Wash Day!

For some reason, I recently recalled my mother’s washing day routine. Maybe I was musing on the changes in laundry technology; I’m not sure. But her machine was definitely from the mid-20th century.

It was a so-called wringer washer. I looked for a photo on the web, and had never before realized how much some of them look like robots.

She would fill the machine with hot water and detergent, and add clothes. She’d then turn it on and it would agitate for a given period of time while she filled a large metal wash tub with clear water. When the agitation finished, she would turn on the wringer and feed the clothes through the rollers (squeezing out the soapy water) into the tub’s rinse water. She’d then rotate the wringer mechanism 90 degrees, and feed the clothes through it again, the clothes dropping into a wash basket. (Note that washing, rinsing, and spinning all occur in one machine cycle.) She’d take the basket out to the yard and hang up the clothes on two long wash lines (propped up by poles).

Note that in the winter, clothes and sheets may freeze! Imagine a stiff pair of pants that could stand up by themselves…

When things were dry, she’d bring them back in for ironing. So she washed them (wet), hung them out (dry), then used a sprinkler bottle (wet), and iron them (dry). I always found that an ironic juxtaposition.

Monday was wash day so she’d do this every Monday.