Did you ever drink from a dipper?
 

Don't remember much about my life from birth to the age of 4, but when I was 4 years old we moved from New Mexico to here in this tiny forgotten piece of the world called N.E. Oklahoma. We moved in with grandma who was something like 65 and widowed. She didn't have running water in her house. So we had to adjust to a outhouse and drinking out of a dipper.

Yep, every morning us kids would make a trip out to the well. The well was nothing but a big pipe in the ground with two homemade tree post on each side and a tree post laying on top from one post to the other. In the middle was a pulley with a rope and a draw bucket. Which usually hanged on a nail driven into one of the post.

We would take the cap off the pipe, which I think was a one gallon coffee can. Then we would lower the draw bucket down into the well. I got that job but I couldn't pull it back up so one of my older sisters would do that deed. Then we would empty it into a big pail and carry that pail back into the house. There it would set all day on top of a counter in the kitchen room. When any of us got thursty we would walk over to the pail, grab the dipper that was in the water and take us a big ole drink of cool water. Unless it was a hot July evening! Then it was a big ole drink of warm water!

The year! 1964

Up until '99 we did.

big rockpile

I grew up drinking with a "dipper" - just as you described - only we had a pump and the water was always good - summer time required a big chunk of ice. Never felf deprived - still don't.

our dipper was different
 

We always pumped water from a well at our cabin in the Poconos from a well, and dipped our wash water from the creek. Never got any bad reactions from it! Even my wife, who was never exposed to it growing up like me, had a problem. (We spent our honeymoon at the cabin over 17 years ago)We used a dipper to pull drinking water from the milk jug, and washed from bucketd pullrd from the crick.

Nothing like going out and grabbing a frozen ice coverd rope.

big rockpile

My grandparents drew their water from a well too. They kept a fresh bucket of water on a table on the front porch with a dipper. Everyone that wanted water drank from the dipper and no one thought anything about it. I'm thinking they probably kept a bucket in the kitchen too.

When I was a kid spent a good part of younger years on Grandparents farm we had a stone crock on a small bench in the kitchen, had a dipper everyone drank out of.

Mmmmm...tin cup in the milk house. Hung from a nail on the wall next to the water trough in which Grandpa submerged the milk cans. Cup had probably 60 years of lime buildup. That was the bestest, coolest water ever!

Used a dipper until 1971. Should say used dippers. Mom had this big water bucket everyone used, that had an aluminim dipper in it. Then I got married and moved to IL and low an behold the house we rented didn't have running water either. We had to use a water bucket and a dipper too. Moved back to MO and had running cold water for a while until we moved again. Then it was back to water bucket and dipper. Then finally moved into the big times, got full running water with a bathroom in 1971. I felt like I was city living in the country. Since then there has been no dipper.

My great Uncle Leonard and Aunt Pearl didn't have running water until the late 70s. There was always a pail of water with a dipper hanging above it on the back porch...and the best homemade coconut cake you ever put in your mouth on the kitchen table!

I don't know why, but that dipper of water was always cool and delicious, even in the middle of an Alabama summer.

My Grandma (who died in 1963) did not have running water, but that old beat up aluminum dipper held some of the sweetest water in the world.
One of my first cousins remodeled Grandma's old house, adding electricity, indoor plumbing, etc. Installed an electric pump in the well, etc.
Every time I visit him, that water takes me back to the "good ol' days"....GOOD stuff!

drank from a dipper dipping water and ice cold cows milk from the bulk tank!!!!!! 1964 and i'm still here, even though i drank RAW cows milk!!! (many times after the first as well!!)some of the water i,ve drunk over the years shoulda killed me!! (mud puddles and mud pies (the real mud)must make ya strong as a kid!!)

Artesian well so we just turned on the tap a few hundred feet from the house and drank from a tin cup. Never froze. In the 70s Grandma and Grandpa got indoor plumbing but had a water softener so still noone drank inside. And they'd get jugs of softer water from her sister in town, but us kids prefered the water you can sink your teeth into- high iron. Actually tastes like the water offered in Bath, England at the famous baths there (except those are hot and taste sulfury until cooled).

We can get a dipper full of ice cold water from our hand pump well anytime of year....the water is always 47ºF even when the outdoor temps are 90ºF plus in July and August!

My question is "How many of you have drank water straight out of a lake with no treatment?" I've done this for weeks at a time during canoe trips in the BWCA.

