Whoops! Just found Vee's original. She already mentioned the "blue" rinse. > ---------- > From: Vee L. Housman[SMTP:housman@concentric.net] > Reply To: housman@concentric.net > Sent: Sunday, August 31, 1997 4:36 PM > To: PENNA-DUTCH-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: Monday Was Warsh Day! > > MONDAY WAS WARSH DAY! > > This evening as I was ironing an accumulation of cotton tablecloths, > linen napkins and the like, it brought my mind back to my growing up > in > the 1930s and 40s. Back in those days, housewives had a set > routine--looking back on it, I swear it must have been the law! > > Monday: Do the wash (or as Grandma pronounced it, ?warsh!?) > Tuesday: Iron the clothes > Wednesday: Bake the bread > Thursday: Go to market?? (OK, I?m lost here!) > > Now in my day, doing the wash meant getting up early, (Of course! A > proper housewife ALWAYS got up early!), stripping the beds of bed > linen > and gathering up the laundry and sorting it out--whites in one pile, > colored in another. And down into the cellar with the whole lot. > Fill > up the Maytag wringer washer with HOT water and add the soap. (Note, > I > said ?soap,? not detergent! A bit of a comment on soap later). > > The first to go into the washer were the cotton sheets and pillow > cases. Bluing had also been added to the water to whiten everything > and > then the machine was turned on. > Klunka, chunka, swish, swish went the agitator. When she felt the > clothes had been in there long enough to be clean, the machine was > stopped and it was time to rinse them (?Rench? them, as Grandma would > say!). That meant turning on the wringer, gather the sheet in just > the > right way and feed it through the wringer to wring out the soapsuds. > As > the wringer pulled the sheet through, there was a galvanized wash tub > filled with clear water waiting for it. After the bed linens had been > sloshed up an down a number of times by hand, the washing machine > wringer was maneuvered so that the linens could be fed through the > wringer again and into the wicker clothes basket. (Hmmm, somehow I > can > picture a second rinse tub but that's what happens when the memory > gets > dim!) At any rate, out onto the cotton clothes line they went, pinned > up > with wooden clothes pins to dry. (BTW, not the ?snap-type? wooden > clothes pins.) > > Load after load of laundry was washed in the same soapy water and > rinse > water until every dirty piece of fabric in the house was clean and > hanging out on the clothes line. Of course, my mother insisted that > my > father?s cotton handkerchiefs be ?snowy white.? He worked in a factory > and wiped his dirty brow frequently; therefore, there was always the > large kettle on the stove to boil them in before they went into the > washing machine. > Now, regarding the soap! All you needed to do was to listen to the > radio to find out what soap would clean your clothes the best. During > the entire afternoon, you listened to the ?Soap Operas!? Why were > they > called Soap Operas? Well, because almost every one of the 15-minute > programs were sponsored by soap manufacturers. And all day long, the > housewife stayed tuned to the radio to hear the latest segment of > ?Stella Dallas? or ?One Man?s Family? and all of the rest of them. > And > while she listened, she took note of the commercials: Buy Duz soap, D > U > Z does everything! Fels Naptha, Oxydol, etc. Oh, how they all > promised > to make your clothes so CLEAN!! What a sin it would have been if a > neighbor thought your clothes were a tattle-tale gray! > > When the clothes were dry, they were brought back inside and then were > dampened by > sprinkling them with water, rolled up tightly and placed back into the > clothes basket to be ironed the next day. In addition, and my memory > is > a bit foggy here, those clothes that needed to be starched (which I > seem > to recall were MOST of them!) were sloshed up and down in a kettle of > warm water with a cake of starch disolved in it on the stove. Come to > think of it, I guess that was done before they were hung out on the > line. Oh well! And the next day, everything got ironed with the > exception of maybe the socks! > > And so went the average week for the housewife. Happy Labor Day, > girls!! :-D > > Vee >