When she first married in 1946, Mother washed on a rub board. By the time I was born, they’d come up enough in the world to acquire a second wringer-washing machine. It cut her work tremendously. Wash days were so much more pleasant and relaxing. All she had to do was sort the laundry into whites, colors, towels, and work clothes.
After switching the wringer on, she’d fish the whites out of the scalding water with a stick and carefully run them through the wringer, allowing the wash water to drain back into the washing machine tank. The flattened clothes fed from the wringer into the first rinse tub. She worked them up and down with a plunger to rinse, then swiveled the wringer into position between the galvanized tubs, to wring the wash before the second rinse, plunging and wringing again and winding into a basket for the line.
Water had to be added to the the washer and tubs after each load, since a great deal of water remained in the clothes and ended up on the floor. Between loading, agitating, and rinsing, the laundry not requiring starch had to go on the line. The washer had to be manually switched into drain. Since the washer was on wheels many times the drain hose ended up on the floor, instead of the drain, ensuring plenty of excitement and extra mop up.
Now the good part, starching. Using powdered starch, Mother cooked up a thick batch of starch on the stove. Refilling the washing machine with hot water, she mixed the cooked starch in, making sure to stir till the mixture was absolutely smooth Our good cotton dresses, pants, shirts, and Daddy’s work clothes went back in to agitate, then were run through the wringer, into the laundry basket for the line. Of course, they were very hot. As the family got bigger, Mother had to starch two or three loads.
The floors were a dirty, sloppy mess by the end of laundry day, necessitating a thorough scrubbing. The greatest hazard was getting caught in the wringer, hence the phrase, putting you through the wringer.”
Tuesday was ironing day, another treat.
I remember the warsh board. My mom used to fill the bath tub with hot water and Crystaline (bleach) and then a few years later we got one of the wringer washing machines. It was kept outside our back door right nest to the clothes line. Ah, the smell of freshness in the items coming off the clothes line. I remember it well.
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That’s hard, hard work.
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Despite these machines being labour saving devices, there still seems to be a hell of a lot of work involved! 🙂
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Sure is!
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My mother said her first model was a small countertop model. It was just a tub with agitator. She said it would only do a few diapers or a dress or pair of men’s pants. She rinsed in the sink. Their was no wringer or spin, just wash.
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Ha ha. I remember those washers. They were the cat’s meow. 😀 Such a ‘convenience.’ 😛
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Great to read this today – I need to go to the big laundry down the street, and it has seemed like SUCH a chore ’til I read this. Maybe I’ll actually get there today.
xx,
mgh
(Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMORE dot com)
ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder
“It takes a village to educate a world!”
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I hate going to laundromat, too.
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Does anybody like it, really?
I always thought they needed to put these things next to fascinating stores – or in hair salons. Maybe offering dinner and a show for those of us who never go until we absolutely MUST.
xx,
mgh
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I had a cousin who met her husband at one.
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I have never seen anyone I’d even consider dating, much less marrying. Where was that laundromat? 🙂
xx, mgh
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It wasn’t as romantic as it sounds. They could have passed for Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
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lol! Nevermind – I’ll take my chances at the one down the street.
xx,
mgh
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Big chicken!
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Oh yeah – you would be too if you’d lived through my *last* guy!
xx,
mgh
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Thank God, I am still with my first guy. We will make forty-seven years in August. We grew up together. Sometimes it’s so hard to tell how people will turn out.
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Congratulations! I joke that my own “picker” seems to be broken. Although I always yearned for a committed long-term relationship like yours, I never found a man who meant the same thing by that term. I usually stayed too long before giving up, but I eventually had to admit the truth to myself, rather than remain in a situation that was rarely enlivening. Now, with potential intimates, I do my best to follow the sage advice to “engage slowly, disengage rapidly” – when I engage at all anymore.
Come to think of it, some of the best relationships I know are between people who “grew up together.” I wonder if any of the relationship gurus are studying that.
xx,
mgh
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From my own experience, It helps to know families. We had plenty of time to know each other. No surprises.
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Whatever you did, it certainly worked.
xx,
mgh
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Wow, reading that I remember my mom telling me how her grandmother did the laundry. It was a full day job and hard work!!
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It was!
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Reblogged this on Nutsrok.
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Thanks so much to linking to my story. I just learning hearing about people’s day to day!
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A trip down memory lane. I remember turning the the iron handle and feeding sheets through the wooden bars of the wringer as a child.
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No lost fingers?
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I was born in the mid 50s and i remember a machine which was manually filled, I got to turn the wringer too, the wringer could swing out so that it could be pointed in the direction of the rinsing sink which then wrung it again into the pile we used to collect to hang on the line. Much younger when I was 2 or 3 I remember a drying rack which was hoisted to the rafters in the walkway between kitchen and out /in house so that on rainy days mum might still dry the washing.
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I remember that.
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You remember the drying rack or the swinging wringer?
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Both.
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That has brought back memories – think I’ll have to write my own post about washing day! Thanks for this, and we should be so grateful for our modern washing machines!
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PLease do. Please send link so I won’t miss it. Love everything you post!
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Thanks.
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You know, when we replaced the wringer washer, my grandmother swore that the clothes were never again as clean…It was a job that took hours, and you couldn’t walk away. ☺
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Oh, it was huge. The entire process got the best of two days including the ironing. It wasn’t like you could dash out and put a load in while you cooked dinner. It was a full-day commitment.
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I don’t like housework but really…it’s nothing these days, is it?
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No, I can clean my house from top to bottom in a morning, including laundry. There’s no way Mother could do that.
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Takes me back, one of my aunts lost 3 fingers to a wringer, very dangerous contraptions they were, thank you for the trip down memory lane!
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They were dangerous. Glad you enjoyed.
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Thank God for my modern washing machine, dryer, dishwasher… the list goes on!
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They do make our lives better, don’t they!
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Nice nostalgic piece. However, you forgot to mention the SOLAR ENERGY DRYERS our mothers had to use,,,,with our help.
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No kidding. I’ll talk about them in part 2. Thanks.
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I remember the washing machine! My mom used to have it too! Thanks for bringing back nice memories!
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Wasn’t it a nightmare!
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UH OH! No? I didn’t help or anything, all of us were too young to be helping, I guess?
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Oh, you’d remember if you had!
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LOL!
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Thanks
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I love these peeks into the past. It makes me appreciate my washer and dryer, which might not starch, but they will steam out the wrinkles. Laundry is a chore I don’t despise, but if I had to use a wringer and make starch, it would be a different story.
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Making starch was a dangerous job. I remember Mother warning us out of the way before she carried the pot of hot starch from the stove out to pour it in the washer.
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It sounds like doing laundry was a dangerous job, between the hot starch and the wringer. YIKES.
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