Homestead: Part II
Don Coldsmith
Monday, June 25, 2007
WE HAD five daughters. I’ve said before, no man who has lived for 20 years in a house with six women can ever take himself very seriously. But there were advantages. Few middle school kids had cars and we were a mile and a half outside the city limits. It was somewhat more difficult to get into much trouble on the school bus. But that’s another story.
We had “welcome” contacts here in Lyndon Valley, which stretches on north and west a few miles including the old water works and a sawmill, I’ve been told. There were old-fashioned welcomes and an invitation to Edna to attend the ladies’ “Lyndon Valley Club.” Many of these were young, capable business women, some of whom are still around. This old style rural social club met periodically, almost taking a step back in time. Neighbors referred to our homestead as the “old Putman place,” some mispronouncing “Putnam.” Edna attended the Lyndon Valley Club for some time, enjoyed the contacts, the people and sharing the area news, weather and current events.
Now, imagine, if you can, our family of seven, five of them teenage girls, or almost so. Our water source was a large hand-dug well.
At that time, it appeared to me that every teenage girl felt an urge to shampoo her hair at least once or twice a day. At that rate of water usage, within a short time after we moved in, the well was empty.
We had been assured by locals that ours was one of the best wells in the county. Still, it had never been confronted with the challenge of that many teenage girls and such frequent usage. A glance down the five-foot diameter, stone-lined well, verified my worst fears. There were only a few inches of water, far below. Even the best well in the county, faced with teenage girls, had very little chance of success. I had no idea how long it might take for even the best underground spring to recover. We phoned a neighbor.
The answer was simple: “Just call Dale Buck. He will haul in a thousand gallons or so. This will back-flush the underground stream and the well will make water again.” In simplest terms, this unlikely-seeming cure worked, (with fewer shampoos permitted, of course.)
Forty years later, we are now on a rural water district line and don’t use the well anymore, but it worked when we needed it.
We also used the outbuildings, the barn and the chicken house and still do use the barn. When it was built, it was the latest thing, with facilities to handle and store a hay crop and to house several teams of horses. It was well planned and well built, as we’d expect from a farm operated by someone with the capabilities of Curt Putnam.
But back to the 1960s — The old original house was too small for our family of seven. We had rented it out for a few years while we considered. Its construction was hardly “up to code,” and we finally elected to “start over,” rather than patch the patches. We needed more room, with five girls. (Six, counting Mom). We’d better build — that was a real project, but eventually worked out wonderfully well, overall. Water was scarce and we used the old outdoor privy when needed. Sewage disposal was via a septic tank.
When we finally moved in, the welcome from neighbors in the area was typically rural, as mentioned before. Curtis Putnam’s influence must have been still in effect.
Times change. There are probably few now who remember the Lyndon Valley school district and the Putnam Place. We’re surrounded by city, but due to continuous agricultural use, still have rural, county status on the “Old Putnam Place.”
An old family horse stands at the rail fence now, waiting for me to come out and feed her —
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.