...houses & water pumps...

Maybe Daddy decided that his fortune was not out west, because after Butch was born we all moved back to the farm in Arkansas. I’m still confused as to whether my Granddaddy was out in California with us.

Anyway, two new houses were built on the Arkansas farm. Just simple four-room homes with a front room, kitchen and two bedrooms. There was no running water.

Our outhouse was out back by the tractor shed. Grandaddy’s outhouse was out back, about 60 or 70 yards into the bean field.

>>>This is Butch, at our old pump.>>>

Our water pump was in the back yard, probably no more than 20 feet from the back porch.

Grandaddy’s, however, was maybe 150 yards down by the cattle lot, and was used to pump water into a large dugout log for the horses, mules and sometimes a lone milk-cow.

It isn’t clear to me whether or not this was the primary water source for the old house that had been blown away in the tornado a few years earlier.

At that time, good water could be gotten by driving a pump point and some joints of pipe into the ground only 12 to 20 feet deep. The point was a special length of pipe that had been made with holes covered by fine screens that let the water through but kept out sand and dirt. It could be 3, 4 or 5 feet long with something like 4-foot joints of solid-wall pipe attached to it. These could be driven into the ground by pounding on the top end with a sledge-hammer and adding on extra joints as needed.

When the point was deep enough a hand pump, or pitcher-pump as it was called, was screwed onto the top joint and then water was available.  If the leathers in the pump valves were good, the pump would stay primed between uses.

If the bottom leather was bad, the pump would need to be primed, by pouring some water into the pitcher before it would pull the water up the pipe and out the pitcher into your bucket.

© Sarah K. Asaftei, 2009 unless otherwise sourced. Use allowed by express written permission only.