Until I was three years old, we lived in a house with no indoor bathroom. In the 40’s that was still pretty common out here in farm country. The privy was about fifty feet from the house and I have toddler toilet memories of sitting in there, feet dangling, watching spiders in the corner. On wintry nights trips to the outhouse were replaced by mom’s pulling out the chamber pot from under the bed and waiting patiently for two little girls to finish their business.
My sister and I were totally potty trained as soon as we learned to walk. I’m sure that tending to that chamber pot and washing all those cloth diapers was a very good incentive for mom’s working hard on the training those first 9 or 10 months!
Thankfully we did have electricity and kitchen plumbing, but mom’s old wringer washing machine sat on the screened in porch. I can’t remember how she got water to it, but it was noisy so I think there was a little gas engine that ran the motor. When mom lifted those wet clothes out of the tub and put them through the wringer, we always got warned of the dangers of smashed fingers in there, but it still held a dangerous attraction to us.
With no dryer, there were lots of trips to the clothesline so RoJean and I got to play outside a lot on Mondays when the days were warm enough. We thought that was a treat.
Then there were the wash day smells. Ham and Beans simmering and bread baking; a typical wash day lunch. The sudsy clean odor of the bleach, bluing, and detergent on that steamy porch was another powerful combination.
When there weren’t too many dirty clothes and mom had enough afternoon energy left, RoJean and I often laid down for our naps sniffing the cooking starch and watching her sprinkle the clothes. She put them in an old apple basket and covered them with oilcloth till they were ready to iron.
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| Typical clothes sprinkler |
Often when we awoke there was that warm clean pressed clothes smell coming from the kitchen and we could hear mom harmonizing with Tennessee Waltz, Sentimental Journey, Goodnight Irene or one of the latest songs playing on the radio.
For me these are all just pleasant childhood memories, but for mom it was just lots of hard work. And for all the women who’ve gone before… who spent so much time and back breaking labor saving animal tallow, burning ashes to make lye for making their own soap, carrying wood to boil water, scrubbing, drying, using sad irons, and trying to keep their families clean out here on the dusty plains...I SALUTE YOU!
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| Lye soap |
I’m so thankful for my laundry room and its automatic washer and dryer! It may not be the latest stacked or front load system but compared to earlier times, it’s almost like having my own personal laundry maid. She ‘s on call 24 hours a day, the weather outside doesn’t matter at all, and I can run around or do other more fun jobs while the clothes get cleaned and dried!
