PRESSED BETWEEN THE PAGES
DeAnn (Wolkow) Kruempel
The Times They Are Changing
The young mother cooed softly as she bent over the small wooden table. Her dry, rough hands unwrapped her baby and removed wet cloth. She replaced it with dry folds and re-swathed.
Suddenly, a clump from the ceiling fell to the dirt floor. The woman glanced upward with a sigh.
“MayBelle must be grazing on the roof again!”
The year was 1882. The woman was Josephine Anderson. The baby was my Grandma Selma, who was born in a sod house in what was then Dakota Territory. MayBelle was the milk cow. The scene is one from my imagination as I consider what life may have been like nearly 150 years ago, specifically the part of life that involved keeping babies’ bottoms dry.
It is difficult, maybe impossible to know how our great-grandparents lived. Most conveniences we take for granted today were unheard of or not accessible. Settlers may have had access to fabric and some supplies if they could get to a mercantile. Research reveals the nearest settlement was De Smet, which was 15 miles away. Transportation and financial resources were likely limited.
What about water? Our cousin David Carlson recalls being told that there was a slough near our great-grandparents’ soddy. Wrap up the history with some imagination and wonder. Did Great-Grandma carry water from the slough to the house where she heated it over an open fire? Did she make soap from wood ashes and animal fat? Did she boil and scrub her babies’ diapers and then hang them in the sun to dry? Were the diapers pieces of worn-out garments, cut and sewn together? Did she fasten them with safety pins or simply wrap homemade blankets around the child? (Safety pins were invented in 1849.
Hopefully, Josephine brought some over on the ship from Sweden.)
Roll ahead 20 plus years to a new scene. This one is based on our mother’s memories as told to her by her mother, Selma. Selma’s children were born in a frame house a few miles from the sod shanty spot. A cook stove heated water from a well, dug by Grandpa Adolf. Grandma scrubbed diapers on a wash board. She possibly purchased fabric for diapers and lye for soap-making at a mercantile in Erwin. The town was platted in 1887. The railroad also came to the town around that time.
Twenty-some years later, our mother Mabel gave birth to a new generation. Deloris was the first baby. I recall Mom’s memories about keeping her babies dry. “I sewed diapers out of flannel. There wasn’t such a thing as plastic pants. We put soakers on the baby over the diapers, especially at night.” (Soakers were knitted cotton pants that soaked up excess moisture.) Mom washed diapers in her wringer-washer. “It was so much easier than scrubbing on a wash board!”
Changing changed. More than 20 years later, our sister Deloris diapered her babies with boughten diapers, fastened with large diaper pins and covered with rubber pants. (Plastic coverings were invented by a sleep-deprived mom who sewed a pair from a shower curtain.)
Automatic washers and dryers simplified laundry a bit more. Probably the latest change is the most drastic. What would Great-Grandmother Josephine have thought of disposable diapers?
How will diapers develop in the next decades? What will keep babies’ bottoms dry in the year 3000? I can’t even imagine.
DeAnn Kruempel grew up on a farm near De Smet, SD, the sixth child of Harrison and Mabel Wolkow. She attended school at Erwin and De Smet and has lived in Benedict, ND, Toeterville, Akron, Missouri Valley and Logan, IA. The author worked in school and public libraries for more than 30 years. Her column has run in a growing number of Midwest newspapers for five years.
Each year the author has published the stories into a book. She has also published a historical fiction series, “Promises to Keep.” Her ten books are available on Amazon. Signed copies may be purchased at the Harrison County Welcome Center. Contact Kruempel at deannkruempelauthor@gmail.com.
