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Posted: Oct/18/2006 8:12 PM PST
I had to share this email I just got. I hope you enjoy it like I did. 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 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. Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then 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 cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings. ============================== Paste this over your washer and dryer. Next time when you think things are bleak, read it again, kiss that washing machine and dryer, and give thanks. First thing each morning you should run and hug your washer and dryer, also your toilet those two-holers used to get Mighty Cold! For you non-southerners - wrench means rinse. |
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Posted: Oct/19/2006 3:54 AM PST
You said it !!! |
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Posted: Oct/19/2006 8:33 AM PST
I remember watching my grandmother doing her laundry in the kitchen sink with a scrub board, bed sheets and all . Wringing them out by hand and then hanging over a third story, low window sill to hang the just washed laundry on the line swindyi |
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Posted: Oct/19/2006 12:46 PM PST
Too right! I started off married life using a glass washboard (with a wooden frame) and rinsed and wrung out by hand. I got my first washing machine just before my first son was born. It was a washer and spin dryer. You put the wash in the washer and using big wooden tongs switched it over to the spin dryer, spun it for a bit then with a hose attached to the tap filled it with clean water then spun it again until all the soap was out. You then removed it from there into a basket and carried it out to hang it on the line. I'm glad I don't have to do that now. 
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Posted: Oct/19/2006 5:34 PM PST
I can remember my Grandma doing that. Then she got a electric ringer washer. The thing was a big tub that stood on legs with casters on it. It had a drain hose hanging off the side, but you had to pour hot water and the soap into the tub, no faucets to fill it with. It had an aggitator in the tub and then you shoved everything through the ringer into a tub of rinse water, sloshed it around in the rinse water and then ring it out again. Change the rinse water and repeat. Wash day was exactly that, all day. We couldn't handle that now, way to much work. Now I complain because I have to go up and down stairs to the laundry room with my brand new AUTOMATIC washer and dryer, LOL. That soap that you shaved off was Phelsnaptha or something like that which you could get at the market. It came in a beige wrapper with red writing on it. Sort of the store bought version of homemade soap. I think you can still buy it. Then we had soap flakes, Ivory Flakes come to mind and washing powder. Does anyone remember those wooden curtain stretchers? They were big square or rectangular frames with nails all around them. You stretched your curtains and attached them along the edges to the nails, and allowed them to dry. That way you didn't have to iron them to much and they kept their shape. |
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Posted: Oct/19/2006 9:02 PM PST
That curtain stretcher sounds a lot like what I was told was a quilting frame that belonged to my grandma. I've never had it together though. It has a row of teeth on it. I didn't know if quilt frames had those. I've still got a Fels grater I use for cheese and we can still get the soap around here. I found it in a bargain bin at the grocery store so I bought mom and I a bunch. She uses it on her curtains and then a little starch in the rinse water. Dad used to use Fels for poison ivy. The Ivory Snow box of my grandma is still over the sink near the washboard and Bo Peep blueing. I think that's the name of it. sash' Did that washer have a big open top with an agitator that went up and down and side to side all at once? Grandma had one of those for over 50 years, but her second husband wasn't the repairman grandpa was and he bought her a washing machine and her first dryer when she was almost 80. |
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Posted: Oct/19/2006 9:19 PM PST
sash' Did that washer have a big open top with an agitator that went up and down and side to side all at once? Grandma had one of those for over 50 years, but her second husband wasn't the repairman grandpa was and he bought her a washing machine and her first dryer when she was almost 80.[/quote] Actually, it just adjitated, but it had one big metal lid that went over the top of both. My mom had one that was a separate washer and spin dryer, two appliances, then I got mine was which was 'state of the art' and had them both combined side by side in one appliance.  Boy, did I think it was great washing cloth diapers in the machine. Then, we still used, 'blue' to make the whites whiter though.I remember my granny putting her tea towels out on the grass to dry so that the sun could bleach them a bit more. So there are lots of memories coming back here.
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Posted: Oct/20/2006 5:22 PM PST
I guess that curtain stretcher would sort of be like a quilt frame thing and probably could have been used for it. It reminded me more of yard sticks with nails through it, only way longer pieces, that were held together with wing nuts and could be size adjusted. You could also put several layers of curtains on it at the same time. Usually the sheers. The heavy drapes were usually sent to the cleaners annually. We had winter and summer drape sets as I recall. This was in the 40's. |
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Posted: Oct/20/2006 9:24 PM PST
Lol, my mom had winter and summer curtains too. She made her own from material. All were some form of cotten and had to be ironed, some of the cotton ones starched too.  I remember when the spray starch came out, it was heavenly. Does anybody remember the shirts that had seperate collars that had to be attached with studs? My dad had them. Also the cast iron irons that you heated in the fire and attached a separate plate to after they were hot? |
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Posted: Oct/21/2006 11:42 AM PST
We didn't actually have to do it that way but we did have an old wringer washing machine on the back porch. Had to fill the tub with water from the hose or heat it in the house and bring it to the porch. My mom had curtain stretchers. I hated those things. They had little nails all around and you had to put the edge of the curtains on the nails. My fingers would be so sore when we finished. Thank goodness it is a new day. |
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