Dedicated to my mom who taught me more than how to do laundry. This was my second published work, published in Good Old Days Magazine in May 2004.
Bright and early every Monday, Mom
and I went to the basement. As I stood by her side she taught me the proper way
to sort clothes- whites, towels, colors, work pants and jeans. We pulled the
old wringer washer from the corner to
the stationary tubs. She filled it with scalding hot water and turned the
machine on to start it agitating. After she added whatever soap was on sale at
the time, she always added a bar of Fels Naphtha that she
let me grate on an
old grater. The long curls of soap slid off the grater into the water. I loved
watching the scorching water swallow them up as it agitated into suds.
Once the soap dissolved, we put the
white clothes in first. Mom pushed them into the water with her wash stick, an
old broom handle, being careful not to splash herself with the steaming hot
water. She closed the lid. While the clothes washed, we strung the clothes line
in the basement on cold or rainy days and outside in the warm sunny weather,
which was limited in Ohio.
Back in the fifties, we didn't have a dryer so
everything had to be hung. Besides, Mom said there was nothing like the smell
of fresh laundered clothes straight off the line in the warm weather. She
climbed on a stool made especially for her and pulled that line so tight someone
could walk across it and then gave it another yank before securing it with a
knot.
Back into the basement, we scrubbed
the two stationary tubs, and filled them with water.
We let the clothes soak for a few
minutes in the bleach pushing them around with the stick, so we wouldn't slop
the bleach water on ourselves. After we rinsed them, we drained the bleach
water and added fresh water and rinsed the clothes again, changing the rinse
water after every load. We rinsed the clothes thoroughly by lifting them in and
out of the water up and down repeatedly. It looked like fun until she let me do
it. I found out how hard it was and how
heavy wet clothes were. It was backbreaking work. After the last rinse, Mom
sent the clothes through the wringer and I guided them into a basket that sat
on a bench next to the washer. The next load to go in was the towels, as most
of them were light colors or white. While they were washing, we hung the first
load.
I helped by handing my mom clothespins and the clothes, saving her from bending over. She
I helped by handing my mom clothespins and the clothes, saving her from bending over. She
She hung the work pants with pant
stretchers in the legs, to keep them taut and made the
crease. As soon as the
clothes were dry, we removed them to make room for new ones. Most days the last load of laundry was on the
line by noon . It usually didn't take them long to dry. We snapped them hard when we removed them to get
rid of excess wrinkles and folded them immediately, then Mom sorted them onto
piles for each of us kids to put away. The clothes that needed ironed were
sometimes taken off the line damp or sprinkled with water, rolled into a ball,
and stored in a plastic bag. Tuesday was ironing day.
What a great post. I took a memory trip back to my summers with my grandmother, and her old wringer washer. She used to kid me about getting my boob too close. Unfortunately, it looks now, like I may have been closer than I thought. *lol*
ReplyDeleteI got so carried away with my reply, I forgot what I really wanted to say. I'm so glad we have dryers. Do you remember how stiff towels used to be fresh off the line? Yes, they smelled good, but...
DeleteThanks, Ginger I had one of those washers for a long time after we got married. In fact, I had one until we moved to our apartment. I often used it for rugs and other things too heavy for the automatic washer. Yes, I do remember how stiff those towels were. But the sheets, oh how great to crawl into bed and fall asleep with that fresh smell.
DeleteDo remember the days and hanging clothes on the line to dry. I'm glad for the dryer but boy those sheets smelled so wonderful when hung on the line. Our towels weren't stiff. Don't know how my mother managed that.
ReplyDeleteOh, this brings back memories. We didn't have a dryer, either. In the wintertime, the clothes would be frozen stiff after being on the line.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that clothes pins were a Shaker invention?
Don't think they had a fabric softner back then, did they, Janet Walters?
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that about clothes pins, Shirley Martin. Thank you both for your comments. I did laundry the same way for many years after we were married. Hung many a diaper on the line. Was so excited to get a dryer. The only thing I minded about the wringer washer was the clothes were washed long before the ones in the dryer were done.
You brought back so many memories, of my mom and aunt. I grew up in rural Alberta, in the days where coal oil and kerosene lighted our lamps and drinking water was hauled from the well, while washing water was melted from snow in winter and dipped from the rainbarrel in summer. It might have been 30 below outside, but mom had her washing to do and my brother and I had our part too. We were sent outside to get buckets of snow, which were melted and heated on the cookstove and then poured into the old boiler. Once that was full mom got to work with the washboard while Ken and I went to get more snow to melt down for rinsewater. When it was all finished there's be racks of clothes hanging as close to the old cookstore and the pot bellied heater in the living room as they could get without burning them. That was many years ago, thanks for the reminder Ro, Jude
ReplyDeleteWow, Jude. I thought we did a lot of work. Great memories, tho, weren't they? I think a big part of it wasn't the work involved, but the family unity and bonding. We've seemed to have lost some of it in this modern age of technology.
DeleteAh the good old days! I often wonder how my mother managed. With a family of ten life was one round of washing and drying. Even when I married we still used the old wringer and my husband was a plumber at that time and his horrible overalls had to be washed using the washboard. Thank heavens for washing machines.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes Tricia, the good old days We were a family of 8, so I know what you mean about all that laundry. I don't know how my mom managed to only wash once a week. I washed every day when I had my kids (family of 8 also) Thank God, I was blessed with an automatic washer and dryer.
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