Back in those days, Monday was wash-day—the day for washing clothes. Early memories of wash day are very special. I mentioned that there was no running water at the Little House. There was no water at all at the Little House, in my earliest days. The drinking water came from the well at Uncle Earl’s. We didn’t wash clothes at the house at all—we did it at the branch!
Washing clothes involved some interesting equipment. There were wash tubs, a rub board, a wash pot, and if we didn’t string out some kind of wire between trees, the pasture fence would work for a clothes line, even with a little risk of snagging on the barbed wire. But then again, you didn’t have to have clothes pens if you used a pasture fence. If you did have clothes pens, there were two different kinds. One kind didn’t have a spring, it was just a peg, with a split down the middle. Come to think of it, they may have called that a clothes peg. The other kind—with a spring–had two pieces of wood, flat on the outside, with the insides facing each other, with a notch to hold the clothes on the wire, and a spring between the two wooden parts with short arms toward the end that closed, to hold the two ends tightly together. And, of course, there was washing powder. I believe that it was Tide, even back then.
Here’s how it worked. You dipped up water from the pool in the branch just about the plank, filled the two wash tubs about half full of water—one for the wash and the other for the rinse. The rub board went in the tub that you were washing in. The tubs were galvanized, number two wash tubs, and I will not bother to describe them. They are still made, and anyone who requires a description probably won’t understand the rest anyway! The rub board had galvanized, corrugated metal sheet between two straight pieces of wood. The metal began about 4 or 5 inches up the side pieces, leaving legs that went down into the tub that you washed in. Above the metal, still between the wooden sides was a shelf, and above that a flat wooden piece in the same plane with the metal, and above that, a wooden piece between the two side pieces, holding it all together. Octagon soap was the standard, and the bar of soap rested on the shelf above the metal when not in use. (By the way, Octagon soap had coupons, and I think you could use to buy more Octagon Soap. Mama cut them out and saved them, of course.
The rubboard stood in the tub, leaned up on the side of the tub. The bottom of the rubboard was in the water. The clothes were rubbed vigorously on the rub board, up and down, in and out of the water, and Octagon soap was liberally applied. (The Tide went into the wash pot). You had to be careful not to mix the whites and the colored clothes. The colored clothes would fade on the white clothes. Soap wash rubbed on and made suds as the rubbing proceeded. After the person doing the washing was satisfied that the grit and grime had been expelled, the clothes were transferred to the wash pot, for boiling. I guess that it followed up on Pasteur’s great discovery.
The wash pot was cast iron. It held about 5 or 6 gallons or more, and was bigger around in the middle than at the top. After the metal closed in toward the top, it spread out again in a flange around the very top. It had three very short legs, and these usually stood on bricks, and a fire was made under the pot. You put enough water in there to boil the clothes without boiling over. If you boiled over, it doused the fire, and that was not good and had a distinct smell. We had to gather trashy wood for the fire around the pot. The fire was built so that any breeze carried the fire under the pot. The fire around a wash pot also had a very distinct odor about it. I can still recall that odor, like I recall the odor of cotton.
A wooden stick was used to punch the clothes while they were boiling. The wash powder went in the pot, and you had to be careful not to put too much, and have suds boiling out of the pot! After boiling the clothes for a while, using the punch stick, you lifted the clothes out of the pot and maneuvered them into the rinse tub. The stick was helpful in getting the clothes out of that hot water. The rinse tub got the soap out. Then the clothes were clean, so you “hung them out” on the line (or fence, as the case may be) to dry. After they dried, you “brought them in.”
Octagon soap did cost money, and Mama was always frugal. (And by the way, there was a war going on and commodities and supplies were “rationed”). So, Mama and Uncle Earl experimented with lye soap. I can’t begin to describe the process. As best I remember it involved running water through ashes to collect some kind of chemical, but I may be wrong. And I think it involved something from a hog, but again I may be wrong. And red devil lye. She actually got the soap into cakes. But I remember it being pretty potent. It may have caused some wear and tear on the clothes, so it didn’t replace the Octagon soap. Lye soap never became our standard washday soap!
Recent Comments