My great aunts still lived on the old homeplace when I was young and had a springhouse down under the arbor vitae trees. The springhouse was cool and dark and the water so cold and smooth in that old aluminum dipper. They say now that someone moved in further up the holler and is straight piping so I can't drink it anymore...true shame that. But it is all still there under the wild roses.

Yes, we drank from a dipper for years until I was in school and the local DR. had the school pour water on a slide and project it on a screen on the wall so we could see the germs in it.
I refused to drink after anyone again and my Grandmother was so mad she went to that school and told them off big time and suggested they come to her house and wash the dishes after all her Family got a drink of water about 10 times a day each!
I still never drank from that dipper again but (dumb as I was) I did dip the water into my own private tin cup with that same dipper, out of that same bucket.
Later we got running water and there was a tin cup Hung on a hook by the fawcett

Can't recall ever drinkin water directly out of a lake, but when I was growing up we would run all up and down this spring fed creek by my house and anytime we got thursty we would just kneel down and start drinking. Wouldn't do that now tho, it is now a filthy creek with all the chicken manure runoff that comes from the fields that the ranchers keep spreading. The creek has gotten slimmy and most of the fish have died out.

I drank for a dipper and when I was with my grandpa from the creek.

I've used a dipper many times to drink cold water just drawn from the well.

Drinking from a dipper.....ah the memories. Was abt 6yrs old, living in NM and that was the best water ever. Sure drank a lot of water back then too.....Till my Dad bucketed up the rat that had fell in and drowned. I was the only one that just couldn't wash that thought away.
Drank from many a flowing creek, but no lake.
Drink flow well water now, but still wishing I could go back that ol'place there in NM
Thanks for the flashback r.h. :)

Yes, I did. My Grandparents had no running water or electricity. They had two wells, the old one was used to water the mule. The newer one was closer to the house. The water bucket was kept on the back porch on the water shelf, with the dipper hanging close by. Some of the best water ever.

I also took baths in the wash tub, in the winter it was in the kitchen, in the summer outside in sun warmed water.

Also, I can remember using oil lamps. But, I cannot remember my Grandmother using the wood burning stove to cook on. I should... guess I had other things more important to do. Like... trying to catch a wild horse when they went by or building a toad house in the sand. :)

When I was a kid visiting my Uncle & family in Tennessee they had a hand pump on the back porch attached to a sink. It had to be primed with each use, so they always kept a bucket of water to drink (and prime) sitting in the sink with a dipper. We all went and got a drink from the dipper before bedtime.

Boy, I have vivid memories of going to a Great Aunt & Uncles home waay back in the N. Ga. mountains....I remember drinking from dippers...a tapped spring that was a pipe that came out of the hillside. watermelons in springboxes. They never had electricity..nor indoor plumbing, she cooked on a woodstove..they used fireplaces to keep warm. I remember the porch wrapping all the way around the house :)

Yup.
 

At Grandma and Grandpa's. We had to walk down to the pump house, pump a pail full, and carry it back to the house. There was a dipper down there in case you needed a drink straight from the spout, and another in the kitchen where the pail sat.

Has anyone ever come across any old handwritten recipes for pickles? One dipper of onions, four dippers of sliced cucumbers... etc.? Many people these days would be absolutely baffled!

I have some family members that did not have in door plumbing until the late 70's or so. I have a drink from a dipper many times as well as using my hand to cup some water lol.
My one aunt used to get their water from a spring across the road from their home. This was all in Indiana by the way. Still today when ever I go up there I know of a few good places to stop along the back roads to get a nice cool drink from springs and such. I was up there last year with my wife and kids and took them to a couple of them. My kids at first refused to even try it but after they did they was shocked just how good fresh spring water can be lol.

I grew up in Ne Okla also WE had a hand pump in the back yard.I remember every once in awhile pummping up a"water dog" (Salamanders I guess). Didn't have an indoor bathroom until I was in the ninth grade.Took baths in a number 3 washtub!

yup I remember taking a dip
 

We had a can down at the well that had a hole punched into it and it was kept on a nail nailed into a post. Never knew of a bird to hit it. When I first went to grade school,. we had a bucket with a dipper for all 10 or 12 kids. The next school had a crok with a push button spout at the bottom and weused razor sharpe paper cones made by Dixie to drink out of. I have drank out of a gallon bottle with the rest when haying for many years when young.

