The tradition of Monday wash day

Our kitchen was to the rear of the house and it had a cast-iron cook stove in it that was used for cooking and heating. It used wood and corn cobs for its fuel. The corn cobs were gotten for a farmer friend and stored in a shed behind the house. We would bring the cobs into the house by the bucket. That was my job. Behind the stove was a space large enough for us kids to crawl behind and get warm on cold, winter mornings. All of the kitchen activity centered around this stove, especially on Mondays. Mondays were always remembered as “bean day.” It was the day that mothers washed their clothes.

Tubs full of water were needed to wash the families’ clothes. We did not have a water heater in the house; they came later, so the water had to be heated on the large iron cook stove. Early in the morning, 6-7 o’clock, Dad had to get up and start a fire in the stove. As the stove heated up, he would fill a large 15-gallon copper tub with water that was placed on the left side of the stove top. After this was accomplished, he mixed up a batch of oatmeal in a large aluminum container and put it on top of the stove. He had to continually stoke the fire. While this was happening, he rolled in a washing machine from the back porch into the kitchen and began getting it ready for the clothes. The washing machine did not have a rinse tub in it so two large galvanized tubs were placed beside the washing machine where the clothes could be rinsed. The room was very crowded by this time and kids were not allowed in the kitchen. After the water was hot enough, it was bucked into the washing machine and tubs. The washing machine had a spring-washer on it that was used to wring out as much of the wash water as possible before the clothes were put into one of the rinse tubs. Next came a three-step process: 1). Put wet clothes in the ringer on the washing machine; 2). Put wrung-out clothes in first tub; and 3). Transfer the wet clothes into the second tub after wringing them out again. Then the final step was taking the clothes out of the second tub, wringing them out and putting them into a wicker basket. In time, these clothes would be taken outside — winter or summer — and hung on one of three wires strung the length of the backyard to dry. This was an adult’s job as the wires were too high for the kids to reach. In winter, when weather was really bad, my mother would hang the clothes inside the house on every surface or chair available. The pungent odor of wet clothes drying permeated the entire house for hours.

The entire procedure of washing clothes for a large family would occupy the mothers for the entire day from sunup to sundown. However, meals had to also be prepared during wash time. To feed the family, Mom had a system worked out that satisfied everyone in the family. In the morning, she would put a large pot of water on the stove and fill it up with uncooked beans. Beans took a long time to cook, almost all day, and little time was needed to watch them. After the kids went to school, she then made up a batch of bread in a large pan. Once this was mixed, the bread took time to rise and she was free to hang clothes on the line outside. By five o’clock, dinner time, the bread would be baked, the beans would done, and the clothes washed. These meals would be long remembered by the kids.

The tradition of Monday wash day lasted for many generations.

Rediscovering the Peninsula by Darold Fredricks appears in the Monday edition of the Daily Journal.