Reda

Where there’s a will, there’s a way! Whether that is a universal truth or not, it appears to have a lot of credibility in view of numerous tasks that have been accomplished against all odds.

Dad needed a method of income during the weeks that school was not in session, and he always seemed to find something to supply that need. Well, when he became aware of the “new-fangled” washing machine, he saw not only something his wife needed, he saw something that all women needed. That meant there would be a wide-open market, once people knew that these machines were the marvel he saw them to be.

Advertising, through any of several types of media, is a good vehicle by which to sell products today, but in rural Alabama in the thirties, only a few, ineffective methods were available. Newspapers and seasonal catalogs, such as Sears and Roebuck and J. C. Penney, provided many people with their information about new products. It would take more motivation than some questionable promises and a pretty picture on paper to cause one to turn loose of enough hard-earned money to make such a major purchase as a washing machine.

Whether Dad initiated the following method of sales or whether the Maytag dealership initiated it, I never knew. Dad attached a homemade platform to the back of our Model A Ford car, and onto this platform he loaded a washing machine. It was in such a manner that he set out to educate the public about this wonderful machine method of washing clothes. He went about the countryside demonstrating this revolutionary way of doing laundry to anyone who would allow him to do so!

There was still the washpot for supplying hot water, and there were the rinse tubs in which the soap was removed from the washed clothes, but forever gone was the metal rub board, and forever gone was the awesome task of hand-wringing the water from the clothes! There was a wringer on the washer that consisted of two hard rubber rollers through which the clothes were put in order to squeeze the water out. I only have a vague memory of the wringers on those first machines, but I suspect that they were turned by hand. The later models, however, were automated and could be quite persistent in pulling fingers and hands through with the clothing, if one were not careful.

The wringers did a tremendous job of removing the excess water from the clothes, and the agitator in the tub of the machine “agitated” the dirt right out of those dirty clothes without scrubbing them on a washboard.

Recently, I was privileged to see an old gasoline powered engine with a pedal on a long metal arm, and I recalled that the washing machine also had such a pedal. When one was ready to start the engine, the pedal was given a hard, strong kick which caused the engine to fire and start its noisy, wonderful work.

Another part of doing laundry in those days was that of starching cotton dress clothes, especially men’s shirts. It caused the material to iron smoother and gave some stiffness to help collars and cuffs look better. In the absence of Faultless or Argo starch, Mother made her own. First, she made a paste of cold water and flour, then slowly, while stirring vigorously, she poured boiling water into it, making a clear thick liquid that worked quite well.

Starch made outer clothing look really great, but it could be irritating in clothes worn next to the skin. Once, when Mother was helping a neighbor lady wash, one of my sisters and the lady’s son thought it would be neat to starch a pair of his mother’s rather large, cotton undergarments. I understand that they made quite a sight as they dried very stiff and full-figured on the clothesline!

I don’t know how many washing machines Dad succeeded in selling, but our washdays were never the same after the summer we experienced the new Maytag washing machine!

The eighth in a series of a grandmother’s recollection of days when life in rural Alabama was full of hard, but satisfying work; a time of few material possessions, but also few wants; a time when families knew their neighbors and interacted with them in common concerns; and when the front porch offered peaceful relaxation at day’s end.

Washday was a very memorable event before washing machines took over the hard work. Private wells had brought the water supply closer to most families, and the method of bringing water out of the wells went through several improvements making the process easier and more efficient. The method of removing dirt from clothes, however, had advanced very little over that of the days when people washed on the banks of rivers and creeks.

The hand-over-hand method of pulling on a rope to draw water from a well was replaced by the pulley and, or, windlass. The vacuum hand pump was probably the greatest advancement before electricity, but most of our neighbors were still drawing water by hand when the first washing machines appeared. The only tools available for washing, up to that time, consisted of a big black washpot, some tin tubs (which doubled as bathtubs on Saturday nights), a washboard, some homemade lye soap and a lot of muscle power.

