How spoiled I am! Yesterday, while loading the dishwasher, the thought occurred to me that before dishwashers all dishes were washed by hand. Living alone, I could probably wash my dishes in the same amount of time it takes me to load the dishwasher (or less) but it sounds like such a chore to put water in the sink, add some soap, wash the dishes, dry them and put them away! However, as it is, living alone I usually don't run the dishwasher but every week to ten days (depending on if I have run out of bowls, plates etc.) so usually I rinse the dishes as I put them in the dishwasher!
This got me to remembering, also, doing the dishes as a youngster. Until my sister and I were old enough to reach the sink, we dried the dishes for our mother. Being the oldest, I was the first to do the washing, but my sister, being only a year younger, soon was able to do that, too. That, of course, caused many an argument as to who's turn it was to wash or dry. Mom tried several methods of settling the arguments, however none ever lasted long enough to completely do away with the spats.
I now think of my grandparents and great grandparents, who would have had to pump water in their early years, and what a joy it must have been to have a home with running water. I think my grandparents in the "city" had running water from as far back as I can remember, but my grandparents in the smaller rural community had a pump right outside the back door where water would be drawn in buckets and brought into the house. That meant that the city house had bathroom facilities, but the rural home had an out house for as long as I can remember. I am sure the present owner of that house has indoor plumbing but I am not sure that my grandmother ever did while living there.
That created other problems, such as doing the laundry!! Today, we have our nice automatic washers and dryers and forget that the forerunners of those appliances were galvanized tubs, wash boards and later, the beautiful Maytag electric machine with the attached wringer!!! Until automatic washers, laundry was done usually once a week - for most on Monday. For my mother, it meant, going down to the basement early to stoke the furnace and make sure the attached water heater would be sufficiently hot enough to melt the soap. She would fill her Maytag machine with water, put in the soap (sometimes granulated, but usually she would chip bar laundry soap into pieces), load the clothes (always sorted - whites, colored clothes, dark clothes and work clothes, which were the dirtiest.), one load at a time. After agitating them for the appropriate length of time, she would go down and wring each piece out through the wringer, into a large basket; load the next group of clothes, go up and hang the items in the basket on the clothesline strung from pole to pole in the backyard. In the winter, when it was too cold to hang them outside, she would hang them in the basement (which was not as finished as basements are today). As each load was washed, she would remove the dry ones from the line and hang up the next group of wet ones. You can see, this was an all day job. The clothes that were to be ironed, were sometimes taken down from the line, slightly damp, rolled up for ironing the next day. If they were too dry, they would be laid out on the kitchen table and sprinkled to dampen them for ironing. Ironing had to be done within a day or two, or the items would begin to mildew. Today, we can wash anytime we want to (for some families this can be a load daily), automatic dryers make it unnecessary to consider the climate, and our modern fabrics make ironing almost unneeded.
Bathing was usually a weekly, sometimes twice a week event for our ancestors. Rain water was caught in barrels to be used to wash your hair, since it would be softer water and make it easier to rinse the soap out. I remember that my mother would always have us rinse our hair with rain water, with some lemon juice added, to make our hair healthier and shine nicer. Today we can shower or bathe everyday, washing our hair as frequently.
And nobody washed their car!!! If rain was predicted, the car would be left out to let the rain do it. I don't remember car washes springing up until in the 1960's but after World War II when automobiles became more a necessity than a luxury, hand washing them came into fashion as a way to earn extra spending money.
How much we take water, and the luxuries it provides us, for granted - as well as our wonderful appliances. I can't help but wonder what my aunt, who lived to be 102 (born 1894 - died 1996), would say of all the changes she saw. We are marveled at the changes we see, but she saw electricity invented, telephones become staples in our homes, rail and air travel developed and flights to space, as well as the evolution of radio, vacuum cleaners, automobiles, television, computers, and countless things I can't even recall because I have not been without them in my life.
Well, enough rambling for today. Hope you have enjoyed this walk through the past. Perhaps it will jog other memories for you as well as for me. Till next time, hugs and love.
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