by Doug Kirkman
In my childhood, on the farm at Dreeite, Monday was washing day.
Sunday night was bath night. The copper in the wash-house was filled with water and a fire lit underneath. When the water had boiled it was bailed out into two kerosene tins, that had been fitted with handles, and carried up the passage to the bath room and poured into the bath. The bath was made from sheets of galvanised iron formed of a number of pieces riveted and soldered together, but it did have those now sought after, cast iron lion’s claw legs. The bath room had a cold water tap from storage tanks.
The work clothes worn during the last week were changed for clean ones. No, don’t be quick to judge the hygiene of people of our era. Remember that there was no reticulated water available. The only water supply was rain water caught from the roof of the house and stored in tanks and in summer time this was a precious source indeed. The only other water available was from a well with a windmill and this was used to supply the dairy and as drinking water for the stock. So the luxury of daily showers or baths was unheard of, and apart from rinsing smalls, the usage of water was minimised by washing clothes once a week.
And Monday was wash day.
We are reviewing the time before the advent of washing machines. The first step in the washing process was to light the copper. The copper was a copper bowl of about 20 gallons capacity (55 litres), set in a cast iron stand or sometimes built in with brick, so that a fire could be lit under it. To save burning firewood, we three kids would collect pine cones or, in summer take a chaff bag and harvest “Eurack Coal”, cow pats from the paddock, for mum. Dry cow pats burn much like peat once the fire gets a good heat.
The copper was brought to the boil and shaving of bar soap added. The soap came as three or four blocks, in a bar about a foot long (30 mm), wrapped in grease-proof paper. Popular brands were Velvert and Preservene.
The first load of wash, usually sheets, pillow cases and other linen, were put in the boiling water and, with an occasional stir with a copper stick, allowed to boil for about half an hour. The turbulence of the boiling water was the washing action, combined with its sterilising property. When it was considered the load had boiled enough, the items were transferred to the rinse water. This had to be done carefully as the water and the wash items were boiling hot and the risk of scalding ever present, so two copper sticks were used. These could be two pieces of broom handle about two feet six inches long (750mm), or if the lady of the house had sons attending Colac High School wood-working classes, the first model they would have made would be a pair of copper sticks.
The rinse water was in the wash trough. In earlier days the trough was made of wood, usually white pine which would not stain the wash, carefully jointed to make it water tight. Later cement troughs were the norm, these came in a variety of patterns, single or double, and town style with a rounded bottom or country style with a flat bottom.
The second load would be put in the copper. These would be the heavily soiled work clothes, so a longer boil would be required. While these were boiling, the first load would be rinsed and any stubborn stains treated in various ways according to the nature of the stain. The rinse water was then wrung out of the items either by hand or, if you were lucky, be a hand turned wringer. The wringer was clamped onto the partition between the two sides of the trough, with the rinse water in the side nearest the copper, ‘blue water’ in the other side. We kids would help mother by turning the wringer, as she fed the washing through the rollers. Large items like sheets were folded before wringing and these and pillow cases would trap air, making a kind of balloon that fizzed out air on going through the wringer. There were various makes of wringers, ours was an “Acme”.
The rinsed linen then went onto the ‘blue’ water. No housewife of the day would have dared hang out to dry any linen that had not been ‘blued’. A “Rickitts” blue-bag was a calico bag holding a block of ‘blue’ about an inch high (25mm) and an inch in diameter (25mm). The blue-bag was steeped in the water until the water was considered to be ‘blue’ enough. In later years prepared blue solutions were available in liquid form, just added to the water. After bluing, the linen was wrung again, then those items that were to be starched were attended to. Sometimes all linen was starched, sheets, pillow cases, tablecloths, dresses and shirts, everything. In other cases only special items were done, such as collars and cuffs, doilies and tablecloths. Granulated starch was used, which looked a bit like pop-corn. The starch was dissolved in cold water, then diluted according to the use intended, weaker for bedding, stronger for collars and cuffs. The items were dipped in the starch solution, squeezed out, then all was ready for the line. Of interest to note that shirts were bought with one or two detachable collars for ease of starching and ironing, they were attached with collar studs.
