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Until I was 5 we lived in the country in the Florida Panhandle. There was no electricity so we had to get our water from a well. There was also an artesian spring not far away which was probably more pure than well water.

It was not possible to keep as clean as we do now with an easy shower or tub bath every day but it was not difficult to stay reasonably clean either.

Mother always kept a bucket of water, a dipper and a pan on the back porch. Anyone coming in or after using the outdoor toilet would wash their hands then rinse. Daily baths were just with a washcloth and water. Once a week you took one in a tub and really scrubbed.

If one were thirsty and did not mind walking a hundred yards the flowing spring was better. Daddy always kept a glass on a stob of wood. You would drink from the flowing part then wash the glass for the next person.

My ggrandparents were affluent and had hot and cold running water and a huge old bathtub. They did this without electricity, tho it did require some ingenuity from GGrandpa who was an inventor.

“Stob,” lol. I haven’t heard that word in decades.

My dad had a funny story, he’d enlisted in the Navy after his folks ran out of money and he had to drop out of Guilford College in the late forties. He was up in Rhode Island as a result, and befriended a fellow enlistee of Polish descent whose family also farmed, actually in Rhode Island I believe.

My dad usually went home with him on leave other than major holidays, and was helping them set out tomatoes one spring. The soil was hard and rocky, and the mother was having a hard time setting stakes. My dad just blurted out “ well, just whang ‘atair stob with the mattock” and they had no clue what he meant, but thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.

He and my dad remained friends for many years afterwards, and he’d always ask him to say it when they spoke.

gobs of good information is lost with your ggrandads passing...My father was born in 1901 and there wasn't anything he could not do...brought up on the farm in the Michigan thumb.....He said the first time he got on one of the horses back, he had to climb a fence to do it, bareback...talked about castrating there own hogs and his father made a salve that stop the bleeding almost immediately....put the hogs back legs over a fence, clip and grab a hand full of his dads home made salve the smack in on the place that no longer had balls. The farm had a pump inside and water was heated on the old wood burning stove..as a kid, that stove looked huge to me...grandma said she had a nasty old goose (I had one on the farm also) she said it was so tough you have to cut the gravy with a knife....

I remember also bath once a week and what mom said was just “freshen up” daily with the sink and a washcloth... Her farm was sold in 1943 0r 04 cannot remember which.. We are all spoiled with modern conveniences...:O(