I’ve been working on my book for the past several weeks and came across a chapter that will help you all realize how lucky you are that we live in 2024 and not 1960. It can be summed up in one word, appliances. Take a trip down memory lane with me and relive the hell that was laundry day in the Tunno household…
All my young life I yearned for a schedule, or some semblance of that orderly, organized American home I saw on TV. I wanted our house to run with Swiss precision, like the Pfleghars’ who lived across the street. They had washing days, ironing days, daily menus, a whole set of encyclopedias (not just the A’s that were free at the grocery store with your purchase) plus bath-times and bedtimes!
At nine-years-old I actually begged my parents to force me to go to bed at 9 o’clock like my classmates. I remember them distractedly looking up from the TV and saying, “Oh, OK, go to bed,” without a hint of a threat, then going back to watching TV and ignoring me. When you’re the fifth kid, parents just think, “OK, we’ve got this,” and mostly quit worrying.
My mom ran her household Italian freestyle. She always felt like cooking, which was great, but we had to wait until she felt like doing laundry or ironing. Which meant it took a while from the time your clothes went into the laundry basket until you saw them again – if you saw them again. Quite often they came back unrecognizable.
The days I came home from school and smelled Clorox bleach I knew she’d been doing one of her least favorite things, laundry. If my mother had sadistic tendencies, she hid them well until laundry day.
I’d come home from school, smell the bleach, glimpse through the breezeway window, and see crisp white sheets, work shirts and my mom’s girdles flapping in the backyard breeze. Then panic struck because I knew I was probably too late.
My mother was a serial clothing abuser and Clorox was her weapon of choice. She washed our clothes in a white 1950s Maytag wringer washer in a sinister looking corner of the basement where the furnace sat. The corner, lit by an uncovered lightbulb with a pull string, sat waiting for my mother, or a wandering KGB agent who needed a place to torture someone.
The first load was the whites. Dressed innocently in a house dress and apron, Mom placed a hose from the basement sink into the washer and filled it with scalding hot water.
The Maytag was shaped like a white, square-ish wine barrel with legs. In front was a pull knob you pulled out when you wanted the agitator to rotate back and forth washing the clothes. You pushed it in to stop it.
Not only was the water scalding hot, but she poured the Clorox liberally. She cut brown Fels Naptha soap into little pieces and added it to the water with her favorite detergent, Tide. Fels Naptha was a ‘60s version of a pre-soaker and stain remover. It’s also described as a skin irritant, something that in retrospect, explains a lot.
Then she had to pull the clothes out of the scalding hot water with a long, round, wooden dowel and send them through the wringer, being very careful her fingers didn’t go with them. Sometimes she’d send too many in and the top of the wringer would pop up, just like the head of a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot when you landed a good punch.
The clothes then went into the deep sink filled with rinse water, then through the wringer again, before being hung on the clothesline outside to dry.
A skilled laundress would empty the washer of the hot Clorox water by placing the machine’s drain hose into the drain on the floor and letting the water pour out. Then refilling the washing machine again with nice cool water for the brightly colored clothes.
My mother was not a skilled laundress, nor did she feel it was right to waste perfectly good water. So she re-used the hot Clorox water for the next load (the unfortunate, multi-colored clothes). I can still see them in their pile on the cold, concrete floor desperately screaming, “No, take the darks!”
The formerly bright, cheerful colors all took on a pathetic pallor once Mom got through with them. I remember the tragic sight of a favorite sweater, once a lovely light blue in the right size, reduced to toddler size in a sickening yellow.
I longed for Kathy Pfleghar’s clothes. I remember looking in her closet once and sighing at the sight of four or five shirts, hanging in perfectly pressed perfection, waiting to be worn.
As soon as I learned to wash clothes, I’d race downstairs at the first scent of Clorox to save whatever hadn’t been plunged into liquid hell. My mom may have only gotten to second grade, but she knew how to get us to do our own laundry very early. I started at six.
My first-grade photo is proof of my skills. I’m in the front row to the right of of blue-eyed Bobbie Jo in the center. She’s in black tights, and a striped sweater looking adorable, the epitome of ‘50s and ‘60s hip cuteness.
I’m in a dress with black ribbons across the bottom, and one of my mom’s holy medal pins front and center. I ironed that dress so I’d be ready for my close-up. (I also polished my shoes and washed my shoelaces.) I remember spreading my dress out, so everyone could see my fabulous ironing job. But the lady taking the photo told me to tuck it under so I didn’t cover the other girls’ clothes, although I did hog a little space from both Bobbie Jo and blonde Debbie Hogan to the left of me. At six I was already on my way to diva-hood.
Starching followed the washing. When I got home from school, it was my job to stand on a chair at the downstairs gas stove, and stir a giant pot of hot water mixed with Argo Corn Starch and a waxy, blue rectangle of Satina, (an ironing aid) until the Satina melted. Then the starch was ready.
Once they were washed, my mom used the wooden dowel to dip shirts and dresses into the hot starch then put them through the ringer. Once dry, our clothes could stand at attention.
Ironing day was much less traumatic. As soon as I opened the door, the steam hit my face and I knew what Mom was up to. Our starched clothes had to be dampened again so they could be ironed. Each besprinkled dress or shirt was rolled into a tight cocoon and added to a mountain of clothes on the clear plastic sheet that covered our dining room table. When she wasn’t looking, I’d move any of my clothes from the bottom of the pile to the top so it would get done next.
Mom would sit transfixed by General Hospital, yelling at Jesse Brewer not to trust her stinking husband, Dr. Phil Brewer. Her heavy arm moved the iron back and forth as the wooden ironing board creaked. Sometimes she’d pause at a dramatic moment and I’d watch, holding my breath, worrying that what she was ironing was getting scorched.
In retrospect, if I had to go through all that for my kids’ clothes, they would have never seen them again, so I have to give her credit. Even once a month was pretty good. One of her happiest moments had to have been the day they retired the wringer washer and she got a modern washer and dryer. The upside is she gave me a laundry skill set which has always come in handy. It’s a shame I don’t use it more, but that’s no surprise, is it?
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