Dave Wood

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any a drop drink

--Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

It’s the same old story, drought. Everywhere we go, in our family’s quest for potable, plentiful water, that is. I have a friend who digs around looking for news items in our local paper that refer to our ancestors. Scott thinks it’s fun and so do I, especially if I know enough about a back story. Here’s one that qualifies from May 8, 1902, when the Times reported that “D. Wood is having an artesian well put down on the farm. Arne Thompson is doing the work. He is down 118 feet.” 

Arne struck water a few feet later, and my grandpa, who was 23 at the time, told me years later that, “We found water for sure; only problem was that it was bright red, so mother couldn’t cook with it, wash with it, use it for anything.”

But his father always held to the adage that if you grew sour apples, just make apple sauce, so he capped the gushing red well, lined mother’s summer kitchen walls with pipe tubes, hooked it up to the new well, where it made its way through tubing while it cooled the kitchen and was flushed into the creek between the house and the barn after which it made on its way to the murky Trempealeau River. 

Still not satisfied, he ordered an automatic washer from Monkey Ward. A monster of a machine of wood, wire and copper tubing that just about filled the kitchen. It looked like a modern restaurant dishwasher, but was ignored by mother who didn’t fancy washing her undies in red water.

Grandpa’s story went further: “Father was always tinkering about the house, trying to make things easier for his wife. My oldest brother Archie was the same way. He built a wooden sidewalk from the house to the mailbox on the road and one from the kitchen to the bridge to the barn. It was built on plank runners that proved to be a handy place for varmints to build their nests. One morning as Archie and I were on our way to go squirrel hunting. Archie spotted a skunk’s tail protruding from the sidewalk. He grabbed the tail, threw the skunk high in the air, fired his shot at the critter, made a direct hit and soon black and white fur was bobbing in the creek, past the stone sorghum press at river’s edge and headed downriver.”

Two generations later, my water-thirsty wife and I purchased a run-down hobby farm, where the barn had a drinking cup, and the house no flush toilet or running water. Asked about that, previous owner Clara, who had raised her family there, pointed at the windmill. “When the wind blows, the windmill pumps water into a concrete cistern. An underground pipe runs from the cistern to a faucet in the barn. You’re on your own from there.”

Unaware of the Wood family curse we bought the hobby farm anyway.