The Rexburg Homestead - Part one

Our House

The first memories of life that I have are of the two-room log cabin we lived in. The outside walls of our house were made of actual logs with stucco inserted where the logs met to cover up the cracks. One room was the kitchen with a big wood burning stove and a sink with no running hot water. Dad had somehow hooked up the sink with a hand pump so that we could get cold water at the sink. The other room was the living room with a few pieces of furniture, which included the hide-a-way bed/couch. The bathroom was an “Outhouse” located about 150 feet in back of our house. We had no hot running water, just cold water that we could pump out into the sink. Mom had a teapot that she put on the stove to heat water for breakfast and other meals. All the cooking was done on the wood-burning stove. The woodpile was in the back yard by an old wooden shed. It was the boy’s job to go out and get wood from the woodpile and keep the wood box in the kitchen full of wood for Mom. I always felt quite comfortable and safe in our home.

Bath Nights

Saturday night was bath night. In the summer we would go swimming in the irrigation canal. The canal water was clear water that came from the Teton River. That served as out bath in the summertime. In the winter, we all had to have a bath once a week, whether we needed it or not…. Mom had a big metal, five-gallon milk bucket that she would fill with the cold water from the pump at the sink. She would then place it on the wood-burning stove and heat it up until it got close to boiling. Then she would dump it into the tub with a bucket or two of cold water so we could have our baths. We had a round, galvanized tub, about 3 feet in diameter and maybe 18 inches tall at most. Leesa was always first and then the three of us boys, one at a time, would take our turn in the same bath water. By the time the last boy took his bath, the water was pretty dirty and soapy, but at least it was still wet.

Latter on, I remember we got a big long galvanized tub. It must have been five or six feet long, about 18 inches wide and 2 feet deep. That was “Dads” tub and we were never allowed to use it because it took more time to heat the water and fill it up. We all had to be in bed before Dad took his bath. I never thought about it as a kid, but when did Mom take her bath? I’m sure it was “after” Dad….They would attach a garden hose to the bottom of the tub, and put the other end of the hose outside to drain the tub.