Furnishings for a new family costly

My parents set up housekeeping in the late 1930s, in the depths of the Great Depression. Hardly anyone had money to speak of in those days, but I understand they had $300 or so to get the things needed to make the house livable and to buy necessary items for making life work day to day. I've often wondered if I could have made the necessary choices and kept to the priorities that were necessary to establish a family and make a home in those hard times.

The one item that I remember them telling about buying was a No. 3 washtub, actually two No. 3 galvanized washtubs. In those days, a No. 3 washtub was an essential to life. I don't think I am stretching truth and value in saying that. A No. 3 washtub was very important. First of all, it was valuable in washing the family's clothes. That was true whether one washed using a scrub board, or were fortunate enough to have some kind of washing machine. If you only had a scrub board, you needed one tub as the washing tub or soap tub, and a second tub as a rinse tub. Of course in those days we spoke Ozark, not standard mid-western English, so these tubs were a worshin' tub and a rainchin' tub. In the worshin' tub you worked up the suds, using P & G bar soap, and scrubbed your clothes thoroughly, then you rainched 'em in the rainch water in the other tub. Almost without exception, Monday was Worsh Day. A farm family worshed their clothes oncest a week, whether they needed it or not. After being worn for a week, the clothes might still look clean, but Mom made sure they got worshed anyway.

In those days before farm electricity, a good farm well or a good spring of water was a necessity of life. We had a good dug well, about 30 feet deep. It never ran dry, but we would later learn when we put an electric pump in it, it couldn't deliver water very fast. It was possible to pump the basin dry if the pump ran very long. We didn't have to worry about pumping it dry in the early days, since we were using a rope and bucket to draw about two gallons of water at a time. A good well bucket and a good length of half-inch hemp rope were also essential to life on the farm in the early days. The No. 3 wash tub also got used as our bath tub. We would fill the No. 3 tub about half full of water for taking a bath. Sometimes, if we were in a cold part of the year, Mom might heat some of the water on the cookstove, to warm up the bath water for us kids. Filling the bath tub meant several trips to the well to draw water. All of us took turns taking a bath, and then the bath water was carried out to water the flower beds or the garden. In the early 1940s, none of us had refrigerators so the well served to keep food cool. Things like milk and cheese were kept in the well bucket and let down in the well to sit in the cold water down there. It wasn't fancy, but it worked.

A stove for cooking was also one of those life essentials. We actually had a pretty nice wood-burning kitchen stove. I'm not sure where my parents obtained it, or how much it cost to buy. It was not an old black stove such as one often saw in those days, it had a cream-colored porcelain finish with green trim. I have often wished that it had been kept around after we got an electric range later on, but I wasn't aware enough back in 1945 to even know what happened to our wood-burning cook stove. Some people in those early days had kerosene kitchen stoves, but I remember not liking them because they kept the kitchen smelling like kerosene. In those days we called kerosene coal oil, and those stoves were coal oil stoves. A wood-burning cook stove was much nicer, since it left a much better aroma in the house, and was just better all around, better looking and everything! You could not only fry on the top, or bake biscuits in the oven, or cook beans in a pot, but the old wood cook stove warmed the house, heated water when needed, heated up the irons for ironing the clothes, and made for a very homey atmosphere in the house. Of course, one time it almost burned the house down. Dad used to get up early, build a fire in the kitchen stove, then go out to the barn to do the milking. Mom would get up and fix breakfast. On that particular morning, Dad had filled the stove with wood, and the fire got too hot, overheating the stove pipe, and setting the wallpaper on fire. Mom was trying to beat down the flames with wet towels when Dad came back in, and both of them together were able to stop the fire and save the house.

Some other things I remember as essentials were: An oil cloth to cover the eating table, a water bucket and dipper to drink from, quilts, sheets, pillows and pillowcases for the beds, spoons, forks and knives and plates, bowls and glasses. Many of our bowls and drinking glasses came out of boxes of Quaker Oats. Then we had to have tinned milk buckets, hoes and rakes to work the garden, and seeds and sets for the garden, and seed for sowing crops in the fields. Today we wouldn't think we had much, but back then we were surviving, and it seemed pretty good.

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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Editorial on 04/05/2017