Betty 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. Click here for transcripts of oral histories ------------------------------- 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 your washing machine and dryer, and give thanks. First thing each morning you should run and hug your washer and dryer, as well as your toilet---Those two-holers used to get mighty cold! Shirley WE DIDN'T HAVE IT QUIET SO BAD.AT LEAST WE HAD HOT WATER A WRINGER WASHER AND 2 RINSETUBS.MOTHER DID THE WHITES FIRST WITH BLEACH.I ALSO REMEMBER SOMETHING CALLED BLUING IN THE LAST RINSE WATER AND SHE SOMETIMES PUT STARCH IN THE LAST RINSE WATER.EVERYTHING WAS HUNG OUTDOORS EXCEPT IN THE WINTER WHEN IT WAS HUNG INSIDE ON LINES IN THE KITCHEN OR BASEMENT IF YOU WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE ONE. Shirley Jean (Shirley) Now the old wringer washers--those I remember & blueing. Been there-done that ! My youngest son has a scar to remind him of wringer washes. He was two & a "busy" child !I I had a hook to lock door to landry room but he pulled up a kids chair * climbed to open door. while I was in a bedroom stripping beds --he tried to wring clothes --pulled one arm clear up to the elbow where wringer just spun around. Result- 3rd degree friction burn. Would not heal. He ended up getting skin grafts from his upper leg. The scar looked awfull for a few yrs but faded a lot as he grew.He was my accident prone child. We made a lot of rush trips to the hospital over the yrs. Darlene I had a wringer washer with my first 2 kids. We bought it new. It was very nice for the times. I would wash the clothes, whites first, put them in a basket, wash the others, sorted by color, put them in a basket, drain the machine, refill with water & rinse at least 2--3 times. Then hang them on the line. I have also gone to the laundry matt. There were several wringer washers. The washers were square tubs & there were 3 rinse tubs. There was a seperate spinner. You put your clothes in after you were done & it would spin a lot of the water out. Used blueing on the whites. You had to be careful & not get too much in the rinse water. Starched anything that had to be ironed. Oh how I hated ironing! Sprinkle down the clothes, wrap them in a towel, let them set for a while to get good & damp then iron! When my third son was born I had a little portable washing machine. I held between 5 & 10 gallons of water & had a hand cranked wringer. You set it on a table or the counter. Heated the water on the stove. We lived at Childress Texas, way back in the boonies with no running water except in the toilet (water was gypey, not good for much. If you drank it you would spend your day on the toilet) We drew our water from a cistern with rope & bucket. Clyde was a newborn. No disposable diapers in those days! So I used that little machine to do his laundry. Draw water from the cistern, heat it on the stove, do the wash, drain, refill a couple times, rinse. On the line to dry. Sometimes I'd do some other things in the little washer. But once a week go to town to do the rest of laundry. The good old days???? I wonder if any of the old laundry matts are around any more? I forgot to mention the water at the old laundry matts was heated so hot that it came out as steam! You really had to be careful! Carol I didn't know that they had those old time washers at laundromats. When our first daughter was born, we didn't have a washer in our apartment. We went to the laundromat once a week. During the week, I'd wash out her diapers by hand and put them on the grass to dry. My neighbor had told me that laying them on the grass to dry would take out the stains. Amazingly it worked. Boy, those were the good ole day, eh? NOT. Vi Ah! the memories. I don't remember that far back, having to build a fire in the backyard, but I do remember having to build a fire in the bucket a day stove in order to have hot water and I do remember the old wringer washer we had and the wringer was broke so did the wash and had to wring it out by hand, then rinse it a couple of times. And using the scrub board when the washer finally crashed. Remember hanging wash outside in the winter and the sheets would almost freeze before I got them on the line, and when we finally got a new washer, still had to rinse the clothes and then lug the big basket up the celler steps to hang them on the line, and when I took them down the clothes pins were frozen to the sheets and the clothes line. and even when I was married and had kids, still no dryers and had to hang dozens of diapers on the line, and I boiled them after washing them to be sure there was no soap in them. Oh man, what fond memories. NOT. Wonder if any young girls would do that today if need be. Thanks goodness for laundramats. but they cost and arm and a leg now. Patsy I certainly do remember all the old wash day memories....Makes my back hurt just to think of it....A funny thing happened at the laundramat where we took our laundry to wash when our washer no longer worked at home...The owner had a big hot water heater that blew up one day....It flew out the side of the building and destroyed one wall, flew across a pasture and hit a cow and killed the cow, than landed on an outhouse and destroyed it...ha....now that was hot water...Several women were in the building washing, but no one was hurt.... Vel We did all this until I was married. after wash finished, we scrubed the front porch and also cleaned the outhouse too. I don't relish that part of the old days. when I was married , I had the old wringer washer and had many fingers pinched. Shirley 3/22 1:40pm I GUESS I'VE WASHED EVERY WAY POSSIBLE.USUALLY AT THE START I HAD A WRINGER WASHER NO DRYER OF COURSE.ONE TIME MY WASHER BROKE WHEN MY HB WAS OUIT OF WORK AND I EVEN HAD TO SCRUB ON THE WASHBOARD A LITTLE.PART OF THE TIME I LOADED THE LAUNDRY IN THE KIDS TOY WAGON AND PULLED IT TO THE LAUNDERMAT.MY FAVORITE WASHER WAS ONE WE OWNED IN N.IND.THAT BOTH WASHED AND DRIED THE CLOTHES.IT HAS BEEN SO LONG I FORGET THE BRAND NAME. Fay 3/22 8:19am I was married in the early 40's and I had my mother's wringer washer. I used it until my husband came home from 3 years in the Navy at wartime. I made the mistake of selling my piano to buy a Bendix washing machine. We had a little girl, and the thought of continuing to wring clothes did not appeal to me. They say you don't lose things like riding a bike, skating ot playing piano. THEY WERE WRONG!!! Sammy 3/22 4:38pm I can remember my mother washing clothes with a scrub board. We had a huge iron pot "wash Kettle" in the back yard. She built a fire under it and we carried water from the well, (the pull up kind) to heat for doing laundry. We didn't have electricity at the time. Then she got a washing machine, It was my job to work the lever that made the agitator work. My brother and I took turns working it. We finally got electricity when I was 11, I'll never forget , we got a Maytag washing machine and an old used refrigerator with a big coil on top of it. We thought we had died and gone to heaven, but Mom still cooked on a wood stove and we had the outside toilet for several years. BarbaraN 3/23 7:58am After we moved (from the apt. behind my parents) the 1st thing we bought was a washing machine. We bought it at Sears and made monthly payments of $10. You didn't need a dryer in Az. Just a clothes line. The house we rented was furnished. Now,I was pregnant with my second child. 11 months from the birth of our 1st baby,I had a son. Talk about diapers--thats about all I got done.I gave birth to him at the Air Base and the bill was $7.50. I saved that and put it in my Son's baby book. Good thing because we were still making payments to the hospital for our 1st child.

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