Well, back in the late 1970s I was living down in the caribbean (sailing). We had a sailboat in the shipyard at Nanny Cay in Tortola. One day we went to the backside of the island over by Cane Garden Bay. We had heard about a small rum distillery with inexpensive prices. When we got there I asked the man if it was any good.... he took a dipper and filled to the brim and handed to me. As I took a snoot full he said " That stuff don't give you a hang over". The rum was $1 US per gallon...but you had to bring your own container.

So yep, I've drunk form a dipper.

Mike

From shortly before the year I was born my family had running water

but on vists to grandparents and other relatives water thru about the mid-1960's for them was still drawn in buckets from wells

which sometimes involved dippers.

On my grandma's property (160 acres acquired in the original land run by my great-grandpa) there was no running water. The house she and my grandpa built had a wraparound porch. At the side of the porch nearest the kitchen was a concrete extension that I guess must have covered the well (?) with a hand pump on it. We'd take a big bucket out, pump it full of water and keep it on the kitchen cabinet with a dipper so anyone who wanted a drink just dipped it out and drank it. We never thought anything about everyone drinking out of the same dipper.

A little thread drift here, but we also pumped water and heated it on the stove for bathing. It would be poured into the tin washtub on the floor in front of the wood-burning stove, and all us kids took turns bathing in it! They'd just keep adding more hot water to it as it cooled and as each kid took a turn. I think there were about six of us that used the same water, lol, but luckily us girls got to go first! :p

I have a newspaper clipping from the 1960s about that house - it said it was built around a rock chimney from 1860, listed as one of the oldest standing man-made structures in Oklahoma! Unfortunately, the house burned down in the late 1960s and was never rebuilt.

I remember drinking from a dipper at my grandfathers in TN. He had a table next to the back door and that is where he kept the bucket of water and dipper. There was a spring fed creek behind the house, and they ran a water pipe to it, we had to go outside to get the water but not all the way to the creek.
He had electric but didn't use it much just at night to watch tv, he had a monster wood stove in the kitchen and when we'd visit my mother cooked on it. There was a huge woodpile at the side yard, I use to play in it as a child with never a thought of snakes...I wouldn't let my kids do that now :nono: and he had a smaller wood stove in the LR. He died in 1967

What wonderful memories. I recall drinking from dipper gourds at my great-grandparents' ranch in nw Louisiana. There was a spring out behind the house and a bucket would be lowered into it to draw up the water. My great-grandmother crossed over in 1965 and I don't think there was any water dipping after that. My uncle installed a pump and plumbing to the house about that time. Years later I came across two of their dipper gourds and still have them now. I have only used them for decoration, but we've dug a well and have a hand pump on it. It's out near our garden plot and I'm thinking a bucket and a dipper gourd might come in handy when I'm out there planting/weeding/etc. :)

I was raised in SE Okla. Our granny had an outside well with a well bucket, sulfur water that stunk like a rotten egg. They kept a bucket in the kitchen with a dipper everyone used. I had to hold my nose to drink their water.
We had a handpump on our well. Just had to remember to save some water to prime the pump.

Had our outside wells that had rusty tin cups. Draw up that cold water and get a good rink from that rusty tin cup. Sure did taste good that way. Getting purified, sterilized, individually packaged bottle of "spring" water out a cooler at the 7-11 just doesn't seem to satisfy in the same way.

The Good Ole Days
 

Yes I have!! At my granny's house they had a wonderful well with an a-framed chained pulley system set up over the top of a pipe in the ground. I remember mama lowering a bucket into the well by the old chain and the cold sweet water that would be brought up from the depts. The kitchen bucket would be filled and brought to the house and there was a community dipper that everyone drunk out of. That was the best tasting water I can remember tasting.

Thank you for bringing back that little bit of nostalgia!!

Pondering the more simplistic days of a childhood gone by..........

We had a hand pump on the back porch when I was a kid. The dipper hung on the pump but we didn't use it. We'd just get the water running and catch it in our hands to get a drink. At Grandpa's house they had a pump right in the kitchen. They didn't allow us to pump water for a drink. They filled a bucket that sat on the cabinet and the dipper hung on a nail beside it. The girls would get a glass and use the dipper to fill it, the guys would just drink from the dipper. So even tho I lived with pumps and dippers, I rarely drank from the dipper.

When I worked in Oman, there were wells dug at scattered locations in the desert and my job involved 4-wheeling across the desert each day.

When stopping at these wells there would be several buckets placed nearby and several camels that required the buckets to be filled before any stupid people could draw up water for themselves.

I did...and I wasn't born until 1974