Submitted by Leona Baker, Historical Society of Salisbury Township

Memoirs of Faye Hershey Mummau, Part I

The following is an excerpt from the November 2023 presentation by Faye Hershey Mummau at a historical society meeting. Faye was accompanied to the meeting by her brother, Art Hershey, former state representative.

"I will always treasure the memories I have and experiences I had growing up by the Pequea Creek (in the 1940s and 1950s).

"The (framed) house we lived in was without hot water or a bathroom. Water for cooking was carried from a cistern and poured into a water tank on the cookstove. The only other heat we had was a coal stove in the dining room where we ate. The kitchen was too small for a table large enough to seat eleven - five boys, four girls and my parents. The formal dining room was used mostly as a sewing room where Mother sewed the girls' dresses, slips and PJs, as well as the endless mending that seemed to never be finished.

"The stovepipe from the stove in the dining room went through the ceiling to a small room upstairs - the baby's room. It was the only heated upstairs room. All the other rooms were cold in winter. We four girls slept in two bedrooms; our closet was two sets of orange crates with a rod between for hanging clothes behind a curtain. The boys slept at the other end of the house with a separate stairway.

"Monday was always washday. On Saturday afternoon, the oldest boys had filled two big iron kettles with water and placed them over the fire in the washhouse. On Monday morning, on his way to the barn, Dad started the fire underneath those kettles. By the time barn chores and breakfast were over, the water was hot enough for Mother to tackle the huge pile of laundry.

"The washing machine and rinse tub were filled with the hot water. Homemade soap went into the washtub. White clothes and bed linen went into the first load. The last load was the very dirty work clothes. By noon, the wash lines were full and blowing in the breeze. Those clothes needing to be ironed were dampened, rolled tightly and placed in a plastic bag and into the refrigerator.

"As soon as we girls were old enough, we helped with the ironing, beginning with Dad's red and blue handkerchiefs and our own, made from worn-out dresses. Remember, there were no paper tissues back then. When my older sister came home from school on Tuesdays, she would begin ironing the piles of shirts and feed bag dresses.

"Mother was very organized, and she put us to work according to our abilities. Our household chores were designated: cleaning, lawn mowing and weeding the garden in addition to the kitchen work for girls and barn work for the boys. Our work was to be finished by Saturday noon. The afternoon was spent preparing for Sunday: taking baths, polishing shoes and studying our Sunday school lessons.

"When we were small, Mother would fill a wooden tub, place it near the coal stove and give us each our bath behind a curtain she hung on chairs. As we got older, we took basins to our bedrooms or took a shower in the wash house, using a bucket with a spigot at the bottom and hung on a beam. The challenge was getting finished before the bucket emptied."