The Old Water Well

Old GEM Hand-Cranked Water Pump

I don't have a great picture of this old water well, so I went to the internet and was a little surprised how difficult it was to find the exact water pump that was used over Mimi and Pappy's water cistern. What I found is pictured below, and oddly it was found under the title "yesterday's tractor." I did find some old family photos that just happened to be taken near the cistern. 

Oh! The grand things that intrigue a child's mind! For me, this old water well was one of them. Thing is...I couldn't play with this by myself for long. I was very small (small for my age) and it was difficult for me to crank this thing for long. The enjoyment we had, though, as cousins playing around this cistern created memories that have lasted a lifetime. 

Pappy pictured with the old cistern.

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Though this is not our cistern, it shows the crank.

old hand water pump - Yesterday's Tractors (yesterdaystractors.com)

This is the inner workings of the pump.

Mimi and Pappy had a lot of tolerance for their 10 grandchildren, but then again, we played outside. The well was a great source of intrigue for the minds of children. It reached into the dark recesses of the earth. This diagram shows the inner workings of the well. At each bar there would have been a small bucket. As we cranked the pulley, it would lower each bucket down and around the system, filling each bucket with water. Then as it came across the top, it would dump the water into a well-placed bucket. 

At some point, we numbered each bucket, and I believe the number was somewhere around 120. It was great fun to watch the buckets begin to show signs of wetness and then produce the water. Many hours of fun and laughter, and what I thought was labor, was spent around this old well.