The Minnesota Farm Woman

I wonder how they did it? I mean Ma Ingalls, my great-grandmother, and other Pioneer Women and homesteaders. HE is in the process of remodeling our laundry room/breezeway/mud room and I have spent an entire week without a washing machine. Yes, I know there are laundromats, but there is only one in the area, and it would involve me staying after work for a couple of hours, (No!!) or driving sixteen miles back to town on a Saturday (Double no!!). So, I did the next best thing and used my bathtub as a washing machine. I filled it with warm water and soap and added a load of “lighter” clothes, tee shirts, socks, and the like. I agitated the water with a long-handled scrub brush, then left them to soak. After a while, I drained the tub and added rinse water. On my knees, I drained and squeezed each item dry. There was a crick in my back after the first five minutes. As much as I complain that our new energy-efficient washing machine spins the clothes too dry and causes wrinkles when I line dry them, there is no way a middle-aged Farm Woman with a crick in her back can be as efficient. This was WORK! Since I only use the dryer in the winter, hanging clothes on the line is not a big deal for me, but now the laundry basket that I had to lug outside weighed about 30 pounds more than usual. Complicating matters, there are no back steps anymore, so I had to go around the house the long way. After two loads, I called my friend and invited myself and my dirty laundry over to her house for the afternoon. Ma Ingalls probably would have beat the clothes on a rock in the stream and laid them on the prairie grass to dry. My great-grandmother would have pumped and hauled her own water, boiled it in the washtub, then used a washboard to scrub everything clean, something HE was making jokes about as he carried the second load of heavy dripping clothes outside for me. How did the two of us manage to get so many clothes dirty in seven measly little days? Both Ma and Grandma and everyone else back in the day probably wore their clothes more than once before washing them. It is a hot and humid summer, and in our spare time, he’s tearing apart the laundry room and I’m working in the garden, so we change clothes a couple of times a day. Although we don’t mind working hard enough to break into a sweat, neither of us particularly wants to smell like perspiration, chicken coops or damp old insulation. Our friends and acquaintances are most appreciative of that, I’m sure. Although I’m hoping for a speedy renovation, things don’t always work out that way. As I hung out the heavy wet clothes, I noticed my old laundry sink sitting in the back yard amid a pile of lumber. It is nice and deep, and even has what looks like a molded washboard on one side. Thank goodness I have a hose in the backyard and don’t have to prime the pump or haul everything down to the creek like those strong women before me. I’m just a middle-aged Farm Woman with a crick in her back who would have probably lasted three days as a Pioneer Woman before dying of exhaustion.