Another beautiful day outside. I hope I can find time to enjoy it; these taxes are aggravating hell out of me as nothing is going right this year. This evening I will again drive Carolyn to clean the banks.
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The pre-wringer-washer days: We did not have electricity in my grandma's house until the late 1940's; 1949, I think. Before then, all the clothes were washed in the big metal tubs, but a washboard was used instead of a machine. A fire was built under the big brass kettle and cistern water heated. The dirtiest clothes like my grass-stained britches and my uncles denim pants were put into a tub of very hot water with plenty of lye soap added. They were stirred with a a pole which acted like today's agitators and then stubborn stains were removed by scrubbing with a hunk of soap on the washboard. Regular clothes usually were not put to the washboard unless they were being contrary. It was all very hard work and took most of the day to complete. I was very young then and some of my memories have become a bit obscure and my notes are not complete for the period. Life in the country was never easy for adults, and my mom walked a mile to the bus line and rode to Johnson City where she walked another half mile to work at night in a textile mill so I would have decent clothes and an occasional new toy. Even with that, she was still helping with the wash day chores.
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I am running out of recent photos and the one above may have been on this blog before today. If so, love it twice as much 'cause it was summertime.
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Happy Tuesday!
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4 comments:
Yes, washing was a hard work in past, and really great undertaking. Not only washing, also drying (there was a special loft in our tenement) and starching.
Later it was a special scent in the wardrobe. I miss this scent. A scent of my childhood. A scent of cleanliness.
Washboard, in Polish "tarka do prania", I suppose. Nice.
Be well, my friend. :-)
The weather here has been great so far this week. Very spring like. I put the lemon balm plant outside Saturday and trimmed it back. There is already a bunch of new growth on it.
The "clean" scent is very important to me. These scented detergents and softeners used these days make me sick ... literally.
Thanks for the polish words for washboard; very nice.
Take care of yourself, Jola. :-)
What you going to do with the balm? I like it or wild mint in green tea.
Thanks, Mark.
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