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Archiver > GEN-TRIVIA-UNIVERSAL > 1999-03 > 0922097679


From: "Dulcie Innes" <>
Subject: Re: New Developments in the 1900's
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 22:14:39 +1200


Esther in California started this off.
I live in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Washdays were a big day on our farm. My mother would get up very early on
Monday morning to light the fire under the copper, which was filled with
water and brought to the boil. The clothes would be sorted into whites
and coloureds. The whites would be boiled in the copper first, then lifted
out with a stick into the tub for the first rinsing. It was my job before
I went to school to turn the wringer, transfering the clothes from the
first rinsing into another tub for them to be "blued" and then wrung again
ready to be hung on the line. After the whites, the coloureds went
through the same procedure and last of all the woollen garments and socks.
It was a big job hanging out the washing - on long lines with wooden
props. It was a tragedy if the line snapped and the washing fell in the
mud and had to be rewashed. There would be so many socks there would not
be enough pegs and I would have to hang them on the barbed wire fence.

Compared with my grandmother, my mother had it good. I remember my
grandmother telling me that when she was first married she did the family
wash by hand in two tubs on a bench in the open. My grandfather built a
lean-to so she would have some shelter. This was made of slabs of wood and
the wind whistled through the gaps. Her mother-in-law told her she "now
had every luxury."

Dulcie Innes

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