Having a couple of warm days and smelling a hint of spring in the air got me thinking about doing laundry.

Monday was the day my grandma did her “warsh.” Yes, I am from an area of Illinois in which we pronounce it that way. Maybe you are, too?

There were plenty of times my brother and I would be around when Grandma did her warshing, and it was always interesting.  As with anything out on the farm, we thought it was fun and we found ways to make it fun.

Early on, when I was very young, Grandma still had a “wringer” washer that sat in the enclosed carport. She had tall metal wash basins out there, too, one for warm water and one for cold. At one point, there was a great wood stove installed in the carport along with insulation which made that space warm and cozy.

I don’t remember if Grandma washed her clothes out by hand in the winter or fired up the wood stove and did her washing as usual. She could have, and it would have been very comfortable. We were in school, so we wouldn’t have been around much on winter Mondays.

But I remember warm weather washing. She’d plug in the washer, fill all the basins up with water and away we’d go.  The washer would chug and churn the clothes. When it was time to wring them out, Grandma would fish around in the water and pull out the clothes, regardless of the temperature of the water. The ringer would stretch and smash all the water out of each article of clothing, making them stiff as a board. It was fun to pull the clothes through the other side, but you had to be careful.

It was only a matter of time before one of us got our fingers too close to the wrong side of the wringer. I was the lucky soul. I had heard of it happening to some of my older cousins, and the story was enough to make me afraid and cautious. I don’t know exactly what happened that day, but before I knew it, my fingers were being pulled in like pair of Grandpa’s overalls.

Grandma was a little woman, but she acted fast and hit that release lever (who knew there was one in the first place?) and the wringer opened up fast, saving me from flattened fingers.  I don’t remember if it hurt for a long time, but I do remember some good ‘ol farm logic being dispensed. “Now you know what happens if you get too close.”

The stiff, wrung-out clothing would be dropped into cold or hot water and probably wrung out again. Everything was placed in a basket to be hung out in the barn lot on the miles-long clothesline.

It was especially fun to help hang laundry on the days when the bed clothes were washed.  There would be big long tunnels of sweet-smelling sheets and bedspreads up and down the clothes line. I’m wondering how dirty we were when we ran through those tunnels, probably with our hands touching both sides of the clean sheets. Maybe it was too early in the day for us to be too dirty yet.

There was even a bit of adventure and excitement when it came to doing laundry. I remember an afternoon (most likely a Monday) when the wash had been hung to dry.  There was a large group of us at Grandma’s, probably visiting family and the like. A storm blew up, wind began to blow hard and rain seemed very close. Everyone raced out to the lines, grabbing the laundry as quickly as possible. As I said, exciting.

Somewhere along the line, Grandma got a more modern washer and dryer installed on the airy, enclosed back porch.  It was more convenient and certainly less work. I think she kept her old wringer around for a while and I’m thinking she may have still used it from time to time.

Still, there was nothing like the old way of “warshing.”