Ironing Day

The old saying said that a good housewife did her ironing on Tuesdays. Ironing at Gertrude’s house was another production. She ironed everything, well maybe not the underwear but everything else. There was no permanent press back in the 1950’s, so all my grandfather’s shirts got a good sprinkling before being ironed. Yes, after being thoroughly dried, she got them wet. The sprinkling bottle was an old beer bottle and the top was especially made to lightly get the clothes wet.

The iron had one setting, HOT. I do remember that if the iron sat in one spot too long, there was a nice burn patch matching the surface of the iron. Gertrude never did that but my mother was notorious for the iron branding placed on clothing.

Gertrude also had a mangle. This theindustrial looking contraption in the pictured for this blog. It was used to iron all the “flat” laundry items. Gertrude did iron everything. Table clothes, handkerchiefs, pillowcases and even the sheets were run through the mangle. As a child I was not allowed near the thing as I do believe it could mangle anything!