Clothesline Etiquette - remember these?
When I was about 10 years old, I was considered old enough to operate the wringer washing machine. Once a week, this became my job!
1. You had to wash the clothes line before hanging any clothes. You walked the entire length of each line with a damp cloth around the lines.
2. You had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always "whites" with "whites", and hang them first. (You washed the whites first, so you could use the same water for the dark clothes!)
3. You never hung a shirt by the shoulders - always by the tail! What would the neighbors think?
4. Wash day on Monday! Never hang clothes on the weekend, or Sunday, for heaven's sake.
5. Hang the sheets and towels on the outside lines so you could hide your "unmentionables" in the middle (perverts and busybodies, y'know!)
6. It didn't matter if it was sub zero weather. clothes would "freeze dry".
7. Always gather the clothes pins when taking down clothes! Pins left on the lines were "tacky!" 8. If you were efficient you would line the clothes up so that each item did not need two clothes pins, but shared one of the clothes pins with the next washed item.
9. Clothes off the lines before dinner time, neatly folded in the clothes basket, and ready to be ironed!
10. Ironed?! ( Tuesday was ironing day) clothes had been sprinkled by using a soda bottle that had a special stopper with holes in it so you could "sprinkle" evenly. Put those sprinkled clothes into a plastic bag, and iron the next day (many items were starched, well, that's a whole other subject.
When I married and moved to Valley City, my next door neighbor, Mrs. Kepke always washed clothes on Monday and hung them on the line. Tuesday was ironing day, down in her basement she labored two days a week. She taught me to iron shirts "properly" and I still do that method to this day. Each time I iron a shirt I think of Julia Kepke. She is in Life Care with Alzeimhers now, but I think of her fondly, always when I iron a shirt!
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2 comments:
How well I remember wash day and the clothes line. Thanks for that walk down memory lane.
OMG, same here- no dryer when I was growing up and we had the wringer washer. One time when I was about 8 I was helping put things through the wringer an my entire arm went through. Luckily, my mother was there - put it on reverse and back out my arm came- unmarmed. My mother was horrified, thinking I had broken an arm, but nope - it was fine!
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