I talked with my Aunt Susie last night about ironing and keeping cotton and linen cool before ironing. She was born in 1922. I love my sweet aunt... she is very intelligent and her memory as clear as a bell.
I first asked about when they had electricity in her home. I think this is important factor after watching another Modern Marvels titled "Wired." I learned from the show how some rural areas of the U.S. did not have electricity until 1949, especially the south. Five homes had to be located witin a given radius to have electric lines drawn to them. My aunt grew up in Hendersonville, North Carolina in a rural area near a major highway. So her family's home was wired earlier because of the highway, between 1928-1930. BUT she said this not the norm for the area. Some of the farms in her county were not wired until the late 1940s. She remembers an icebox in the house until 1934. She remembers this because it was a big deal to have an electric refrigerator. When she said this, I remembered what a big deal in my family growing up was to have color TV, and when I got married the milestones of having cable TV, microwave, a computer, and internet. While listening to her, I thought how spoiled we are! Back to Aunt Susie... she said that they washed clothes on scrub-boards generally in the creek until they bought an electric washing machine with a ringer. The washer was kept on the back porch. By the way she talked this event occurred when she was a teenager. If someone was sick, her mother had a large cast-iron pot in the yard to boil water and wash the clothes. IRONING: They had a large cast-iron stove until she moved out after WW2. The iron was placed on the stove to heat. This was used until she moved away from home. If there was clothing to be ironed and there wasn't enough time to do it, the wet clothing was rolled up, and placed in a spring box or milk box in the creek. This same reason given, as we previously discussed, to decrease mildew. The clothing was not to go into the frig or icebox. The spring box / milk box was a new term! I love interviewing older people to learn from their past! What is a spring box / milk box? It is was a large cement box in a spring to catch water in a creek / spring / river. Products that would spoil easily such as milk, eggs, and butter were but into a spring box to keep them cool. My aunt said their creek's water was cold year round. She also commented that they cooled watermelons in the spring box. The spring box was large. The part that faced the creek's downsteam flow had a grate to let the water into the box. The opposing end of the box had a pipe that allowed water to flow out. From this point the water was piped up to their home. The spring box's pipe had a flywheel that so good that it pumped water up to the third story in my aunt's home. In the shallow end of the spring box the water was generally 4" deep and the deeper end 8". The butter was kept in the shallow end and the milk in the deep end. She stated that her family survived the Depression by selling milk, eggs, and butter to the locals. My aunt said there was a teacher in Georgia who sent her students on assignment to record the old ways of doing things from the elders in the area. These were published in a series named Foxfire. My aunt owned two volumes of Foxfire but Hurricane Katrina took them, along with the rest of her home. Aunt Susie said the series were all kinds of recipes and methods of how to do all sorts of things. Penny Ladnier, Owner, The Costume Gallery Websites www.costumegallery.com www.costumelibrary.com www.costumeclassroom.com www.costumeencyclopedia.com _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
