I just poured and drank a glass of orange juice. On finishing I thought to rinse it out, dry it, and put it away. But, too much work. I put it in the dishwasher. Then I came across the following except, again from one of my mother’s letters:
One time when I was allowed to go to someone’s house after school I came home and my mother asked me what I had done. I told her I had helped my friend with her mother’s unwashed dishes.
That was the thing mothers did in those days, leave the dishes for daughters to do after school. It was probably so the mother could do other things, like sewing clothes for her kids or cooking, or canning fruit, or any one of a myriad other things that consumed the mother’s time. Of course girls always hated to have to do dishes, being the most menial of all menial tasks, so it made it easier if a friend could help.
My mother half laughed and half scolded me for being willing to do someones dishes but complained about doing my own.
In those days it was a lot more work to do dishes. We would use two dishpans. When we got the second pan full of washed dishes we would SCALD them by pouring a teakettle of boiling water over them. Then that pan got full of water. We never heard of a dish rack – don’t think they existed. With no rack, the dishtowels (we called tea towels) would get sopping wet from drying dishes so it took several towels before we were finished.
In those days a popular wedding shower gift was a set of seven dishtowels.
Question: I wonder if the Wedding Registry at Nordstroms gets many calls for sets of dishtowels. (Rather, “tea towels.”)
Our Lives Together
Its About Life
11:09 pm
I still love the old flour sack dish towels. I hunt until I find them as they really the most absorbent. This picture reminds me of helping my mom up at Clear Lake in the laundry room where they had a clothes washer, a RINGER, that you would put the clothes through it one at a time, and then hang them outside on the clothes hanging racks to dry with yes! clothes pins! We always had to go and do this in the early mornings because it would get toooooo hot by mid morning in the summers. What a job.. I am glad I did not live in those times where, like your mom, I would have had to do this all the time—–all year around. Thanks for sharing Hyatt! Lisa
1:58 pm
I love this story as it reminds me of my Aunties (Margaret and Marjorie). They were born at the height of the depression in a three room adobe house in New Mexico. They sewed their own tea towels out of old flour sacks (as Lisa describes) and then embellished them with beautiful embroidery. My grandmother was too busy helping grandpa in the fields to do the “women’s work” and so the twins took up the cause. I still have two of those towels.
My grandmother (their mother) had an old ringer washer she used right up until she moved in with us when I was a teenager (the early 1980’s). She swore by it and I think she missed it.
Thank you for sharing a bit more of your mother’s story with us Hyatt.
Stephanie
10:35 am
Funny thing…..as I think of your mom as being quite a bit older than I am, the method of washing dishes was exactly the same on our farm in Indiana…what a delightfully vivid description. I do love your notes from your mom….makes me feel like she’s still around with her humor and wisdom.
I remember when son Mark was only two years old, we followed the “old rule” of raising children. Because of that, many people felt free to question the wisdom of how we disciplined/taught our son. (At times, I admit it was intimidating to be told how “out-of-date” we were.) Your mom told me what a great job we were doing and promised me we would be so thankful that we followed “God’s way” of parenting….she was right! We’re very grateful for a son like our Mark, and what he has allowed God to do in him as his Heavenly Father has loved and disciplined him!
How grateful I am for her constant encouragement that still inspires me today.
4:16 am
Now with my mother 92, though no longer mentally with us, the memory of those discussions ‘over the dishes’ still flood back. Thanks for the cameos written of your mother. It shows your love for her and stirs within me the love I held ( and still do though she cannot respond) and still do hold for my Mum…note not MOM.!
Your writing brings it all back to life.
Blessings always,
John