bearisgray

I'm not so sure about how "clean" some of the stuff at the end of the run was when my Mom washed -

This was back when water was carried to and from the machine - so --

The order of washing was:

Whites that basically just needed to be 'freshened up" - the Sunday dress shirt that had been on for maybe two hours - maybe four hours if worn twice!

The really not very dirty white - dish towels, bath towels, sheets, sheets

Underwear - that was hung on the lines between the shirts so the road traffic could not see it!

This kind of dirty medium colored clothes - school clothes, aprons,

Dark, but not quite filthy - dark colored shirts, skirts

The really dirty, greasy, stand up by themselves farm clothes - overalls - went in last.

There were two rinse tubs.

Don't remember where the dirty white socks fit in.

The stuff was sorted into piles - wash day WAS a whole day spent on the project!!!!

Then, of course, the stuff had to be hung up to be dried. Warm, dry weather was best. Mom did resort to wooden drying racks in the winter. My mother-in-law would still hang stuff out in the freezing cold - with snow on the ground - until she was in her late 70s. (She could have afforded a dryer - old habits are hard to change!)

This probably sounds disgusting to some of you - but that's how it was.

Thank goodness "boiling" the clothes was passe by then!

bearisgray

I don't know what the old-time quilters did.

I am reasonably sure that many folks did not wash their quilts very often when laundering was a major project. They probably put "beard guards" over one end of the quilts and aired them out when the seasons changed.