Back in the early 1970’s, my mother wanted to do a needlepoint of my grandparent’s farm where she grew up. It was also the place where I spent a lot of my childhood playing. I had no photos to go on so I sketched out things as I remembered them. The farmhouse had been torn down decades before, but the other building were still standing.
Months ago, my cousin sent me a photo that she had taken of the needlepoint. While I was looking it over, I noticed the red gas pump jutting up there on the right hand side. It had also long disappeared, which made me wonder why it had been so important to me that I had included it in my sketch for my mom.
During my early days, I did find the old gas pump fascinating. Even then, it was an antique, probably manufactured in the 1920‘s, but in the 1950‘s and 60‘s, it still worked and was used to fill up the tractors, and the family car.
There was a large underground tank that stored the gas. It would periodically be filled by a fuel truck when needed. I remember my grandfather unscrewing the cap above the buried tank to lowering a stick down into the gas storage tank to measure how much gas was left in the tank.
The old gas pump was an interesting relic. It had a long removable lever on its side, which when moved back and forth, pumped gas from the underground tank, up into the glass container on the top of the pump. Inside the glass container and in the middle was an upright ruler-like structure that allowed you read how many gallons of gas you had pumped. When you reached the amount you wanted, you stopped pumping the lever and lowered the attached gas pump hose. Gravity caused the gas in the glass container to flow down the hose, allowing you to fill up the vehicle.
Below is a photo showing how my grandfather’s old gas pump looked.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
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