The Cistern Listening to all the complaints about the water system in Arnaudville reminded me of the old days when water was not taken for granted. I can remember the days when Arnaudville had a water system but not everybody had running water in their houses. Most people either had a cistern or an in ground water well. The cistern was simple enough with a gutter running along the roof to catch the rain water and then a down spout to direct the water into the cistern. With all the rain we get in Louisiana, there was never a shortage of water. Although there was no piped in running water the cistern was usually located near the kitchen door and not very far away. Water could be drawn for cooking, drinking and washing. For the bathing part, water was drawn and heated on the stove and put into a no.3 tub where one could do a good job of cleaning one’s body. The only catch was that if you had several dirty kids, the last of the bunch had to bathe in dirty water. As far as to how clean the water was coming off of the roof is another matter. When the roof was new and the gutters were new and when the cistern was new there were no problems. However when the birds started landing and roosting on the roof and doing their everyday business on the roof and when the wind would blow the leaves onto the roof , all this would wash down into the gutters and eventually into the cistern. I suppose one could say all this just added to the mineral content of the water and made it more healthy. The other method of providing a dependable source of water was the in ground well. In Louisiana the water table was about 5 feet from the surface. With that in mind all one had to do was dig a hole a little deeper than 5 feet and one would hit water. That was the basic principle of the water well. Men would dig a hole about 6 feet in diameter and about 8 feet deep. They would usually brick the sides so the ground would not cave in. They would then build some kind of roof over the well and provide a door opening down through witch to drop a bucket to catch the water. This water tasted a little different from the cistern water although sometimes the rain water off of the roof was directed into the well to add to the well water.
Posted on: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 14:50:29 +0000
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