GROWING UP WITH WATER WOES

I have not been doing much with my blog for quite some time but I must get back at it because I have many stories to tell and many stories that need to be told. I have made a plan that I will try to get one new story each month---and more if I can.

Brigham Young asked a group of people from the Cedar City, Parowan, Paragonah areas in Southwest Utah to settle the four corners area in Southeast Utah. They left the Cedar City, Parowan, Paragonah areas in 1879. It was a harrowing ordeal. If any of you would like to know the whole story you can read Gerald Lund’s book “The Undaunted.” It comes in hard cover and paper back and I can tell you it is a “nail biter” all the way through. The book is classified as fiction because Mr. Lund adds some fictional characters but he tells the complete and true story. Those pioneers first settled in the Bluff and Montezuma Creek area but there was not enough room for the number of settlers who were there so, eventually most of them went north up to the White Mesa to settle. They named their town Grayson which was later changed to Blanding, Utah. The name change is a whole story of its own and I may get around to that at a later time.

The Blue Mountains are a few miles north of Blanding. The north side of the mountains generally gets a pretty good snowfall but the south side generally does not so there was never much runoff. (The town of Monticello was on the north side of the mountain range and they seemed to have an adequate supply of water.) In the spring there was some runoff into ditches through Blanding but not anywhere nearly enough. One of those ditches was across the street west of our Elementary School. At recess and at lunchtime we would often play “follow the leader” and we would go across the street and jump back and forth across the ditch. Some places were narrow and some were wide. We tackled both. At least the leader did so the rest of us had to follow. I do not recall anyone ever falling into the ditch so I guess we were pretty good jumpers.

We also had three small reservoirs north of town where water was stored for domestic use but the three reservoirs were not adequate for the needs of the people. No one ever wasted water. There, simply, was not enough water anyway, so to waste it would have been idiotic. The water in the ditches was for irrigation purposes. People had alfalfa fields and other crops requiring water as well as their livestock and, of course, the people.

The water in the reservoirs ran into the pipes that supplied water to the town. We didn’t have any purification facilities or filters so we got what was in the reservoirs---tadpoles, dirt, other critters, dirt, smelly things, etc. Yep folks, I’m telling you, it was always a party trying to guess what would come out of the tap next. One day a small frog came out of the tap. My mother would do her best to filter the water. She would take several layers of white cloth about six inches square and put it over the spigot. I wish I could draw you a picture of our kitchen tap. It didn’t look like the new, wonderful faucets of today. Anyway, she would gather up the corners of the square of white fabric and then gather up what was between the corners and tie it onto the tap with twine (string). That made it so the tadpoles and other little critters and the mud didn’t get into the water we used for cooking, laundry, etc. Sometimes the water was so dirty (muddy) that the first time the clean layers of cloth was tied onto the tap and the water was turned on, the clean white cloth would be brown. I’m talking “muddy” brown. Actually, those “filters” worked pretty well to keep all the dirt and other particles out of the water so we could use the water for cooking, washing dishes, cleaning, bathing, laundry etc., because that was all we had. Fortunately, we did not have to drink it. I will tell you where we got our drinking water later in this story.

In the winter we didn’t have quite so many problems with ‘critters’ in the water but my mother always had her own ‘filter’ on the tap, just in case.

I remember one summer when our water smelled horribly vile. I’m talking “putrid.” Even if you were not in the kitchen when the tap was turned on, you knew the tap had been turned on because you could smell it in the next room. I heard that when one of the reservoirs was drained, a dead horse was at the bottom. I do not know that for a certainty but I didn’t doubt it. Why else would the water smell so badly?

As you may have guessed, water was a concern for everyone in town. Finally, it was decided that a tunnel needed to be drilled through the mountain so Blanding could access some of the water from the north side of the mountain. The project was begun but the county and the towns didn’t have enough money to just do the entire project at once. It took several years to complete the tunnel. The project started from both sides. I believe Monticello people worked from the north end and I know Blanding people worked from the south end. My dad worked in the tunnel several summers. (As I recall, in one of my blogs I told you that one time my dad took me with him when he went to work at the tunnel. I stayed with him for several days. I had to stay at the camp alone while he went to work but I was okay. If I find I have not told you that story, I will do so at a later time.)

Finally, the tunnel was completed. I do not remember the year but I was still living at home so it must have happened in the mid 1940’s. I often think of the amazing engineers who plotted the tunnel through the mountain. When the workers broke through, the tunnel was completely open except for one inch. Although water is rarely ever in abundance in Utah (Utah being the second driest state in the U.S.) at least we had more water and it was good water. Bigger storage reservoirs were dug and things changed.
We generally had enough water to keep the garden watered. Even so, we still carried our bath water, the rinse water from the laundry, etc., out to water plants. My mother still “filtered” the water coming from the tap but it took longer to get dirty.

Now, I will tell you about the water we drank in the summertime when I was young. There was a spring at the edge of West Water Canyon. The water ran all the time and it was good, cool water. (It may have frozen over in the winter. I was never there in the winter because the tap water was okay during the winter.) The spring was probably about half mile from our home. We would take gallon jugs and our canvas water bags and fill them about three times each week. I don’t know how many of you are acquainted with canvas water bags but they are wonderful. We would get them really wet and then fill them with water. When we got home, we’d hang them outside in a mostly shady area and the breeze kept the water in those bags amazingly cool. The water was pure, clean and delicious. Occasionally, none of the family members who were older than my brother, George, and I, were available to go to West Water so George and I would pull his little, red wagon and go get water. We almost always accompanied whoever went to West Water and we had learned what to do, so it was no big deal when just the two of us went. Besides, it was always a lot of fun to go. With the combination of the ice in Daddy’s icehouse and the cool, West Water water, we did not suffer for lack of something to drink. And, it tasted SO GOOD! I assume the entire town depended on the West Water spring for their drinking water.

In spite of all the water problems we all survived and thrived. I never heard of anyone getting sick from the foul water we all had to endure. I can tell you, the people in Blanding surely knew how to conserve water and did conserve water. People had lawns, flowers, shrubs, trees and gardens. It was a wonderful place in which to live and grow.

We all really appreciated the tunnel and in spite of having extra, good water, I don’t believe I ever saw anyone watering the street, or letting the water run for hours, or wasting water in any way.

Our garden had to have water and the orchard had to be watered. My dad would dig a ditch around each tree in the orchard then he would let the water run slowly into the ditch. When the ditch was full of water (because it had run in slowly) the ground was soaked deeply and thoroughly. Then my dad would move the hose to another tree and fill in the ditch around the first tree so the wetness would not evaporate quickly. Sometimes it was hard for him to be there all the time because of his jobs so we all tried to help out. Our orchard always produced enough apples so mom could bottle apple sauce and he'd fill his fruit cellar with apples and pears. We had enough apples to share with the Navajos who came begging from time to time, and to give to friends throughout the winter and for our own needs. It was nice to be able to bite into a nice crisp apple in the middle of the winter and not have to buy it at the store. (I don't remember the stores in Blanding having apples for sale.) Daddy would dig a new ditch in the gardens, water them slowly and deeply and then cover up the ditches to conserve the wetness. That meant he had to dig ditches every time we watered. What a job. I think my dad was the hardest working man I've ever known.