@parrothead: My Daddy put a motor on the treadle machine and that is what I learned to sew on.
my dad and his brothers did the same, only with the pump outside in the back yard. they ran the wires up to the back porch, and installed an on-off switch in easy reach--and, voila! my grandma and grandpa had running water for the first time in their lives!
too bad there was no way to motorize the outhouse so it would have made a beeline to the back porch on command! it was still a long hike in the dark...