My husband's grandmother told of a sibling of her husband's. About age 5, he was playing with a stick under the wash tub fire. Somehow he unsettled the pot, the water dumped on him and he died less than 24 hrs later. I've read several reports where women were badly burned and even died from their burns, when their skirts caught fire from the laundry fire. At least laundry isn't dangerous anymore. Unless you put your hands in one of my little boys' jeans pockets! I always turned them inside out first. I encountered some nasty surprises, like a small snake or a pocket full of bugs. Makes a mess in the washer too. Sue At 10:18 PM 5/15/06 -0400, you wrote: >Getting kids clothes clean back in 1930s was some job. There were only two >choices: scrub the clothes on a washboard, or boil them.Boiling them got the >dirt out, but damaged the threads,and they didnt last as long. After the >clothes >were laundered, they had to be ironed with a "Sad" iron. The iron was heated >on the cook stove, no electricity in most homes back then.Those were the days >!! > >Shelby > > >============================== >New! Family Tree Maker 2005. Build your tree and search for your ancestors >at the same time. Share your tree with family and friends. Learn more: >http://landing.ancestry.com/familytreemaker/2005/tour.aspx?sourceid=14599&targetid=5429 >

My apologies to Jim Burgess to whom I told this story before. It is so appropriate to the audience and subject that is being currently addressed that the devil in me would not let the opportunity pass to tell it again. Moreover, it serves to illustrate how our ancestors lived in those simpler by-gone days. Some of you recall from my posting of a few days ago that as a young man I worked for a furniture company located in Pineville, Wyoming County, WV, and that one of my territories was the route encompassing the rural communities between Sun Hill and Coal Mountain. Much of this region was without electricity until about 1950. Many of the farmers in the region also worked in the mines at Coal Mountain and could have afforded a much improved way of life but without electricity they were limited to the more primitive ways. That was before my days as a space scientist, but I was smart enough even then to recognize the golden opportunity that was there when Appalachian Power Company turned the lights on. So, I loaded a two-ton truck with various models of Maytag wringer type washing machines, about eighteen in all, and headed toward the "lower end of the county." I sold washing machines off the back of the truck like pedaling beans until I was down to just two washers; one of the least expensive and the other from the top of the line. I was heading home along the Long Branch road when I spotted what I thought was a sure sale. The road ran along the creek and the space between the hills was such that there was scarcely room for the creek and narrow road, much less for the four-room, unpainted house that was sandwiched between the creek and hills on the opposite side of the creek from the road. The yard was bare earth, which was not at all unusual for the times, and was filled with enough kids to keep a mother busy doing nothing but cooking, washing and ironing. The lady of the house had set up her fire with a tub of boiling water next to the creek and was scrubbing away at her washboard. When she was satisfied that she had accomplished all she could at the board, she dropped the items into the tub of boiling water for further cleansing. Later they would be removed and rinsed in a separate tub using heated clean water from the adjacent stream. Water had to be wrung from each item of clothing between washing, boiling, rinsing and hanging on the cloths line. The nearby clothes lines, which were strung between supports in the front yard and between the posts that supported the roof on the front porch, were already filled to capacity with miner's work clothes. This entire scene was being overseen by the man of the house who was sitting on the front porch, not more than forty feet away, and listening to a battery powered radio. I stopped and talked to him across the creek without even leaving the truck. "Which one of these washers do you want Landon" I asked. His response was classic. "I don't need no washin machine, but you can bring me down one of them new-fangled combination radio and record players the next time you come down." I didn't hang around for the next chapter, but I have often wondered what he said before the madam let him up, because she placed an order for the most expensive washer on my next visit. STAN BROWNING My husband's grandmother told of a sibling of her husband's. About age 5, he was playing with a stick under the wash tub fire. Somehow he unsettled the pot, the water dumped on him and he died less than 24 hrs later. I've read several reports where women were badly burned and even died from their burns, when their skirts caught fire from the laundry fire. > > At least laundry isn't dangerous anymore. Unless you put your hands in > one of my little boys' jeans pockets! I always turned them inside out > first. I encountered some nasty surprises, like a small snake or a > pocket full of bugs. Makes a mess in the washer too. > > Sue > > At 10:18 PM 5/15/06 -0400, you wrote: >> Getting kids clothes clean back in 1930s was some job. There were >> only two >> choices: scrub the clothes on a washboard, or boil them.Boiling them >> got the >> dirt out, but damaged the threads,and they didnt last as long. After >> the clothes >> were laundered, they had to be ironed with a "Sad" iron. The iron was >> heated >> on the cook stove, no electricity in most homes back then.Those were >> the days >> !! >> >> Shelby >> >> >> ============================== >> New! Family Tree Maker 2005. Build your tree and search for your >> ancestors at the same time. Share your tree with family and friends. >> Learn more: >> http://landing.ancestry.com/familytreemaker/2005/ >> tour.aspx?sourceid=14599&targetid=5429 > > > > ============================== > Search the US Census Collection. Over 140 million records added in the > last 12 months. Largest online collection in the world. Learn more: > http://www.ancestry.com/s13965/rd.ashx >