People had two sources of water for daily living, soft water and hard water. Hard water, which originates from a well, was used for drinking and cooking. Soft water, which originates from rainwater, snow or from a creek, was used for washing and bathing. Soft water lathers much easier than hard water. To collect soft water, people in town had large wooden barrels that collected rain water from the eaves built along the roof tops of homes. Running water did not come to most homes in Dryden until 1937. During the winter, one melted snow inside the reservoir of a kitchen stove. Large amounts of snow had to be melted as melted snow only produces a small amount of water.
Shown here is a McLary's stove that was used in the kitchens of many homes during that era. There was a separate reservoir for melting snow and thus keeping a supply of warm water for washing Notice the long stove pipe that was used to heat the kitchen +
During the 1920s, there were few washing machines in the area. According to Trudy Hotson and Vi Stansfield, soft water was heated and along with a rippled scrub board, all the washing was done by hand. Trudy recalls that on the farm, quite frequently, mens clothing had to be boiled before it was washed. Vi Stansfield and Mabel Franklin have added that Mondays were considered to be wash days.
As time progressed, mechanical washers became available. The most basic were wooden tubs that had an agitator attached to a wheel that had a handle. One would turn the handle and this worked the agitator which would provide friction to wash the clothes. Eventually a hand wringer was used. A hand wringer was comprised of two hard rubble rollers with a handle. With one hand you fed the clothers into the rubber rollers and with the second hand you turned the handle on the rollers. The wet clothes were fed into the wringer and excess water was easily removed. This saved having to wring the heavy clothing by hand.
Eventually naptha gas washers became available. These were considered top of the line appliances. Naptha gas is similar to today's Coleman Camp Fuel. Vi does remember these being in existence but is unsure of their operation. Vi believes that there were electrical washers at the time but is not sure if these were yet available in Dryden. Electricity came to Dryden during the 1920s, but not enough electrical power was supplied to operate an appliance like a clothes washer.
The wash tubs used to wash clothing were also used for personal bathing. The wash tubs were made of a galvanized tin. Vi remembers Saturday evenings as bath days, whereas Owen Fenwick remembers Saturday mornings as bath days while he was growing up in Saskatchewan. Everyone remembers that all the children took turns bathing in the same water.