Comments on: “If There Is No Laundry Tub Then Take a Swim in the Wash Basin”

By: Maurine

Maurine — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 01:29:07 +0000

My great-grandfather, William Henry Streeper, was a pony express rider, but instead of the fast mail, he took the slow mail between Salt Lake City and Carson City, Nevada. In a newspaper interview in 1928, he said,

“The winters were so cold then and the snow so deep that often I have spent 2 or 3 hours digging snow so me and the mule could go just a few feet. The other boys wondered why I didn’t get cold. Two men froze to death on Shell Creek once. Before I started out with mail I always rubbed my feet and legs with snow and washed in cold water. That is why I never got cold. Used to bring in a tub of snow and let it melt. Then I would hop in. A bath is the best thing in the world for anyone. No one never lost nothin’ by taking a good bath ever, no siree.”

By: Moniker Challenged

Moniker Challenged — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 02:29:39 +0000

My grandparents in Idaho didn’t have indoor plumbing when my mom’s older siblings were born. I estimate the indoor loo arrived between 1952-1960. So, 1950s Idaho was like 1915′s New York, I expect

By: Coffinberry

Coffinberry — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:13:01 +0000

I should add that the 1870s vintage house I lived in as a teenager in Tennessee didn’t have a bathroom either until we put one in, late 1979. The house did have a two-seater up between the tobacco-drying barn and the car shed, and a platform with a hose and circular curtain rod out back.

By: Coffinberry

Coffinberry — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:11:11 +0000

I don’t know what was normal, but my grandparents in rural Iowa got their first indoor bathroom just before I was born (mid 1960s). They raised 5 children with an outhouse for the necessary, and a kitchen sink for the hairwashing.

By: Anne (UK)

Anne (UK) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:00:04 +0000

I have neither bath nor washing tub. I refuse point blank, to bathe in the washing machine; the shower will have to suffice!

By: Researcher

Researcher — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 18:57:29 +0000

Ammonia added to the bath? That sounds like a bad idea.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 18:26:41 +0000

Nope. The article was from the RS Magazine, and the advertisement from the Juvenile Instructor. I have to admit that the article was just an excuse to print the ad, which I’ve had in my files for a long time and couldn’t figure out how to use. But something that weird was too good not to use!

By: Bruce Crow

Bruce Crow — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 18:22:14 +0000

The advertizing image is a nice touch. I assume the article and the advertisement were not paired together originally.

By: Manuel

Manuel — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 17:27:44 +0000

Interesting!

The towels may be marked with needle work or indelible ink.

When circumstances make needful a common use of towels, be sure, in case of illness, to supply the patient with individual articles. Diseases, and particularly skin troubles, are very readily communicated by general use of towels.

To each its own… towel.

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:58:32 +0000

Cold water baths during this period where viewed as therapeutic in extension of the hydrotherapy (or hydropathy) movement of the nineteenth century.

The point about rubbing with olive oil is also cool. In many cases that I have seen even a couple of decades ofter this, it was consecrated oil that was used.