Laundry Day back on the farm

Monday was laundry day. We started early in the morning by hauling water to the big boiler on a gas flame in the wash house.

We pumped it into buckets from the cistern and hauled it to the fire.  Mom's best friend lived on a farm that had the cistern under the house and there was a pump right  over the sink in the kitchen.  How lucky can you get?

 (My other grandma had to heat her water in a large black kettle over an open fire.)















We had a wringer washing machine that had a gasoline engine to run it.

 We filled the washing machine with hot water and two wash tubs for rinse water. After one load was washed, we ran everything through the wringer into the first rinse tub; then through the wringer into the second tub; and then through the wringer into the wash basket. We toted the finished laundry to the back yard where we hung it out to dry on the clothes line or hung things like rugs or overalls over the bushes of the yard fence.

You could learning some interesting things from looking at laundry on the line.

 After they dried all day, we brought it into the house to prepare for ironing. The shirts and fine linens were starched (another operation done in the wash house.) The ironing had to be sprinkled and set aside for ironing. We used flat irons heated on the gas stove in the kitchen. After the cleanup---including draining all the water out onto the outside lawn, we put everything away. Our ears were ringing from hearing a gas engine all day in the wash house, we were tired from hauling the water and wet laundry and hanging it on the line. How much easier it is today. It is still good to hang things out on a line because they smell better.

We still had to do chores morning and evening, and during the school year, we had to go to school.  When we went to Jay one-roomed school for three years while Chalk Mound School had no teacher, all three of us boys rode a horse to school.

 Thinking about all of this makes me realize how much we had to work in those days. I don't know if we are any better off today with all the labor saving devices. I thing if I could go back to farming like we used to, I would if I could make a living at it.