"The Spring" - this cold water spring was on my grandparents farm when they moved to the farm in Curtis, near Elba, AL in the early 1900's. The water came from underneath some giant oak trees. This is where we got water to wash clothes when I was growing up and take baths in the hot summer. We dug a larger area when we moved to the farm in 1996 and the ferns appeared when we cleared the area. I placed the water lily there.
Washing clothes was hard work back in the 30s and 40s. Today when I was washing bed linens, I remembered wash day when I was growing up. We didn't have a washing machine because we didn't have electricity or running water in the early days. Once a week we would load the dirty laundry in a big red wagon and pull it downhill to the spring where we would wash the clothes. It was an all morning chore. First you had to fill the big iron wash pot with water from the spring. Then you would build a fire under the pot and put some homemade lye soap in the water. While the water was heating, we had to bring buckets of water from the spring to fill three big tubs. One was for washing and others were for rinsing. Near the bench where the tubs sat was a large "battlin' block" which was a large tree stump about 3' tall. This is where we battled or beat the clothes to get the dirt out of them, using a battling stick which looked like a minature canoe paddle.
Clothes were sorted and soaked in the hot soapy water after applying lye soap to dirty spots. The whites were washed first, then the colored clothes and finally the dirty work clothes. The clothes were put in the hot boiling water in the wash pot and stirred with the big stick and then they were lifted out of the water with the stick and taken to battling block to be beaten, and then to the lst tub of water to be scrubbed by hand. Water was squeezed out of each garment and they were put into the tub of rinse water. They were rinsed twice. The water was squeezed out and the clothes were hung on a line to dry. The clothes lines were tied between trees and a long stick was used to prop them up when the heavy load of wet clothes made the line fall to the ground in the center. Some things were hung on the fence to dry.
This process took all morning and late in the afternoon we went back to the spring to take the clothes off the line, fold them and bring them home to iron. Most everything had to be ironed since all clothing was made of cotton in those days. Many of the clothes were starched before hanging out to dry. Starch was made by boiling flour and water until it was thick.
The wash water was used until it got too dirty and some more had to be heated. Mother would usually let us get into the rinse water tubs and get a bath when she was finished with the wash. The lye soap was slippery and a very good cleaning agent. We used it to wash our hair and it made it shiny and silky.
We thought we had moved up in the world when daddy dug a hole under the house and installed a hand pump which was located along one wall of the big dining room. This was ok for water used inside but we had to pump the water into buckets and take it outside to do the laundry. I wanted to go back to the "the spring" but mother enjoyed being closer to the house on wash day. I had to help pump the water. Maybe that's why I have big muscles in my arms! We moved to our own house when I was 12 (and there were 4 kids by then) . Our new house had a well on the porch and you would let the bucket down into the well and turn the crank and draw up a bucket of the coldest water. We never had a washing machine until after I left home and went away to college in 1952. In 1996, Jim and I bought the family farm and put a house in the woods near "the spring" and built a water garden there plus a large spring-fed lake behind the house. We lived there until 2003 when we sold the farm and moved to town. Too much work even with all the modern conveniences!! We loved the wildlife, especially the birds but not the armidillos or fire ants that pestered us.
I'll save ironing to write about another day. It was a hard job, especially on hot days in Ala.
