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I grew up in El Hoyo Simons, Montebello, Calfornia

Friday, July 5, 2013

Bathing on Saturday Mornings at the Simons Brickyard


                                                           By kiki

 
                         Tina 
                              
The houses at the Simons Brickyard were no more than shacks with no indoor plumbing or natural gas, cooking was done on wood-burning stoves. When nature called we used outhouses. “where the sports page?’ pop would yell, somebody would yell back “in the outhouse” Where somebody had used it for toilet paper.

Saturday mornings were the Simons people day to bathe. We all had tinas (galvanized tubs) sitting on brick. After filling the tina with water we would light up a fire underneath to get the water hot. Once the water was hot we would carry it in a galvanized bucket to the bathing shack. Pops had dug a hole in the ground and constructed a tub, kind of a small swimming pool out of bricks and cement in the bathing shack. In my last three years at Vail Elementary we were allowed to shower daily at the school’s showers.

Mom would use the tina to do the laundry. She had two tallador (washboards). She would hang the clothes out to dry. In the winter if the clothes were left hanging over night they would be frozen in the morning, we would have to put them close to the wood burning stove to thaw them out.

Tallador

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