The entire family was often engaged in securing firewood to build a fire under the kettle, in drawing up the large quantity of water to fill the kettle and rinse tubs, in scrubbing dirty clothing with the help of the washboard, in wringing water from the clothes, in pinning the clothes on a clothesline or fence, in cleaning up the mess, and in retrieving the fresh, clean clothes after they had dried in the sun-drenched air. A lot of family togetherness made the job less burdensome on any one person and had a great potential for developing healthy work attitudes. As we worked, play and fun were not forgotten. We could get in some joking around as we worked, and there was always a lot of singing….besides, when the washing was done, there was all that warm, sudsy water that could be played in before it was “toted” off to the garden or flower beds.

Washing clothes by this method could be fun to children, but it was recognized as a backbreaking job and one that took adult skills and strength to do well. Fire around the washpot and boiling hot water inside it were fearful things that had to be supervised constantly. A washboard only “did its work” when soap was applied to dirty clothing which was then rubbed up and down over its metal ribs. This process could easily result in bleeding, scuffed up knuckles! Then there was the task of getting as much water from the clothes as possible. It was not so hard to wring water from a washcloth or a pair of socks, but wringing water from a pair of men’s trousers or a bed sheet was not a job for small, weak hands.

An older cousin was once visiting my sisters, and while there, she helped with some hand washing. I was amazed at how strongly she wrung the water from those clothes. My sister explained that Madeline had developed great strength in her hands from taking over many of the responsibilities that had belonged to her mother, who had died some years before. Madeline not only impressed me with her physical strength, but I remember her as having a happy countenance, despite her hardships. I believe that her example of survival made its impact for good in my developing perception of life.

One summer during school vacation, Dad made contact with someone that sold him on the usefulness of a new gasoline-powered Maytag washer. It was similar to the old wringer washers that were later powered by electricity, but this one had a long exhaust hose that took and released the fumes some several feet away from the machine. It made a popping noise so loud that neighbors far and near could hear it releasing its power to wash clothes in a way that would revolutionize family washday. This new gadget was something all housewives would surely demand once they knew what it could do. Our dad knew how much it would mean to his overworked wife, but how could he afford such a luxury??? The salary of a poorly paid school teacher was hardly the answer!

…….Next time: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way!”

Explanation of a confusing statement last month: In the unedited form of that article, I related that the ice delivery man had performed at school functions by walking across the stage on his hands. My error was in not editing my memory along with my article! Oh, well, my grandchildren already knew I’m not perfect!

Reprinted with permission from Redding Magazine.

When I was between three and seven years old, my dad was the principal of a school that contained all grades from the first through the twelfth. It was a rural community, but there was little, if any, cotton grown in the neighborhood. Everyone did grow most of their own food, however, and they had to work very hard from the breaking of the land in the spring until the canning or storing of the produce in the fall was completed. School teachers were paid rather meager salaries for nine or ten months of the year, so my parents had to be part-time farmers in order to feed family.

I was so young at this point that I did not work in the fields or garden very much, but I was able to help gather in sweet potatoes with their milk-like juice oozing from the ones that suffered a cut from the plow or hoe. Walking barefoot in the soft plowed earth was a spiritual experience to my young being, and my sticky stained hands didn’t make it any less so. I also helped with drying fruit that we could eat or use in deserts when the season for fresh fruit was gone. We prepared peaches and apples for drying by first removing the inedible parts and then cutting the good juicy fruit into slices. Big cloths or bed sheets were laid out on top of a tin-roofed shed, and on these we spread out the fruit and let the sun do the rest. When the rays from the sun hit the tin roof and heated the fruit from beneath as well as from above, it did not take long to have sweet, dried fruit.

Coming next….. modern lights, radios and washing machines!

……..This is the fifth part in a series written by a grandmother about her life as she grew up in the days when most farmers plowed with horses, cotton was weeded and thinned with garden hoes, and mature cotton was picked by hand. Family members and hired hands worked together side by side… a common cause making all persons equally important.