Primitive Living

This morning I was reminded of how primitive our life was in upper Michigan in the thirties. Our tai chi teacher is 94 years old. Yet this morning he was talking about what a school nurse did in school. I had never heard of a school nurse. When we lived in Dighton the nearest doctor was 25 miles away. In Michigan my father's sister, Aunt Grace, was midwife and she who laid out corpses. My first husband's grandmother was a herb doctor. Hersey was far out. They had a physician and a pharmacist. Did I mention that we did not have indoor plumbing. I had taken a bath at my grandfather's house. At home, we heated water on the stove. Then we took a large basin into the bedroom and did a sponge bath.