Getting Ice
As told by Clinton Hardy (born 1909)
contents © Al Durtschi
As a teen-ager I helped my dad put up ice in the Winter for Summer use. Using an ax, we chopped a hole through the ice in the coulee (small stream). Then we used an ice saw to cut the ice into blocks of about 18-20 inches square. The ice was 12 to 18 inches thick. He used ice tongs to pull them out of the water then we lifted them into the wagon. These tongs were quite heavy and had sharp points for sinking into the ice. Our little ice house was built out of rough lumber. It was insulated with sawdust between the inner and outer boards of the walls. We stacked the blocks of ice into it, filling it to about a foot from the top. Then Dad covered the ice blocks with a thick layer of straw. This ice lasted well into mid August.
Mostly this ice was used in our ice box, about as close as we could come to a refrigerator in those days. Our ice box was 'store bought' and was constructed of very pretty wood on the outside with a thin sheet metal liner on the inside. Insulation was packed between this and the outer wooden shell. On the top shelf of the ice box was a rather large container we put the ice in. It was big enough to hold all the water as the ice melted. Every day we brought in more ice from the ice house, dumped the water, and put the new block of ice into the container. This worked pretty well for keeping our food cool as long as we didn't forget to put new ice in.
We also used the ice for making ice cream on hot summer days. This was quite a novelty before the days of refrigeration.
All went well until the middle to the end of August when the Ice finally ran out. There was no place to buy ice in our little town so when the ice was gone we just did without. It wasn't any bid deal then as we were quite accustomed to living without cooling.