Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Fall Housecleaning at Grandma's

I could always tell when it was really fall. The canning and “putting up” was done and mom would say, “Well, we need to go to Grandma’s house today and do her fall housecleaning.” Fall housecleaning at Grandma’s was an early morning to late afternoon job. It was mostly done on Saturday’s so I got to help.
The first thing Mom would do was to pack our lunch. She didn’t want Grandma to be cooking in the kitchen and get in our way. Grandma was a dear person, but walked with a bad limp and was very slow. It did not make any difference, however, Grandma always got in the way. That was her right. It was her house, and anyway, she wanted to oversee what my mother and father were doing.
The first thing that would happen was for the furniture to be moved and the area carpets would be taken outside. The carpets were thrown over the clothesline and beaten with a carpet beater. The beaters were interesting little things. They looked like a snowshoe with curly wires through the middle. Dad would be beating those so furiously that the dust made me sneeze.
Mom would be in the house taking down the curtains. The curtains were pure cotton lace. What a job. They had to be hand washed in a copper boiler with medium hot water. Mother took a stomper and gently agitated them with that. The curtains would be wrung out and draped over the clothesline until they were damp, not dry.
While Mom was outside, Dad would be setting up the curtain stretcher. He was the one that would be in the way because he did not wait until Mom had the walls wiped down and the floor scrubbed. The curtain stretcher took up the whole living room. I can remember Mom fussing at him while she was trying to wash the windows.
The stretcher was a series of thin boards on a stand that had hundreds of tiny nails that were so sharp that they looked like pins.
When the curtains were just the right amount of dampness, the first panel would be put on the stretcher. It took at least two and sometimes four people to do this. The reason being is, that the hem of the curtain top and bottom could not be “dried” uneven. The curtain would completely dry on the stretcher. Since the curtain was one hundred percent cotton, it would dry wavy if the pins weren’t placed about a half inch apart. This was a very time consuming process, so the weather outside had to be sunshiny and breezy to hurry up the drying of the curtains.
While the curtains were stretching and drying, Mother would be cleaning cupboards in the kitchen and talking to my Grandmother who was keeping a keen eye on my mother to make sure she didn’t throw anything away. Grandmother was a saver to say the least.
Dad would help Mom hang up the fresh curtains and the living room would look and smell so nice.
I can remember when Mother bought my Grandmother new curtains that were lace, but were not pure cotton. My Grandmother was amazed that such a thing existed. We still went to Grandma’s every fall to do fall housecleaning, but the curtain stretcher was out in the shed never to be used again.

2 comments:

  1. Wow! Now I know where Grandma got her packrat ways. LOL I cannot even imagine going to that trouble for curtains!

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  2. I never heard of a curtain stretchers. why not just iron them? didnt they have cast iron ones that are on the stove to heat,

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