Flies and DDT

remember the fly problem, Thanks to the out house, flies were every where during the hot summer days and nights. On cloudy days we could always tell when it was going to storm. flies would fly in a continuous circle in the room, never landing to rest. At night they went to bed. Our ceilings were covered black with flies.

When DDT was invented and used as a fly spray, Mom would fill the hand pumped sprayer with DDT, cover all dishes for protection and spray each day.

As I got older and Mom was gone leaving me in charge, i would do this job of spraying for flies. The can of poison warned of all the dangers of DDT but I thought anything was worth the risk to be free of those terrible pests!

After covering the food and dishes with towels, I would hold my breath and start pumping that sprayer as fast as I could then run out of the room for another breath and run back in for another go at it. DDT would drip onto my hand and on down my elbow onto the floor as I sprayed each room.

After spraying all the rooms, we would stay outside for at least a half hour while the flies gasped their last breaths and the thick deadly mist dissipated. Then it was necessary to wash and scrub everything that could be touched by human hands so the little children would not get sick like the can warned us. We would sweep up the flies and dispose them, only to have to repeat this process again the next day. There seemed to be a never ending supply of flies. I still say to this day, if using that DDT takes a few years off my life from using it as a child, it was well worth the sacrifice!

My mother made the comment once that she couldn't have been too bad of a mother since none of us children died of food poisoning during the hot summers. After reading some of he old letters and seeing the high infant mortality rate in those days before modern medicine and refrigerators, I can see why she was so proud to have raised all 13 to healthy adulthood.