8006 Watson Lane, Wichita, Kansas 67207
I was born in 1927 on a farm near Stockton, Kansas. We started
out without electricity, wood being our main source of heat and for
cooking. I remember the saying that a person received heat twice
from wood first from cutting it up and then from burning it. I
recall the Monday washing routine. In the warm season, water was
heated in a cast iron kettle by building a fire around it and, in
bad weather, heating it on a wood cook stove. The washing machine
was a hand powered one, with hand powered wringer. The only source
of water in the house was a pitcher pump, with water coming from a
cist’em if there had been enough rainfall to collect in the
cistern. It was dry a good share of the time in the thirties. Our
water supply was furnished by a windmill. On windy days, it would
pump water into a supply tank that was made from an old steam
boiler standing up on end. Pumped water could be sent into the
tank, or to a concrete holding tank where its over-low passed on to
the livestock water tanks. This concrete tank also provided the
cooling for milk and cream. Needless to say, the amount of time
that milk could be kept before souring wasn’t the greatest. Our
first refrigeration was a Servell that burned kerosene. In later
years, we converted it over to bottle gas.
We were better off than some in regard to house lighting. We had
carbide lights. The house was plumbed with ‘ pipe to each room,
and the generator was out in the back yard. When I became old
enough it was my job to clean out the tank, which was a cylinder
buried in the ground to prevent the water from freezing. The system
would hold one hundred pounds of carbide, which would last close to
a year, if I recall correctly.
I also recall vividly the dust storms that would come rolling
into the area. The day could be clear, and a dust storm would roll
in and, in some cases, cause enough darkness that the Stockton
street lights would come on. I recall one storm that blew in as we
were attending a church meeting one night in Stockton. The wind was
exceptionally strong and we all stayed quite late until the wind
let up some. We finally made our way the two and a half miles home.
I will always remember that enough dust filtered into the house
that colors of a quilt on a bed were not distinguishable. In later
years, we dismantled part of that old house and it was a very dusty
job, as a lot of the thirties’ dust was still in the attic.
The circular drum contained gasits weight created the line
pressure to the house. As gas was consumed, the drum would descend
until it hit the center plunger. This would allow some carbide to
fall into the water, creating more gas which in turn pushed the
drum upward. There was a hand pump that would reach the bottom of
the tank that had a large cone-shaped disc that was used to mix the
water and sediment so that it could be pumped out. This mix was
used at times to whitewash the inside of the chicken house. This
system was used for many years, until the tank rusted out and too
much gas was lost.
Another problem in those days was the shortage of livestock
feed. I recall that the crop that was doing the best was what we
called Russian thistles or tumble weeds. There were a couple of
machines in our neighborhood that I have never heard anyone else
write about I have been curious if those two were unique or if
there were others in the country. A local blacksmith (by the name
of Charley Crowell, if I remember correctly) built both of them.
They were built from the front beater and cylinder of an old
threshing machine. There was a rattle type conveyer on the front to
carry the thistles in, and a conveyer on the rear to carry the
ground feed away and into a pile. There was a screen on the back of
the cylinder that would pass the material when it was ground small
enough. These thistles and what other feed was available was all
the livestock had to survive on. I heard of an attempt to make
silage from thistles, but they turned into a soggy mess and the
idea was scrapped.
I also remember that we had a sandy field and that, one year
especially, we had to use a township maintainer, pulled with a
tractor, to level off the sand windrows that had formed down wind
from each thistle. One time, sand had blown across the railroad
tracks, and the one car pudple jumper ran off the track. They ran
the steam freight engine out from Stockton, to pull it back on the
tracks. The sand had been shoveled off the tracks by this time and
it went on its way.
This machine was used in the thirties to grind thistles and
whatever other feed was available. Cattle ate the mixture, as that
is all that was available. I am curious to know if there were
others of these built, as I have never heard of any others.
I don’t recall the year, but I remember when the W.P.A.
workers rebuilt the outhouses for the country schools. Most of them
were built at a central location and hauled and set up at the
school sites. They were needing work, and we had them rebuild ours
into the configuration that was used at the schools. They had a
system of making the floor and riser of concrete, with one wooden
seat. There was a ventilator which was a square wood pipe that went
up and teed off and had screen vents in two outside walls. While
thinking of W. P. A. days, they did a lot of work in the Stockton
area. The grandstand and floral hall and some other buildings were
constructed from native limestone that was obtained a couple of
miles away. They also constructed a grade school building around
the same period of time. They did a very good job of construction
as everything is still standing and in very good condition. So in
our area, the W.P.A. really accomplished some good projects.
