We didn't have storms last night but we had a lot of heavy wind and some blowing rain late in the afternoon - just enough to knock out the power.Fortunately, it happened about 7:30 when we typically eat dinner, and I had heated up the chili on the stove and Mother was in the breakfast nook, seated and ready to eat. Also, it was still light outside although that was fading fast.
Michael was out with friends. He is rarely home for dinner nowadays.
I was so glad the chili was hot. I got us settled in and we ate dinner quietly, the back door open to let in some air.
After I ate, I called Georgia Power and the automated response thing said we would have power back by 10 p.m. I like that we have the ability to be reassured about that. Years ago, there was no such thing.
When the power goes out here at my house I always feel nostalgia. The darkness is more inky black. The sounds of nature drift in from the back yard. There is no hum of the refrigerator or sound of the icemaker or dishwasher. The quiet is quieter.
After dinner we lit some candles in Mom's room and I got her settled with a book.
Years ago I bought each one of us miner's lights, and stashed them around the house. They are a godsend.
You put it on your forehead and you have your hands free. I think I found them at Home Depot, on sale. I highly recommend them for everyone.
I came upstairs to my room and read a book for a while, then went back downstairs to chat with Mother about 9:30 while we waited for the power to come back on.
Mom is a great storyteller. She told me about the time her family lived for about a year in a home with no electricity or running water. It was during World War II and my grandfather had been offered a job managing a farm in Moore, South Carolina. One of the perks was a nice new little house for the family. It had plumbing and gas lines and electric wiring. The problem was that because of the war, none of it was usable, for many months. The family was on a waiting list for getting all those services turned on.
My grandfather was born in 1896 and grew up on a farm, so he knew how to function without electricity or water.
He put the gas stove in a corner of the kitchen and put in a wood-burning stove. [Note: my parents put a wood burning stove on the back porch of their last house in Knoxville, and enclosed the porch. I tried to cook on it once. What a nightmare...]
Out in the back yard there was a deep well, enclosed in a pump house. The water had to be pumped with a big metal lever. Papaw had the water tested frequently by the county agent to make sure it was clean and drinkable. I asked Mom how they washed dishes, and she said someone had to get a bucket of well water and heat it on the stove. The water came out of the well icy cold, which was great in the hot weather but not in the winter, obviously.
After a time Papaw put a second story on the pump house, and big containers on the roof to catch rain water. After it rained, he and the boys would go out there and take baths. (Mother didn't do that because she was a little girl and it was considered indecent.)
The guys used an outhouse. Mom and Mamaw used a chamber pot in the bathroom, at least at night. In the daytime she and Mamaw often walked outside to the outhouse, which was out behind the tractor house. Papaw never put an outhouse close to the house. He kept lime in the outhouse, and it was moved every few months. My grandfather was very particular about germs and cleanliness. [Note: my Thompson grandmother, Cordelia, also lived in a house with an outhouse - they didn't get a bathroom until WWII. When the outhouse was moved, she would plant bushes and flowers where the outhouse had been, and her flowers always won prizes at the county fair. Manure is great fertilizer, no matter where it's from...]
Anyway, back to the farm in Moore... for bathing, they usually put a basin of water in the bathroom and took sponge baths. Obviously the pump house roof wouldn't work if there hadn't been any rain for a while or if it was cold.
After a time, Papaw rigged up a pipe to go from the pump house into the kitchen sink, but there still had to be someone out in the pump house, pumping. They would put a pan in the sink, often, and catch water to wash the dishes.
Mother (third grade) did the cooking (or Bobby did it) after Mamaw hurt her knee from stepping into a hole. Mamaw couldn't walk for a long time, and then only to the bathroom. She tore ligaments in her knee. Papaw had to carry her to the car to go to Spartanburg, to the doctor. The doctor just said he couldn't do anything but give her pain pills, and she'd just have to stay off of it. It was very painful.
Despite all the hardships, Mom said some of her happiest childhood memories were of the family after dinner at night sitting at the dining room table, three big oil lamps in the middle of the table providing enough light for everyone. She and her brothers would do their homework, and her parents would read or sew, or whatever.
Finally, after months, they were able to get electricity and water turned on.
After that, they moved to Myrtle Beach and Papaw managed Trask farms. Myrtle Beach was a small town at that time, not the touristy place it is now.
My grandfather always felt his family would be safer during the war if they were on a farm, away from big cities which might be bombed. He also knew he could keep the family fed if they were on a farm. He put his baseball days behind him and worked very hard, managing big farms and doing a lot of the work himself, too, because he felt it was best for the family.
above, Papaw and Mom and Bobby and Don in Myrtle Beach, a few years after Moore
