Summer Time Fun

When I was a little girl, one of the highlights of summertime was going barefoot and swimming. The only thing was I couldn't swim, but then I didn't have to swim.

Mother had two large galvanized washtubs, #2 and #3, that she used in washing clothes under the shelter behind our house. Early in the day she filled the tubs with water and the sun heated it so I could swim. My cousin, Brenda, came and she would sit Indian fashion in one tub of water, and I sat in the other tub. We had lots of fun sitting in the tubs of water, imagining we were somewhere else and chattering away.

After our afternoon of fun, mother washed the tubs out, took them to the shelter and hung them over nails on the wall. They stayed there until wash day. Mother didn't always have a shelter under which she could wash clothes.

I remember as a little girl, perhaps age seven, after we moved to the old Holland place that we took our clothes into the woods to a stream of water and washed them. The stream was across the road in front of the house and down a steep embankment. Mother never complained. She set her tubs up beside the creek bank, and filled them with water. She had an old black washpot that she filled with water and built a fire under it so she could boil our clothes to clean them. Mother used lye soap that she made. She had a battling stick with which she stirred the clothes in the boiling pot of soapy water. That stick looked a lot like a worn down axe handle. She also had a rubbing board. She used the tubs of water to rinse the clothes.

When the washing was finished, we lugged those wet clothes back home to hang on the clothes line. Mother taught me early how to hang out clothes on a line. We hung all the bath cloths together, all the towels together, all the sheets, the pillowcases, the shirts, hankerchiefs, dresses, underwear, etc. Everything had to be hung with its own kind, and overlapped so as to save clothespins. That way, it made them easier to fold after they dried.

Daddy's pants, what we would call kakis now, had to be pulled over the pants stretchers. I still have one that we used. It was adjustable and each wire frame would slip down the leg of the pants. We stretched it out as tightly as possible so we wouldn't have so much to iron. We then hung them on the line. I think I never met anyone who liked to starch and iron pants.

Mother starched clothes with liquid starch that she made from a powder in a box that she mixed with water. After the clothes dried, they were stiff and hard to handle, so we had a sprinkling bottle that we used to dampen the clothes, so they would iron easier. Ours was a cork stopper with a silver top with holes in it. It fit right down into a glass Coca Cola bottle. Mother would sprinkle thegarment and then roll it up tightly until she could iron it. I suppose the dampness evened out all over the garment while it was rolled.

I can't remember the days when mother had two cast irons that she heated in front of the fireplace. My brother, Hoyt, can recall those days. She heated the irons and ironed as long as she could before having to reheat them. She kept one heating in front of the fire all the time she was ironing. I still have one of her irons and use it as a door stop.

We had an electric iron by the time I knew anything about ironing, but it wasn't a steam iron. They hadn't been invented yet. I remember when the control stopped working and we had to unplug it to let it cool down, so it wouldn't scorch the clothes. Mother was always upset when the iron was too hot and she burned her clothes. I can almost smell the scorch now.

Mother taught me how to iron shirts and I've done my share of that, at least all I ever wanted to iron. Today I don't buy things that have to be ironed.

Douglas and I lived in Memphis, TN in 1966-67, while he attended Harding Graduate School of Religion. He preached and attended school. I put him through by working as secretary to brother Jessie Fox, head of the Department of Chemistry at Memphis State University.

On the weekends I washed 5-7 white shirts at a time for Douglas. We didn't have much money, so we learned early in our marriage to pinch a penny. If one of his shirt collars started wearing out, I took it off, turned it over, and sewed it back on. But ironing those shirts was a job that took a long time. I believe by this time we had spray starch and that is what I used, which was a great improvement over what I had grown up using.

The back of the collar was the first thing to be ironed, and then the front side. While in that area, the back yoke of the shirt was next, inside and outside. The goal was to have no wrinkles ironed on the shirt. Taking the shirt off the ironing board and repositioning, I flattened out the sleeve and ironed the cuff first, inside and out, and then the actual sleeve on each side. After all this was ironed, I then positioned the shirt to iron one side of the front and kept working myself around the shirt until I finished on the other side. Having a clothes hanger near was important so I could hang the freshly ironed shirt and get it to the closet. That was quite a feeling of accomplishment to see all those shirts ironed and ready to wear. Douglas always let me know how much he appreciated what I was doing.

The simple things in life make the most lasting memories it seems. A playhouse under a sheet draped over a table on the porch on a rainy day; a stick and spoon used to carve a roadway on an area of hard dirt underneath the porch, so the little metal cars could be pushed on the roads; fruit pies made with dirt, water, and China berries; a swing on a high limb in the old oak tree. Memories are made of things like this. Maybe next time I will re-visit the high swing that was my favorite place.