Orson Clark-11/23/81 - Pg 3

…house hot and cold water.

Interviewer: Where did the water come from.

Orson Clark: They drilled and got an artesian well down the back of the lot. It still runs a little. At that well they put on what they called a ram, if you know what a ram is. That pumped the water up to just back of the house and there they put a tank up on stilts as a reservoir to take the pressure. Then they piped it into the house. Mother had hot and cold water. That was one of the first ones on the street.

Interviewer: That is interesting. How many brothers and sisters did you have?

Orson Clark: In my mother's family, seven. Two of them were twins and they died at one day old.

Interviewer: When you were growing up in that home, your father was a farmer wasn't he?

Orson Clark: That's right.

Interviewer: How old were you before you got involved in the farm chores?

Orson Clark: Well, just long enough to ride a horse to drive the cows back and forth. And so that I could milk the old cow by milking two tits on one side and then go and milk the two on the other side.

Interviewer: You had one family cow that you had to milk personally, is that right?

Orson Clark: No.

Interviewer: You had to milk the others, too?

Orson Clark: They had built a large barn right across the street from me. It was kind of a two-story. There was a little raise to get into the top and there was a basement in the bottom. The south part of the bottom was used as a horse stable, the center part as a calf stable, and the north where the cows were put to milk. The hay was put on the top story of each one.

Interviewer: I slung enough hay myself in my childhood working with the farmers around where we lived. I had a lot of experience in farming, believe it or not.

Orson Clark: Well, then of course they had a grainery and a chicken coop and what we called the buggy shed and the like.