06/12/2023
Look here Matt and Mick.
Who remembers “warsh day”??
I remember as a young girl and up to the time I “married off” and left home, Mommy and I would “warsh” clothes every Thursday in the Summer when I wasn’t in school.
We had an enclosed back porch with a deep freeze, canned foods and an old dryer and a wringer type washing machine and another side porch on it where we’d wheel Mommy’s old Maytag wringer-type washing machine outside on the side porch and we’d carry rain water together in a big wash tub to fill it up.
We had barrels on every corner of the house and all the out buildings (even the chicken coops and hog pen) to catch rainwater as water was scarce for us.
After we’d fill the Maytag up we’d pull up a chair beside it and set a wash tub full rinse water (Mom would say rance water) on the chair to catch the clothes as they came out of the wringer to get the suds out. I still remember the smell of Trend ”warshing powders” and bleach and the smell of Final Rinse we’d pour on the rinse water to make the clothes soft.
I remember the sound of the washing machine as it constantly agitated, it had a beat all it’s own that you could most certainly play a tune to!
And let me tell you, nothing hurt like the pain of getting your fingers, hair or any other body part caught up in those wringers 🤣
I remember looking down over the hill and seeing my mamaw Sizemore out in her house coat in her yard plundering in her flowers and she’d raise up, put her hand over her eyes and look up at us as we hung out the clothes.
We’d wash everything in the house from clothes, to bed clothes and mom had to wash every scatter rug in the house too! Then we’d wash dads work clothes he wore in the coal mines last. The water would be black by the time we washed his work clothes.
We had a dryer but we mostly hung everything out to dry. Even towels. There’s nothing like the smell of sheets that have dried in the Appalachian mountain breeze!
Oh the memories of growing up in Tan Yard Holler, I remember my Mom sharing her memories of the holler when she was little girl with me. I now have my own to pass on to my daughter.
I tell her often of the times Mom and I washed clothes, scrubbed walls, and painted ceilings together. She had to have everything just so-so, we didn’t have a fancy house, it lacked in many modern amenities but you can bet, being a house where a Sizemore was the woman of the house it was clean!!
