Waiting for Water
Bozeman, Montana
2023
Prior to them getting electricity and piped in water at my grandparent’s farm when I was a kid, I remember getting water in a bucket from a pump like this to carry into the house for use. That task seemed much more utilitarian than this quaint photo might suggest. So did the trips to the outhouse in the dark on a cold morning.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, before my grandparents moved off the farm into town, the house well had a pump, but the livestock tank had it’s own hand pump like this one. I don’t know if the house well might have been deeper, and theoretically, cleaner and better and the stock tank pump was shallow and more likely to get contaminated. Answers I’ll probably never know….
So many things we wish we’d asked but can’t now because those in the know are gone.