Common Dipper

[W. Gray]

When I was a youngster, the family would visit my grandparent's farm southwest of Howard. It was always a treat for me, because I loved seeing the animals and the work that went on at the farm.

There was no electricity and no running water. My grandmother always kept a porcelain bucket on a waist high shelf in the kitchen filled with water. There was a common long handled dipper in which family members, visitors, and the occasional stranger used to refresh themselves. The fact that a common drinking utensil was used bothered no one.



In the early days of Kansas, wherever there was a public water drinking place, there was also a common dipper or cup tethered by a rope or a chain for everyone's use. Community use of the same utensil was something that everyone accepted without question.

However, a man by the name of Samuel Crumbine received appointment as the secretary of a newly organized Kansas State Board of Health in 1904. In 1909 he instituted a policy of banning common drinking cups in the state of Kansas and required their replacement with non-reusable paper cups.

Kansas was the first nation in the country to require paper cups for community use. In less than one year, 24 states followed the lead of Kansas.

Spring 2011, Reflections, published quarterly by the Kansas State Historical Society

[readyaimduck]

What a wonderful piece of remembrance!   thank you for that. 
Not sure if paper cups were the way to go although I do understand the theory behind it, however my anscestors (granpa/dad) drank from the same 'water jug' in the fields.  (I could taste the residue of chaw on the water jug hole!)
At silo time, all hands 'warshed up' with LAVA at the pump before eating.  I really miss those days, and wierdly enough, no one caught any desease.  Hmmmmm. 

[larryJ]

Great memories!  I well remember the common dipper.  Nobody thought twice about sharing it.  However, Ready, we probably did share diseases, just didn't know it.  I do seem to remember at my grandmother's house, though, when I had a cold, I was told to drink from a glass rather than the dipper.  I also remember one of the greatest inventions at one time was when one of my uncles put a pump handle in the kitchen so that you didn't have to go outside to pump water.  There was always a bucket under the pump with a common dipper.  

Larryj

[Wilma]

My mother had an enamel bucket and a common dipper until 1985 when she moved from her Elk County farm to Haysville.  Even then the bucket continued to set in her kitchen.  And I don't remember being any more sick way back then, than I am now with my filtered drinking water and personal glass.

[readyaimduck]

Larry, we probalby did share diseases, however I firmly believe that we ate the right foods, had a huge amount of exorcise and fresh air/unclorinated water.  We had a family that all sat down to breakfast, dinner and supper and played Monopoly with a coal oil lamp when the electrcity went out at the slightest storm.  Therefore, we shared....that is what we did.

I agree with the 'having a cold, drink elsewhere' rule. 
I twinged at the paper cup thingy as it does involve trees, of which I think the enviormnet wasn't their first and foremost thought.   That's another subject.

So sad we can't drink 'from the same cup' anymore. 

[W. Gray]

I remember my grand folks improved their home with a small hand pump in the kitchen. The water came from a well just outside the kitchen door. They were rather high above the Elk and I remember wandering how they hit water. It was not until the last couple years that I learned they had to haul water in and fill what was actually a cistern.

The pump was mounted next to the kitchen sink and the sink had a drain without a goose neck that went straight outside onto the lawn. That was called progress.

They also had a huge, and I mean huge, wood crank wall telephone in the kitchen but it had been there for a few years.

They had a separate "bathroom" next to the parlor that had a claw bathtub that could be filled with heated water from the wood stove. The tub also drained out onto the lawn.

The big progress came when REA came through and they had electricity installed. I think they only electrified the kitchen and the barnyard, though. That was big progress--you could turn on the outdoor light to see your way to the outhouse which was a distance from the main house and located next to the chicken house.

[readyaimduck]

[The big progress came when REA came through and they had electricity installed. I think they only electrified the kitchen and the barnyard, though. That was big progress--you could turn on the outdoor light to see your way to the outhouse which was a distance from the main house and located next to the chicken house./quote]

Now that was priorty!  From a dipper to a star studded house!   I do think we llost the message somewhere in the 'helping the poor...welll, hell we all were poor then, and never knew any different.  I am grateful for those experiences of the dipper.

[readyaimduck]

Sorry about the quote and not saying my stuff outside of the purple....just figured out how to quote stuff...but I think you all can 'jist'at what I was trying to convey. 

We have become a paranoic people based on some things.  And that is not to take away from the inventor/patent of paper cups.
I have always said, "It may in the best intrest of some, but for all, we all have to make sacrifices.

I will drink from the cup if there.   I am not afraid, and I just might actually smile!   lol

[Wilma]

Do any of you remember the cone shaped paper cups they used to have for the public to use?  Couldn't set them down anywhere. 

[W. Gray]

Wilma,

And they were not very big.