Wash Day When You Grew Up
 

Yesterday I was starching fabric while ironing and had a flash back to starching and laundry when I was growing up. We had a wringer washer and a tub behind it the water ran into. My mom kept a bucket of blue starch and I remember when I was six a little teddy bear I had fell into it. It was very stiff after that! Wash was done only once a week, I think on Thursdays. We didn't have heat in the basement but had a coal burning stove, one of those little black things with the door you put the coal into. Clothes were hung on clotheslines until I was about eight when we got a dryer. That was really big!

I remember a ringer washer. We lived in a little rent house on a dead end street but when my Mother went to work at Foley's dept store, she hired a maid to do the washing. we were the only people to have a maid! she caught her poor hand in that ringer. she was all right but i bet it wasn't pleasant!! and yep, clothes lines outside. I can't think of a yard without one, even though i mostly use the electric dryer.

My family lived in a subdivision where all of the back yards were visible up and down the block and every single Monday (weather permitting) all of the back yards were full of clotheslines full of clothes. My mom tried to be the first one outside - very important to her. My father had to be at work really early in the mornings, so she was up and washing using the wringer washer way before dawn. Then they got a new washer and dryer and that all quit. Doubt if anybody in that neighborhood even has a clothesline outside anymore.

I do remember a ringer washer, cloths lines, sprinkling cloths with a bottle, starching,then when I was a little older it was washer and dryer no more hanging cloths or any of the rest. Boy times have changed!!!!!

Some of my earliest memories are of the wringer washing machine and Mom hanging clothes on the line to dry. When I was in my twenties, I got all the kids to chip in to buy a new automatic washer and dryer for her.

My older sister told me about a friend of hers who was married. They moved into a new house in a more "upscale" neighborhood, and she hung her clothes on the line to dry as usual. A neighbor visited her and told her nobody in the neighborhood hung their clothes out to dry; it was "tacky". The friend bought a dryer so she would fit into the neighborhood!

My mom used a ringer washer and we had two rinse tubs as well When I got married in 1964 My husband and I was at an auction and they had a really old square ringer washer that I talked him into buying for me. Did all our wash for 5 or 6 years with it than bought an electric washer and dryer set But I really loved my old maytag washer

yes, i remember. mom taught us early to iron those starched items. we hung the clothes on a line in the back yard. even in the winter... the clothes freeze dried. thanks for bringing back fond [or not] memories :)

When I was small, our well water was salty so we hauled our dirty laundry to my Granparents house. They had a wringer washer that my Grandpa had put an electric motor on. Until I was old enough to hang the clothes on the line, my job was to catch them as they came out of the ringer. After we had a new well dug, we had our own washer/dryer. The washer was a suds saver, which meant the same water was used for all the clothes- whites first. The dryer was only used in the winter.

My mother thought automatic washers were such a waste of water. I remember helping Mom with the washing each week. Once, my arm went through the wringer. We hung clothes in the house in winter and outside in the good weather. Mom starched everything and I had to help iron as I was the only girl. I had to help iron my stepfather's boxer shorts but I don't think they were starched ! Mom did not get an automatic washer until she was about 75 years old and the dryer only came when she was about 80. She hung clothes till the day she died, she only used the dryer when she had to. She hated these new machines, she never had a dishwasher.