Rex Trulove
My grandfather would have cringed if someone called him an inventor, but that is exactly what he was. When he saw a need, he’d often think of a solution. Sometimes those solutions were downright ingenious.
Having running water inside of the house, something that many of us now take for granted, was one example.
My grandfather, Bill, and his wife, Mabel, had moved to a beautiful valley in Alaska with their kids. Like the other houses in the valley, and there weren’t many, the bathroom consisted of an outhouse. Water for drinking, cooking, washing, and bathing had to be drawn from a stream that ran by the house.
Mabel was pregnant at the time and going up on the low hill that was about 30 feet from the house, getting buckets of water from the pool that was located there, and hauling it back to the house was tiring work. Several times Mabel made the statement that she wished that she didn’t have to work so hard to get water. Once or twice, she even made the preposterous statement that it would be wonderful to have running water right in the kitchen.
Of course, that notion was ridiculous. A well could be dug and a hand-pump could be put in, but the house was already built, so the idea of putting a well in the house was absurd. Digging a well outside the house wasn’t a worthwhile idea, either, since the water would still need to be hauled into the house. Still, it gave Bill a problem to solve.
One morning, he suggested that Mabel take the kids and go out berry picking. That was out of character for him since is seldom suggested that she take the kids anywhere without accompanying them. Mabel knew that something was up, but she had no idea what it was, so she and the children went berry picking. She knew full well that Bill wasn’t about to tell her what he had in mind.
When everyone else was gone, Bill got to work. First, he felled several trees. In these, he cut V-shaped wedges that ran the length of the trees. Next, he chopped a hole in the kitchen wall about three feet off the ground and another in the wall that was opposite of the first hole, at ground-level. Through the hole, he placed one of the logs, propping the log up off the floor, but with the log purposely ending a few feet from the second hole.
He took the other logs and laid them end to end, using a draft horse for the heavy pulling. The logs ran in a line up the hill, to the pool of water. Once he had the last log in place and had dug a small channel for the water, water ran down the V in the logs and into the house, then poured out before flowing through the second hole and forming a channel that rejoined the stream.
When Mabel got home a few hours later with the kids and a bunch of berries, she was astounded to find that she had exactly what she’d been wishing for; running water in the kitchen. It wasn’t the most convenient arrangement in the world since there was a log to get around when the kitchen was being used, but she no longer had to haul water into the house. The water came to her.
Though Bill didn’t really care about being the first at anything, he never-the-less had the distinction of having the first house in the valley that had running water.
Wow, now that is a man taking care of his family. What a man you must be so proud of to have known and be related to.
I am. I doubt that I’ll ever know as much as he did and I sure will never do half the stuff he did, but it used to be fascinating to talk to him. He defined “Jack of all trades”. Among other things, he was a heavy equipment operator, especially with a grader. He was a carpenter, mason, painter, house builder, farmer, ambulance driver, truck farmer, guide, sharpshooter (in WW1, at the age of 16), ranch hand, placer gold miner, cabinet maker, donut cook, and mechanic. My grandmother was what we’d think of as a pioneer woman who was a great cook and could clean and cut up just about anything my grandfather could shoot or catch. They raised 8 kids and my mother was the second oldest. (Only two uncles, one of which is a retired minister, school teacher, and school principal, his twin brother, and one aunt are still living.)
It is from my grandfather that I get my Cherokee blood and heritage.