After publishing B – Betsy I got the following question from my daughter Ayanna:
“I wonder what the house with 12 people in it was like. Did the home have indoor plumbing? Where did they sleep? Where did they eat? Food storage? What was a regular weekday meal? Were they near a park or other outdoor space that they could access? I have so many questions!”
In 1900, sixty year old widow, Elizabeth “Bettie” Doneghy lived at 815 13th Street in Louisville, Kentucky with her large family. Included were her daughter Katie (washerwoman) and her husband William (coachman) and their son one year old Charlie; Her daughters Marcie and Laura were both laundresses; Her son Sam (cook at the Lou Hotel) and his wife Emma and two little sons; and sons Wesley(waiter) and Tingsley (cook at the Union depot). All the adults were literate except Elizabeth and Tingsley.
The family stayed in the west Louisville African American community, but moved around often. They rented the brick house on 13th for about three years. The main portion of the house was two and a half stories high, that is two full stories and a third story that was not as large as those below because of the sloping roof but it added more room.
Indoor plumbing was a rare luxury. In the early 1900s only 1% of homes in the United States had indoor plumbing. There would have been a pump in the backyard. Bathing was done through sponge baths with pitchers and washstands, or by heating water on a stove for a tub bath. Most families bathed once a week. An out house in the backyard would suffice for a toilet.
The family ate the basic southern diet, cornbread, beans, sweet potatoes, greens. Maybe fish if they went down to the Ohio River and fished. Maybe they had a small garden, perhaps a few chickens. The yard looks big enough for that. They most likely cooked with wood and heated water the same way. Although there were ads for ice boxes for $3 or less, googling tells me that poor people didn’t have ice boxes. I doubt there were leftovers needing refrigeration. Maybe they bought milk for the children.
There were public parks in Louisville, but at that time they were for whites only. Later there was one for African Americans. In 1905, the Western Branch Library for black people opened.
The family was Catholic in Lebanon, I’m assuming they continued to be. St. Augustine Catholic Church was the black Catholic church and it was in their area.
I hope I answered all of Ayanna’s questions!