Say Goodbye to a Landmark......the Berry Water Tower

THEN......When I moved to Berry in 1972 I was a born and raised city girl. Water was something that I had never even given a single thought....you just had it...always. About 10 months after moving to Berry I found out different. We bought an old house to renovate and moved out of the house we had been renting. It sat on a high hill and we were sharing a well with another house. The well actually belonged to the other family and they were just nice enough to keep us on it. So, we had water for about the first four years on the hill and then it hit.....a drought. The family took us off the well. I was pregnant with Courtney. The town agreed to let us attach to the city water but we had to put in our own water lines. John took vacation, rented a ditching machine (that tore up halfway up the hill and took three weeks to get the part...do you feel sorry for the pregnant mother of a 2 year old yet?), bought the pipe , put it in the ground and covered it up. What an exciting day. We had been without water for a month. We got connected to the main water line and went up the hill to wait on water. No water. No one in town had water. The national guard would bring in trucks full of water and you could go fill up your water jugs. I have never been more miserable in my life. Finally, after several months the drought lessened and the town had water.....except we didn't. There was not enough water to pump it up the hill to our house. So, we had to buy a regular well pump and hook it to our water line where it connected into the main water line to pump the water up the hill. I can still remember seeing that water coming into the bath tub in our house. I went without water for 6 months out of 9 during my pregnancy. We were without water many more times after that but it was when everyone else was without also. Luckily, Berry got a new mayor who vowed to take care of the water problem and he did. I will never complain about my water bill and I will never take water for granted.
Another THEN--- When water was flowing freely to the town the Berry water tank would fill up completely. There was one way to know that the tank was completely full. It would begin to overflow. What a glorious sight when you knew that at any time you might be without water. But the best memory was that from our house on the hill you could see it overflowing and we would jump in the car and take Brady to run around underneath the water tank. All the kids in town that could get there would be doing the same thing. It always reminded me of the pictures of draining the fire hydrants in the streets of a big city and all the kids in the road playing in the water. Brady actually told me that he remembers this and he was little but...it looked like so much fun that I always wanted to join him so I guess it made a real impression on that 4 year old mind. We moved right after Brady turned 4 and you couldn't see the water tower from our house.
NOW---The Berry Town council has voted to have the Berry Water Tower taken down. It is a good decision even if it is a sad decision. The council did not want to do this but the water tower has not been in use for many years and it is a liability. Plus, it would be a very, very big expense every year to keep it up. So, it will go down soon. I will miss it! My daughter-in-law, Kim, made these pictures for me (www.KimLawsonPhotography.com).