Laundry Day in 1950 with Aunt Jo
To me, Aunt Jo was like a second mother when my mother was too ill to care for me when I was a baby.
Aunt Jo was born in 1904 in Pennsylvania, the second daughter of 13 children. Her name was Josephine Olive Ulmer Stradley (married name).
Mondays, laundry days, were my favorite day of the week when I lived with her and my uncle, or just visited. All throughout those old neighborhoods, women were busy doing their family’s laundry.
Early in the morning, my uncle, who worked for the railroad, would fill up the the old wringer washing machine with warm water. Then he would fill a large galvanized tub for cold rinse water to help Aunt Jo so that everything was ready.
That huge wringer washing machine was located, on Mondays, in the center of the big farmhouse- style kitchen.
First to be washed were the light-colored clothes which were placed in the churning warm water.
I could see Aunt Jo’s day dresses and aprons in the mix.
Next were the work clothes which included my uncle’s gardening, work and hunting clothes.
Women in those days always wore dresses — common work-a-day dresses with an ample apron for protection. Of course, Aunt Jo wore those on laundry day, too
I loved the process from putting the clothes in the washer to watching the swish of the paddles, moving the wet clothing back and forth.
Then came the dangerous part — placing each item through the
rollers so that excess water was squeezed out and the clothing would fall into the waiting rinse water on the other side.
After the rinse in the still and cold water, the clothes were placed through the wringer again into a waiting basket.
My aunt, in her 40s, must have had good muscle strength, carrying that big, heavy basket of wet clothing, bedding and towels down the back porch stairs and into the garden area which had a long, tamped down dirt pathway running down the middle of it.
The clothesline stretched from the house to the end of the garden and the hunting dog kennels.
As my aunt hung the clothes, I would hand her the clothespins. Long ago, all clothespins were made of wood but as the years passed, I can remember colorful plastic clothespins.
That clothesline looked like a celebration of color as Aunt Jo would then use the wooden clothesline poles to prop up the now heavy clothesline so the clothes wouldn’t drag in the dirt.
After a day of drying in the sun, everything had that aroma that only fresh air and sunshine can bring.
Oh, how I loved laundry day!
Aren’t we fortunate to have memories!!!???
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