Monday Was Wash Day

One of my fondest memories was “Wash Day.” The kitchen smelled so good with the smell of lye soap that my mother had made and Linit Starch.
Linit Starch came in a box. My mother measured out the right amount of granules and put them in a porcelain bowl. She had boiling water on hand in a tea kettle that she poured in the bowl. Then it was my turn. I got to do the stirring. When all of the granules were dissolved then mom would put collars and sleeves of my dad’s white shirts in this starch that “we” had made. My dad did not like his collars so stiff that they cut his neck like a lot of older men wore, so the mixture was weaker for him. She dipped the sleeves into the mixture and wrung them out tight.
Mother hung all of her clothes outside to dry on the clothes line. When the clothes were dry then she would bring them in the house and the next fun thing that I got to help with was called “sprinkling.”. She was so good at it. She would spread out the clothes that needed ironing on the table, one on top of another. She would have a bowl of warm water on the table, then she would dip her right hand in the water and shake it all over the garment. She was so fast that it was fun to watch. After the sprinkling of one garment was done, she would roll the garment up into a small roll. Then that piece of clothing would be put in her laundry basket. Over and over she would go. Most of the time she would have a complete laundry basket full of little rolls of clothes. When it was full she put a clean dishcloth over the moistened clothes and set them aside for “Tuesday Ironing Day.” When I was old enough I was allowed to iron the pillowcases and my dad’s handkerchiefs. My mother stood over me to make sure that I learned to do my “work” correctly. She would lower the ironing board to my level so I could reach the cases and “hankies” easily. She even ironed the sheets because she wanted them to look nice and also because they were 100% cotton or muslin and would get very wrinkled.
On “Wash Day” Mother had lots of work to do because my Uncle Leslie lived with us. He ran a mill that ground feed. He wore cotton uniform pants that had to be put on pants stretchers. After the pants were washed then they had to be stretched because he like creases in his pants that were better than if mom ironed them in and also because they kept the wrinkles that the agitator left in them. These stretchers were metal and could be shortened or lengthened to the inseam size that was needed. These loaded stretchers then would be taken outside to be dried. When they were hung on the line they looked like headless little men all hanging in a row.
I thought Mother was a miracle worker. When it came time to hang the clothes outside, she would put six or seven clothespins in her mouth at a time. This saved her time because she had six of us to do laundry for. Any little trick she could come up with was a time saver. Her clothespins were not the kind that we have now. They were wooden and big around with a slit that divided the pin where the clothes would be fastened onto the line. I used to watch my sister, Rosie, help mom and she just didn’t do it nearly as fast as my mom.
If Rosie was home helping mom hang up the wet clothes, mom and I would be stomping the diapers and the more fragile clothes. She thought the stomper could be controlled easier than the agitator on her old kerosene run washer. When I think about helping mom stomping some of those clothes I am sure she would have rather grabbed that thing out of my hands because she could have done it four times faster. If she would have done that I wouldn’t have all these fun memories.
You have to remember that Mother had to haul water for laundry and heat it on the stove and dump it into the washer. She always started with the white clothes because they needed hot water, then towels, then colored clothes and then overalls.. Most generally they were all washed in the same water. When all the laundry was done she always scrubbed the floor. Besides the laundry which took most of the day, she had all of us to cook for and a baby to take care of. I never once heard her complain. She used to tell me stories about how much better she had it than her mom did. I can’t imagine how much worse my Grandmother had it than my mom. She worked so hard.
In the winter time, wash day was a nightmare. Dad strung long pieces of “clothesline” back and forth in the dining room high above the dining room table. Mom would hang all of her laundry on those “lines”. The only heat in that room was a space heater, so the clothes dried slowly. There was no breeze to blow out a lot of the wrinkles, so that meant more difficult ironing.
When I wash my clothes in my automatic washer, then throw them in my automatic dryer, use fabric softner purchased laundry detergent, and only iron one piece of clothing a month, I sometimes wonder, How Did She Do It?