Monday, May 11, 2009

Another visit to the spring....


I forgot when I posted about the spring at Beck and Fessie's that it had been featured in a 1987 article of the Itawamba County Times. Above is the picture that accompanied the newspaper article of Beck taking a drink of cold water from the spring. I can just picture the cup she is drinking from - it was red aluminum with a slight fluted shape. There was always a drinking cup left at the spring for passers-by. For a long time, the vessel of choice was a small, green juice glass that came from an oatmeal box. That glass now occupies a place of honor on a shelf in my kitchen.

"Before we got electricity, we did our washing out at the spring with lye soap." Beck is quoted in the article as saying. "We had to keep the milk in the cold water there, and we had a place just below the washing hole where we would kill hogs." She recalled how she would fetch water from the spring to take to Fessie when he was working in the garden as well as how in later years Fessie would rig up a rubber hose to snake across the road to water their vegetable garden. "We always had real good gardens," she said.

In the article Beck said that she didn't know how long the spring has been there, that it has always been on the property. When Fessie installed the pump, he "dug out a hold in soapstone to the pump in and we've never had any trouble with it. It doesn't even freeze in the winter."

"It's the best-tasting water ever found."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Based on your description of the glass your grandmother is drinking from most likely was from a set of 4 aluminum "tumblers" given as a hostess gift from "hosting" a dinner party cooked in the "waterless aluminum cookware" that was popular after WWII. I know because we let a salesman cook dinner for Ron and me and a couple from across the hall. Oh, the biggest feature of this cookware was demonstrated when they cooked cabbage in one of the "pots" and we were not supposed to smell the cabbage being cooked; that feature proved to be a failure! Our oldest son have those four colorful tumblers displayed in their kitchen because they are the first drinking glass that he remembers being allowed to use. bettye

Kirk Robinson said...

Great article,Mona.Wonder how many visits have been made to this spring?