Mar 21, 2010

Describe some household chores you had as a child.

In my early years , prior to 8 or 9, I had the usual indoor chores. Every Saturday was wash day. We had an old washer ringer combination washing machine as seen in this picture with the blog. (That is the actual washer we used, mom gave it to me for photography.) We would do a lot of loads that day which included the loading of the washer, adding some homemade lard soap (MADE FROM COWS FAT THAT WE SAVED FROM SLAUGTERING OUR OWN BEEF, melted in a big copper kettle over an outside wood fire, and adding lye, I couldn’t tell you anymore than that) and then letting the washer do it’s thing for a half hour or so and then, after the rinsing, pulling the clothes out one by one and putting them through the ringer and into a wash basket. In the summer we would then carry them out to the clothesline and hang them up to dry. Later we would go back out before dark and take then in and fold them before taking them to our rooms to be put away. This took most of Saturday to accomplish.

I also helped with the dishes. We were assigned to set the table one time, then clear the table, then wash dishes or dry dishes and put them into the cupboard. There were four units to the project and we would do something different each time.

Later after Uncle Clair went on his mission in 1965 or 66, I took over making bread for the family. This meant coming home and mixing a batch of bread and baking it. It took usually till nearly 10 pm before it was done each time. However the fresh bread was always worth it. I would do this 2 to 3 times per week.

Saturday night at around 11:30 pm was always a time to hate chores. That was when mom would finally be ready to mop the kitchen floor and we were asked to help. I don’t think that mom ever went to bed before midnight but Saturday night the mopping had to be done before midnight so that we were not working on the Sabbath.

More on chores tomorrow.