Looking Back
By Janice Glover
Recently, my daughter was helping me with laundry
when I was reminded that when she was in diapers, cloth ones, I didn’t even own a washing machine. The rent on our house
at the time was a whopping fifteen dollars a month so, we had electricity, but no plumbing. I did laundry outside in tubs
with water drawn from the well. I truly enjoyed hanging diapers on the line and folding them.
My
kitchen had a small wood heater in one corner, an ancient refrigerator, and a thrift store stove. The bottom half of a Hoosier
cabinet held two water buckets and a baby bath tub, serving as my sink. I didn’t find it particularly burdensome since
I had lived that way all my life.
I don’t remember a time when Mama didn’t have
a washing machine, a wringer type, but we didn’t have plumbing either so getting enough water to the house on washday
was an undertaking. Anyone strong enough to carry a bucket of water was commissioned and sent to the spring below the house.
It required all out buckets, tubs, and will power to get the job done. I was in the middle of it at the time but failed to
realize what a job it was for Mama to wash and iron for seven people. This was once a week but everyday was a workday for
Mama.
The cow had to be milked twice a day, meals from scratch three times a day, butter to
be churned, in summer gardens to tend, canning to be done, and in winter keeping the wood fires burning in the heater and
cook stove. We all had our share of chores, but she was the one who kept things going. I don’t know if she ever second
guessed her life choice or not but I am grateful that she stuck with us all the way, and taught us all that we would let her.
Today, I don’t know how she managed to work that washday every week into an already full schedule.
I’m thankful that for the most part things are more convenient today but I wonder often how much of our creativity
has been stifled by relying so heavily on convenience. Mama made all our clothes and she became a master seamstress through
experience. Many times, she would measure a new baby at church with the span of her hand and make it a beautiful dress or
knit it a tiny sweater that actually fit. Some of those sweaters are still in existence and look as good as the day she took
them off her needles. She made things to last.
When we all left home and Daddy passed away,
Mama moved into an apartment where several widows from her church already lived. She walked on carpet for the first time and
never had to start another fire. It was a quiet cozy nest where she could rest from all her hard work and read to her heart’s
content. When she passed away, she had laid the book she was reading on her chest and simply went to sleep.
I have peace in my life because I learned long ago to be thankful for even the smallest things. Ive come a long way
from doing laundry in tubs by the well. I am grateful that when it was necessary, I could do it because I learned from the
best. I still love folding laundry.