Volume 8 , Issue 3

Need Old Cistern Stories...

"You have created an amazing, wonderful network of good people who treasure our prairie heritage. I can't think you enough for the help we have received via your network.

Now! Another interesting request. For the March 2006, Prairie Connection... we'd like to have some old cistern stories -- photos (scanned). Almost every farm had a cistern, it seems, and there must be a multitude of memories out there that ought to be documented for posterity.

I don't know if I've mentioned before, but The Blamer Fund has a rather large collection of written materials in Special Collections at Pittsburg State University, in Pittsburg, KS. We save practically everything that comes thru the mail slot or via email, except spam and junk mail, and maybe even some of that ought to be saved in order to document our life 100 years from now! (email is run off on acid-free paper for their storage facility).

We never drank the water from our cistern, but it was the best soft water for washing clothes and hair. Dad even installed a hand pump in the men's wash-up room so they could use it when they came in from the fields. I wonder what ever happened to the chain of cistern cups that pulled the water up? So many things were thrown away when they became obsolete. We never dreamed they would be of value again, both monetary and nostalgia-wise.

I don't need anything until the first week in February on the cisterns. I will be out of town several days for the Independent Press Association convention in San Francisco, so there's time to get some good stories written down!

Did anyone ever fall in? What did you do to keep the skunks, rabbits, etc., out? What uses did you have for the water: garden? livestock? household?

Most young people today have no clue as to what a cistern is, so we need to explain things in great detail for this now generation! Thank you for your wonderful help!" -- Rosalea Hostetler - EMAIL: wepreserve@balmerfund.org - The Balmer Fund/Prairie Connection, Harper, KS
  |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---