WASH DAY AT GRANDMA'S

Wash day at Grandma's was a unique and exciting day for me when I was a child. Grandma's farmhouse had no modern conveniences, like running water or electricity. This meant we had to either get our water from the cistern, well or spring.

Sometimes in winter the cast iron pump would freeze solid. We'd pour warm water into it and pray it would thaw out. This was a time consuming process and often made matters worse. We couldn't pour hot water into the pump to melt the ice because the meeting of hot and cold would have cracked the cast and the pump would have then been worthless.

If we couldn't thaw the pump, and if the creek and spring were frozen solid, we had only one alternative. We ventured into the yard with buckets, pails and dishpans, filled them with snow and carried them into the house.

On top of the old cookstove, stood a copper boiler. We'd empty our vessels into it and traipse back outside for more snow. Our tired legs and bodies would make trip after trip into the kitchen, to add the snow to that already in the copper boiler. It was then, long before I ever entered a classroom, that I learned it takes a lot of snow to make a small amount of water.

After the copper boiler was full of snow, Grandma would make us cocoa. This was the best part of wash day. She did this by placing a saucepan of milk on the stove until it steamed. In the meantime, she put a teaspoon of cocoa into our cups and added a teaspoon of sugar and about an inch of pure cream. After testing the milk with the tip of her little finger, to make certain it was just the right temperature, she would scald the cream/cocoa mixture. The cocoa was delicious and warmed us after our many treks into the cold, frosty yard.

The copper boiler stayed on the stove all night. In the morning, Grandma would add a handful of homemade soap and a scoop of borax to the water. Then, she would put in the white clothes for about a half-hour, stirring them occasionally with a large wooden ladle made especially for this purpose. It reminded me of a miniature canoe paddle.

Grandma would lift the clothes out of the copper boiler with the wash ladle and place them in a large, blue granite pot. When they had cooled sufficiently, she would wring them out by hand, rinse them out, rinse them in the washtub, wring them again, then put on her coat, boots and gloves and venture out into the bitter, winter weather. She clipped the clothes to the clothesline with long, wooden pegs. Within minutes, the clothes were frozen stiff.