two of boiling water to warm it up, put out a bar of homemade soap, and a bath towel made of feed sacks. I was first, my brother was second, then Mother, and lucky Dad was last. It was a ritual repeated in every farmhouse in our part of the world. In winter, our bathing area was set up beside the wood burning cook stove in the kitchen so as to stay toasty warm for our ablution. In summer, the tub sat in the “wash house“. The “wash house” was a small separate building just next to the house, where Mother did the laundry in her wringer washer. From Saturday to Saturday we washed daily in the washpan in the sink in the kitchen, where Mother cautioned us to “wash down to it, up to it, and then wash ‘toit.” In some of our model homes today, which I call temples of excess, the bathroom is called the “spa”. The Jacuzzis are nearly as large as Mother’s kitchen, the showers are multi-level with adjustable water jets. I love to see these luxurious bathrooms, and I think to myself “I’ll bet they still wash down to it, up to it, and toit”!

7 comments:

  1. Bev, I love your stories! What a wonderful childhood you must of had!

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  2. What a great story, Bev. You take us right into your memories in such a wonderful way. I love your mother's sayings. Have you ever thought of collecting them and maybe writing your verses around them? Isn't it strange how the richest stories come from the days when nothing was easy, no shiny state of the art bathrooms and everything handed to us on a platter. Keep sharing your life with us.

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  3. Bev, you are so funny. My childhood baths were similar to yours except we didn't have a wash room. Such "deprivations" affected different ones in my family very differently. I for one have to have lots of bathrooms in my house now, not necessarily big or elaborate. I remember those tin tubs outside in the summertime.

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  4. Oh Bev I love your memories, keep em coming.

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  5. Bev, please look for an award for you on my Blog
    http://kimmiekrazykorner.blogspot.com/.

    Your friend, Kimmie

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  6. Wonderful homespun memory, Bev. I will look forward to more ;)

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  7. Memories, I live in what used to be a mining village, so it was pretty similar here, Oh how thing have changed, Its lovely to have the memory of it though ! Jaqi

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