Gertrude and the laundry

There was an old saying that said Monday was laundry day. I’m not sure that Gertrude did the laundry on Mondays but I do remember it was a major production. She had a wash board she used to pre-scrub the dirtiest of clothing. She used lye soap and would work the soap into the fabric until it was clean enough to wash. There was a big wringer washing machine which stood next to the laundry tub and she used scalding water to fill it and everything went into the machine where is was agitated in soapy water. There was no concern that something might shrink, it had to be clean! (Many items did shrink.) Gertrude used a long wooden paddle to retrieve the clothing from the washer and sent them through a set of rollers to squeezes out the water. The clean laundry went into a laundry tub. The dirty water was emptied and fresh clean water added to the washer. It was agitated again, put through the rollers and ready to be hung on a clothesline.

The next step was to go out to the backyard clothes lines, if the weather was sunny, not raining or snowing. When the weather did not cooperate, she would climb up to the attic and hang the clothes up there. No wonder she never went on a diet!

She did this every week until my mother bought her a modern washer and Gertrude complained that the clothes were just not getting as clean.