How to Conserve Water the Old-Fashioned Way

In the 1920s, 1930s and even the 1940s people living in the country had to treat water as precious. It was difficult to get and each drop was fully used and not wasted. Here's how we conserved water in the "good old days."

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. 
   The cistern

   Using Rain Water Collected in Cisterns:
   When I was growing up as a kid we didn’t have running water. We carried buckets of water pumped from a cistern. The cistern was built by the Phillips Petroleum company that my father began working for in south central Kansas in the nineteen twenties.
   The company built the cisterns for each employee’s home. They were just big deep wells dug in the ground to hold the water that ran from the roof of the house through a filtering system. When we turned the handle around and round, a series of little metal cups would go down into the cistern, scoop full of water and when they reached the top they would dump the water into our bucket. Really quite ingenious.
   
   I can remember feeling real grown up when Mother first allowed me to get a bucket of water. I cranked so hard and filled the bucket to overflowing and then the bucket was too heavy for me to carry to the house. I went running for help, crying that I had spilled the water all over me. We always had to conserve water because in Kansas sometimes it doesn’t rain for a long time and the water level would get low and we sure never wanted to be out of water.
   See the link below for buying and installing a modern cistern.

2. Daddy fixed one eve trough across the back porch roof that ran down into a metal barrel. We used this water for many things after every rain. Washed our hair with it, watered flowers, and the trees, as well as using it for water for the pets. See the link below for getting a rain barrel.

3. 

   We drank from a long handled dipper and filled a teakettle to heat water on the natural gas kitchen stove.
   The water for wash days was heated in a copper boiler set on two-burner hotplate in the wash house, set in back of the house.

4. 

   Mother always used the left over wash water to mop the linoleum covered floors in each room and then scrubbed the wooden porches. With what was left I used a broom and swept the wooden walks in the front and back of our home.

5. Mother used bluing from a bottle in one of the two tubs of rinse water. This made the washed clothes brighter. Then hanging them out into the bright Kansas sunshine to dry completed the whitening process. The colored clothes were brought inside as soon as they dried to protect the colors. Mother used wooden clothes pins that were pushed down over clothes and the wire.
   Hanging clothes outside in the winter was a miserable chore but bringing the frozen wash in from the line was even worse, if possible. Unless it was extremely windy the clothes would be stiff as boards and wouldn’t fit in the basket. Inside the clothes soon thawed and mother would roll up the pieces she wanted to iron while they were still damp. This saved her the chore of sprinkling them. The tea towels, sheets and diapers usually were left outside until they flopped dry.
   
   I remember we always had a beautiful clothes line. Daddy used oilfield pipe to make the clothes line posts with a pipe across the top that would hold three lines and sunk them so far in the ground, they never leaned. The wire didn’t need a propping stick because it was always so tight it never sagged like other people’s lines. Mother was very proud to hang her wash outside.

6. 

   Our dog, cats, chickens and birds didn’t seem to mind drinking the rinse water (the one without the bluing).
   We also used the rinse water for mother’s garden and flowers. No water was ever wasted.

7. 

   We never used water at the house to wash our car. When the car became muddy Daddy loaded us all up in the car and we drove to a nearby low-water bridge. Staying over to the side in case someone else wanted to drive by, Daddy would dip up buckets of water for each of us to use from the small creek. As a family we had fun making Daddy’s black Ford look good again. As I was the littlest I got to clean the wheels, Daddy did the top as well as the front and back. Mother and big sister Melba washed the sides and soon we were all done. Then Daddy threw buckets of water all over the car to rinse it. While the car dried off we would prowl along the creek looking for shells and pretty rocks. I liked to turn over rocks in the edge of the water to find big crawdads. Mother knew how to fry their tails for a tasty treat when we returned home.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't use soap if washing a car near a creek. Detergents are bad for the water quality.

Resources

• Link for cisterns and rain barrels

[femininearts]

on 1/26/2009 Good information! It is lovely to hear of the old days and old fashined ways. Times may have been hard but I'm sure you value and cherish those memories!

[celticeagle]

on 1/3/2009 Fantastic! If we all took just one of these tips and used it we would be so much better off. I really enjoyed this.

[lizzard]

on 9/21/2008 Wonderful article, I could listen to her all day long. Very informative and interesting!

Please write more!

[allykat]

on 9/9/2008 Very informative article! I definitely need to start conserving!

[Susanh]

on 9/9/2008 Awww...I love the car washing idea. It's wonderful to read about your sweet memories. Thank you so much for sharing thoughts on a simpler and precious time.