As I cleaned off the refrigerator this evening, an OLD item there (a bookmark someone gave me years ago stuck up there with a magnet) caught my eye. I thought about how much we take for granted and decided it might cheer someone up who struggles with mountains of laundry these days. This is it:
Washday 1916
Years ago a Kentucky grandmother gave a new bride the following "receipt" for washing clothes.
It appears below just as it was written, and despite the spelling has a bit of philosophy.
1. Bilt fire in backyard to heet kettle of rain water.
2. Set tubs so smoke won't blow in eyes if wind is pert.
3. Shave one hold cake lie soap in bilin water.
4. Sort things, make three piles. 1 pile white, 1 pile collored, 1 pile work britches and rags.
5. Stir flour in cold water to smooth, then thin down with bilin water.
6. Rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, then bile. Rub collored don't bile, just rinch in starch.
7. Take white things out of kettle with broomstick handle then rinch, and starch.
8. Hang old rags in fince.
9. Spread tee towels on grass.
10. Pore rinch water in flower bed.
11. Scrub porch with hot soapy water.
12. Turn tubs upside down.
13. Go put on house dress, smooth hair with side combs.
Brew cup of tee, sit and rest and rock a spell and count blessings.
Hang this above your automatic washer, and when things look black, read again.
Mrs. Gray McDaniel
Pinedale, N. C.
I'm so grateful I don't have to "heet a kettle" in the backyard and do my laundry there. Especially not in the heat we've been having! I do, however, miss the wonderful clean fragrance of laundry dried on a clothesline outside! Yet, I'm grateful for my automatic clothes dryer and fabric softener!
