For a large family the washday was just that an all-day-long job for Ma and me. Very early in the morning we piled the weeks dirty clothes onto a bed sheet and carried them to the wash place. This was about 200 yards from the house. There was a spring and a stream of water at the wash place. The men and boys had lain some slabs of wood across three stacks of rocks to make a bench for three washtubs to sit on. There were two cast-iron wash pots set up near by. These were used to boil the clothes in. The baby’s box was taken to the wash place. The baby had to be at the wash place, as Ma didn’t take time to go to the house to feed it. Anyone big enough to be trusted to baby sit must help do the wash. The box kept the baby from wandering off. The baby seemed to enjoy the outdoors even when confined to the box. It seemed that there was always a baby at our house. There were 10 children ranging from ages 2-21 when my father died in 1938.
At the wash place the clothes were sorted in piles according to soil and color. The whites were first wet and extra soiled spots rubbed with soap. We didn’t have bleaches or pre-wash in those days. The wet white clothes were then put into the pots and fire was built around the pots as they were boiled in the soapy water for about 30 minutes. They had to be pushed down every so often as the boiling would raise them out or the water. If not kept pushed down the clothes would burn. After they boiled the hot clothes were lifted from the pot and put into the first of the three tubs of rinse water. The small children had already filled the three tubs with water from the spring. They had carried it from the spring in buckets. The larger children used peck buckets and the smaller ones used 4 or 8 pound lard buckets. We saved all buckets and often got buckets from the town dump to clean and use. We learned early to dip water from the spring very carefully. If the water was trashy or muddy we would ruin all we had put into the tub and it had to be poured out and we had to start over. The clothes were rung by hand from the first rinse tub and put into the second tub. After being stirred well in the second tub they were put in the third tub. This was the final rinse. The clothes were then hung on nearby bushes to dry. The bushes had been pruned to make good places to dry the clothes. I was almost grown probably 14 years old when we got a clothesline and four-dozen peg clothespins. The wet, soap, boil and rinse (3 times) process was used on all the clothes except those that were not color fast. These had to be hand rubbed in cool water until clean. The first rinse became the soapy water, the second rinse became the first rinse; the third became the second and a new last rinse rub was prepared three or four times during the day. The boys’ overalls that were very dirty had to be wet in soapy water. After wetting the dirty overalls they were battled. We did this by dipping them from the soapy water and laying them on a big rock and beating them with a flat battling stick. This was a paddle like stick or plank. They were wet again after battled almost dry and battled again. Then they were put into the pot to boil after boiling they were rinsed three times and hung to dry. The bed sheets, towels and others clothes were taken from the bushes as they were dry by the time the overalls and work shirts were ready to hang. Washday was hard work but we learned to enjoy part of it. The day before Mama had prepared jelly peanut butter biscuits and dried fruit pies to carry with us. At midday we stopped and ate sitting on the rocks. We drank water from the spring. The rocks were clean from years of rain. It was good to sit. We even let the baby crawl and lay o the rocks for while at lunchtime. If clouds were seen on the horizon we gathered the clothes off the bushes before the rain began. If we had to we would wait until early the next day to hang the last washes. This way they were dry before the evening clouds came. We did not put on clean clothes every day. If we were going to work in the fields, hoeing corn or cotton, cutting briars, and plowing, we put on clean underwear and the clothes we wore the day before. This cut down on the number or garments to wash. After we came from school or church we took off our good clothes and put on every day clothes. During the winter washdays were miserable. It helped a little to warm the rinse water and move it closer to the boiling fire but it was a hard day. The small children and baby had to stay in the house and time was lost checking in on them. The babysitter of the group could not help and this cut down the number doing the water tubs. We were glad to be the sitter. The clothes sometime froze on the bushes but were dried when the sun shone enough to thaw them. Either summer or winter, if the wind blew the clothes from the bushes to the ground they had to be rinsed again.
