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.
