Recollections of Things I Forgot to Remember!

by Joanie Ingraham

With all the parades and celebrations this month, I couldn’t resist this great vehicle — all dressed up as a parade entry for Montello Granite Monuments. Photo submitted by Tom Freitag, Madison.

Washing Day as it Used to Be

Here is a cute and accurate write-up of washing day as it was, published in the Griggsville Genealogical and Historical Society Newsletter and passed on to me by my friend Martha Dyer, once of Westfield, now of Nevada. Enjoy!

Years ago an Alabama grandmother gave the new bride the following recipe:
This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrapbook with spelling errors and all.
 
Washing Clothes
“Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water.  Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert.  Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water.  Sort things, make 3 piles, 1 pile white, 1 pile colored, 1 pile work britches and rags.
“To make a starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water.

Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil.  Then rub colored, don’t boil, just wrench and starch.  Hang old rags on fence.  Spread tea towels on grass.  Pore wrench water in flower bed.  Scrub porch with hot soapy water.  Turn tubs upside down.  Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs.  Brew a cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.”
 
The Clothes Line
(The clothes line..a dead give away.  Do the kids today even know what clothes line is?  This will bring back the memories.)
 
The Basic Rules
You had to wash the clothesline before hanging any clothes.  Walk the lengthy of each line with a damp cloth around the line.

You had to hang the clothes in a certain order and always hang whites with whites and hang them firs.
You never hung a shirt by the shoulders, always by the tail.  What would the neighbors think?

Wash day on a Monday…never hang clothes on the weekend or Sunday for heaven’s sake.

Hang the sheets and towels on the outside lines so you could hide your “unmentionables” in the middle.
It didn’t matter if it was sub-zero weather, clothes would “freeze dry”.

Always gather the clothespins when taking down dry clothes.  Pins left on the line was “tacky”.

If you were efficient, you would line the clothes up so that each item did not need two clothespins, but shared one of the clothes pins with the next washed item.

Clothes off of the line before dinnertime, neatly folded in the clothes basket and ready to be ironed.

 Ironed??????????? Well, that’s another whole other subject.

 

 

 

 

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