I discovered a book in library donations today that was entitled "Washday and others"
Washday when I was growing up, was huge. There were two parents and five children in our family and we all wore clothes.
There was a laundry basket in the closet off the bathroom where we all were supposed to place our dirty clothes to be washed.
I guess what happened next was Mother's schlepping them down two flights to the cellar. I really mean cellar, with only the thinnest of pedigrees toward basement. She did advance to an electric washer about 1/3 of the way through my childhood. Before that it was the wringer outfit where we used to flirt with danger of squashed fingers feeding items through those unforgiving rollers.
But wringer or automatic, it was work in capital letters. Basket after basket. And yes she had a dryer and no, she didn't use it unless pressed to the wall on rainy days. All other days found her donning the skimpiest of sweaters and a kerchief over her black wavy hair and off she trotted to the wash line, clothespin bag slung across her chest like a paperboy's sack. And that wash got pegged into the wind.
Work, yes, but love by the basketful.
And at night we slept on sheets of sunshine.
