WASH DAY
Years ago, when families were larger, when ( or, your “ Grandmother”, if you are younger) made any reference to “wash day” she was talking - not about a few hours during which the family laundry would be “done.” She meant, instead, a full dawn-to-dusk time slot - an entire day - which also had associated hold-over jobs which could last rest of the week.
It was often an outdoor activity. The home laundry concept was awfully slow moving into the 20th Century so the routine stayed rather privative. I can remember our neighbors doing their Wash Days out-of-doors and it seems to me they did it rain-or-shine and in all seasons as well. They pretty much followed the rules which their
Grandmother had set. Our mother, much younger, adapted the procedure to suit smaller home...not just the kitchen where it often started but - depending on the severity of the weather - it could meander throughout the entire house.
Fire was featured fire and the boys next door started a hot one in the back yard over which was suspended a monster, black, iron called a “kittle”. It measured about a yard or more across the top and was the same one used to make apple butter and hog- millin' days each Fall. You had to work from whichever side the wind did not blow the smoke in your face.
Water was brought from the cistern on the back porch in b buckets, and when the water was boiling a bit they whittled yellow blocks of home-made soap into the tide and stirred. The women had three piles of laundry nearby. One was the better white things; next was colored items and the third, and largest stack, was work clothes and rags to be used in unending housecleaning chores.
I never knew the exact routine. The idea was work each pile through the hot, soapy water - scrubbing stains and spots with knuckles or a washboard, as needed; then, to rinse (pronounced always as “wrenched”) each item in clear, usually cooler water in another nearby tin tubs and dipping items and starch in starch and bluing solutions as needed. Colored items are carefully dipped, not boiled, rinsed gently and set apart. The rough work clothes and rags and have been soaking in the big, iron kettle and they could be scrubbed, rinsed and hung up to dry.
We had a wire clothes line in our yard the family next door stayed with Mother Nature. The rags and some work cloths were hung on the wire fence at the back of the yard; tea towels on the and the top of the hedge between our two places was covered. White, frilly stuff was be taken inside and draped over a wooden spindle clothes hanger rig to dry inside the porch.
The back yard had to be cleaned up ,of course. Nothing was wasted. As the day waned they scrubbed the back porch with the soapy water from the kettle; poured the tin tubs of “wrench” water into the flower beds, washed the tin tubs and put them in the shed where they were kept.
At our house it was all done in a modified manner. In winter clothing could be found drying at just about any place might go. Before too long we moved into an apartment house and got our first electric washing machine which went by the name: “Easy”- a rather large, copper-tubbed machine with a wringer which served us well for many years.
A.L.M. February 19, 2006 [c594wds]
