Monday Wash Day

Laundry took all day

A big washtub on the wood stove, several pails of water brought in from the outside pump, boiling water, home made soap. Boil the clothes. That was pretty much the only way. Wash boards, ribbed wooden, later tin, added some scrubing for the spots before boiling was employed for the dirtiest clothes. Hard on the clothes? You bet, and hard on the hands too.

Next came the electric washing machines. What a relief. So much easier. Ours was in the cellar. A rocked up wall under our house. The electric cord reached up to a lamp socket which meant no light. No windows in the cellar, pretty dark and damp down there. Two cement tubs near by, running water and it was scalding hot, and a wringer, an arm device that would swing around to various angles.

We usually started the machine out with the hottest of hot water. Some soap flakes, or powder, a dash of bleach, and in went the white sheets. No colored sheets those days, unless you accidently got a red sock in there with them. The cloth was muslin, and course. Turn on the agitator, and let those sheets swish, while you filled up the two cement tubs. One with hottest hot and the other with cold.

Stop the agitator, and using a wooden stick fish out an end of a sheet, turn on the wringer, two rollers , which when you got a corner started between them, pulled and squeezed all the water out of the cloth and pulled it into the first cement tub. A dangerous contraption which caught many a homemakers own sleeve, or hand. Scalds were common as the hot water splashed up on the user.

These sheets were replaced by another load, towels and dishtowels, followed by another load, water was cooling now, light colored, or mens white shirts, followed by, darks, and usually that meant fading, and dark wash water.

The hot rinsed sheets traveled to the cold water rinse, to be rung out one more time and carried up the stairs and to the backyard clothes line.

Clothes had to be hung a special way too. Sort of an unwritten code. Our next door neighbor, a lady in a sunbonnet who looked like Harry Truman, and used words like "over yon" and "bless my soul" told me, those sheets had to go on the first line, to use as a shade to hide the rest of the private laundry from the eyes of passerbys. It wasn't decent to expose your underwear to the world.

The clothes pins were wooden, not the spring type that came later, just split wooden ones, and they looked like little people and you pulled the folded in half sheet edges over the line and pushed those little split pins over the sheet and cord to hold them to dry in the sun.

It was a bad day when I didn't heed the next door neighbor. She came across the Missouri prairie in her prairie schooner, and she was used to telling you just once.

I was doing the family laundry that day, and for reasons I can't recall, there were not sheets. (I probably forgot to change them) In any case, the first string of clothes to go into the basket, and up the stairs and out onto the backyard, was the family underwear. On the first clothes line, hanging out for all to see, were underpants and undershirts. Grannie from next door, brought out her shotgun, and blasted my underpants to smitherines.

I heard the blast and rushed up the stairs to see what had happened, and stood is dispair and dismay to see my undies hanging shot full of holes, and going around the corner with a shotgun in her hands, my next door neighbor.

Soap Recipe

6 pounds of soft fat (about 13 1/2 cups)

5 cups cold soft water

1 can lye

If your fat is approximately half soft fat and half tallow, use six cups of water. If you are using all tallow use seven cups of water.

Put the amount of cold water into an earthenware or heat proof glass utensil and slowly add the one can of lye, stir until dissolved. Add the lye solution in a slow steady stream. Stir slowly until the mixture is thick and creamy. In hot weather the soap mixture may remain greasy, set it in a pan of cold water until thick. When the mixture is thick and creamy, add 2 tablespoons of borax, color now if desired. Rapid stirring may cause separation, causing a brittle hard soap. If it starts to separate, set the mixture in a pan of warm water until it becomes the right consistency with gentle stirring and all the lye is reincorporated.

A honey like texture should form which in about 10-20 minutes begins to thicken. The soap is now ready to be poured carefully into mold, if molds are desired.

Saddle soap - means an all mutton or beef tallow soap

Castile soap - means a very high grade soap, 24 oz olive oil, 24 oz good grade tallow, 24 oz coconut oil.

Other Optional Ingredients

Borax will quicken the sudsing action of soap.

Abrasives such as pumice or emery dust made a grainy sandy soap.

Coconut Oil produces fine sudsing, similar to shaving soap.

Tar frequently added to make shampoo.

Toilet means fat used was from butchering rather than drippings.

Perfumes: Oil of sassafras, oil of lavender,or oil of lemon were cheap and sometimes added to soaps. Soap stored with flower petals absorbed readily the odors. Pine needles were another fragrance. Coloring adding the extract of blossoms of pink flowers like roses

On laundry day, starch was mixed with water and cooked on the stove. Heavy starch was used for collars and cuffs, doileys, and other items which needed strong stiffness. More water was added to dip cotton apparel in to give it some light body.

All those air dried clothes were brought in, and laid on the kitchen table and sprinked with water, and rolled up and put in the basket. Tuesday was ironing day. Everything was ironed except the bath towels.The sheets, the dishtowels, aprons plus all the apparel. Everything was folded. Closets and hangers were not used except for heavy coats, and most often they hung on pegs. In our farm house I only remember one closet. It was about three feet wide and held heavy winter coats

After a holiday, the big lace dining room cloth had to be washed and stretched. A huge frame like rack with little nails all around the edges was used to dry the cloth. Each little lace hole on the edge of the cloth was slipped over a nail, until it was taunt. This way it dried nicely shaped. Doileys too were pinned onto a cork like board every little loop hole pulled out into a tight symetrical shape. In our house there was no weaving of cloth, but lots of crocheting. We had lots of doilies, and crocheted lace, which had to be removed and resewn after laundry. In some households, buttons too, were removed and reattached after laundry.

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