This is installment no -14 - my story August 10th 2011

This is installment no –14 –

Ironing Day


Ironing day was an all day detail. In the winter they would heat the smoothing irons on top of the old cooking stove These smoothing irons weighed around four to five pounds each and had to have some means of protecting your hands to keep them from getting burned usually they had a thick cloth pad like a glove. In the summer time my Mother would have a fire built out in the yard and heat her irons in the fire near a shade tree and have a ironing table there to feel a little breeze to help keep her cooler. You had to be very careful to keep your irons clean from smut from the fire. Heating irons on an open fire you would have to be very careful the irons may get too hot and you may scorch that pretty white shirt.


Out House-Toilet


Since we did not have a bathroom or water or toilet inside, it was necessary to have a toilet outside, we referred it as an outhouse it was unpopular to say toilet in mixed company. This outhouse was always several yards from our house for obvious reasons. At our house when the strong wind was blowing to the west from the east we would have to close the shutters on the windows. Our outhouse had two round holes to sit on or fall into. I never did know why they had two holes because as for as I ever know no one went there together. We always kept a couple catalogs on the bench beside the two holes. It was very important to be careful when you took a laxative because you sure did not want to go in the middle of the night in freezing weather. When you saw a flashlight sailing thru the yard at mid night it was time to say a little prayer for the light carrier. Our family usually brought in what we called slop gar each night for using to urinate in to; it was place in a hidden place in the house. It wasn’t so bad as we were children but when we got to be teenagers it was to embracement for us so we learned to hold until morning.


Our lighting-kerosene lamps



Our family used about five kerosene lamps, everyone used kerosene lamps for no one had any electric lights. It was necessary to fill the lamps every evening and clean the lamp globes because the globes will get smoked if you did not keep the wick trimmed. We would often let one light be lighted thru the night so where you could move around. We would extinguish all the other lamps to save on oil, because oil cost 20 cents per gallon. Our family had a routine most of the time especially school season my father required a lamp for reading the paper and studying his bible. My Mother required a lamp to do all her chores and she had many. She would clean the kitchen wash the dishes she would wash the dishes in a large dish pan with soap and water, she then had another dish pan with rinsing water and then drying them with a large dish towel. After completing the kitchen chores then she would prepare the beds for the night and another hundred details before going to bed herself. I never did see my mother have any time to sit down and relax as we children growing up. During school season there were five of us children attended school at the same time. The five of us would all gather around a table and it was the dinning table and we would use two or three kerosene lamps and study our lessons. The boys usually had to have a little persuading from our Father because we did not like school anyway. He customary had his old razor strap by his side and we called it a persuader.

This is end of installment no –14 -