Letter to Mom, by Mary Mulvihill, July 31, 2002

Dear Mom,

I remember after more than forty-five years, how I felt when I came in the back door from the school bus and found you ironing my doll clothes. I was so surprised. Busy, no-nonsense you, fussing with doll clothes!

Of course, ironing meant you had first washed them, hung them out on the clothesline, starched and dampened those tiny pieces. I can see you now, washing that little bunch between the whites and a load of darker clothes.

You said the doll clothes were dirty, which was, no doubt, true. I

remember washing them occasionally as part of my play. Perhaps, the condition

struck you that day.

Washing was an all day activity, ideally done on Monday. Our washhouse was

a shed attached to the back porch. A gas burner heated water in a double copper boiler. My brother, Curt, and I ground bars of homemade soap in the food grinder to dissolve it more quickly. Bleach and bluing had a place in your washhouse, too.

An old cistern held the soft rain water, pumped out by hand to be used for the laundry. Hard, irony water was not tolerated. You would "break" hard water with chemicals, rather than ruin white clothes with the reddish-brown iron stains.

Many piles of laundry sorted by color and weight were scattered over the wash house floor. They disappeared as the day lengthened. First the most delicate white pieces were washed in hot water for for as long as you deemed necessary. Then you fished out the clothes with a forked wooden laundry stick to avoid the near boiling water and getting a finger caught in the wringer.

The next lightest clothes went into the washer with that rhythmic swish, swish, while the first load soaked in clear water before being wrung into the final bluing rinse. Every piece was wrung three times from the Maytag square-tub washer to the first rinse and into the final rinse, before being wrung into the laundry basket.

The sweet smell of the suds gave way to a more pungent odor as more and more loads of dirty clothes were washed. The same water was used for the entire family's weekly laundry. It was cool and gray by the time you threw in Dad's heavy work clothes, but not until the grease had been addressed. Pretreatment involved a trip to the gas pump for some leaded gasoline to dissolve the heavy stains.

Once a load had been washed and double rinsed, you wrung it into a basket sitting on an overturned milk pail, then carried the heavy load to the clothesline. Being practical, you used bushel peach baskets with plastic liners rather than buying specially-designed laundry baskets.

Your taunt clotheslines were as much a source of pride for you as the bright white clothes you proudly displayed for the wind to whip dry. You had the science of hanging clothes down to an art. Never did you waste a motion when you put out a load. Shirts and blouses hung by the hems so the collars and sleeves could blowout to dry quickly. When a line was full of clothes, there was only one more clothespin than piece of laundry.

A warm, sunny day with a stiff breeze was the best weather for wash day. The day you laundered the doll clothes, just before you became busy with spring house cleaning and gardening, was that kind of a pleasant spring day.

The dry clothes were brought in. When I was home, I had fun with the brass sprayer dampening clothes to be ironed. If you didn't finish the ironing, the dampened clothes went in the freezer to prevent mildew.

I don't think you ordinarily would have enjoyed ironing the dainty puffed sleeves on the doll dresses. I remember that you despised ironing the sleeves of my school dresses.

Whatever the reason for washing my doll clothes that day, I remember that you enjoyed my surprise. And I think you may even have had a little fun yourself. Being the third of six children raised in the Depression, you didn't have many dolls. Maybe you had a little time for some play that day. That is what I would like to think happened on a pleasant spring day a long time ago.

Love,

Mary (Mulvihill)

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