By this time the second copper full would be ready to come out and into the rinse water. These items being more heavily soiled, would need extra attention, either by vigorously rubbing between the hands or on a washboard. The washboard was a wooden frame with an insert of corrugated wood, metal or glass. The soiled clothes were rubbed with soap, then scrubbed up and down the corrugations until clean. After rinsing and wringing out these items were ready for the line. They were not put through the blue water.
The clothes line was a length of No.8 fencing wire strung between two posts, with a ‘prop’, a length of sapling with a forked end, in the middle of the line.
The earliest washing machine I remember was my auntie’s. It consisted of an upright cylinder into which the clothes were put. A plunger with a long handle was mounted to the rim of the cylinder and you had to work the plunger up and down to agitate the clothes. This would have been in the early 1940s. Mum’s first washing machine, a “Lightening” also manually operated, resembled a concrete mixer with beaters on the inside and a handle on the rim of the top to turn the barrel. You had to give it a certain number of revolutions depending on how soiled the wash was. The next washing machine Mum had was a Kelvinator “Trayway”. It was really a washing machine without a tub. The machine was filled over one of the compartments of the wash trough with the agitator suspended into the trough. The theory was alright, but if the bottom of the trough was at all rough, the clothes managed to get between the agitator and the bottom of the trough and got ground up. So that system never really got off the ground.
After the washing was dry, the linen was ironed. Remember there was no drip dry or non-irons in those days, synthetic materials were a dream of the future. Irons were of many designs, from the simple flat iron, through to hollow irons into which could be placed hot coals, to the lighter, pump-up, petrol irons. The old flat irons were placed on the top of a wood stove, when they were hot enough, one was taken off, using a pot holder on the handle, as that got hot too. The bottom of the iron was rubbed in some salt laid on a sheet of brown paper to clean it. The item to be ironed was damped, either by flicking a little water on it with the fingers, or sometimes a bottle with a perforated cap was used as a sprinkler. One iron was used until it lost its heat, then it was returned to the stove and another iron taken in its place. The introduction of the petrol iron was a boon, as the iron remained hot, so there was no swapping over of irons, also the bottom of the iron remained clean. Actually the iron did not run on petrol, but Shellite or Essolite, probably a safer fuel.
You will notice throughout I have used the term “wash house” and not “laundry”. On the country farms, the wash house was usually either a ‘lean-to’ skillion external to the house or a completely separate building. It was not until I began in the building industry in 1950 that a laundry became integral within a house, probably because it was about then that a hot water system was built into every new house.
Our wash house had other uses besides washing clothes. In one corner was a butter churn, where we churned cream into butter. Mum would salt the lovely golden-yellow butter and pat it into shape with two fluted wooden butter-pats. Spread on fresh baked home-made bread it was manna of the Gods. On a small table was a Coolgardie safe. We had no refrigeration or ice, so keeping food cool in hot weather was a problem. A Coolgardie safe was a wooden frame about two feet square (600mm) and about three feet high (900mm), with a door on the front. Over this frame towelling was fixed, making it fly proof. On top of the box was a metal tray, about two inches deep (50mm), which was filled with water. Strips of towelling were placed in the water, over the sided of the tray and on to the towelling sides. Capillary action kept the towelling sides wet, evaporation caused cooling, so we had a cool store for perishables. The whole safe stood in a metal tray, which served two purposes. One to catch surplus water as it seeped down the sides and two to keep out foraging ants.
Another essential housed in the wash house was the ever-present kerosene tin. When containing kerosene, the tin had a small sheet metal pump in it and was used to fill our lamps. Originally, one inch (25mm) wick lamps, but later we got an “Aladdin” lamp with a circular wick and an incandescent mantle, which gave off twice as much light. The kerosene tin when empty had many uses about the farm, other than filling the bath, as mentioned before. In the dairy they were invaluable, there were no plastic buckets then.
So, you lucky people, when next you do some washing. Go to your laundry, turn on the hot and cold taps, fill your automatic washing machine, add some detergent, perhaps a little stain remover and press the button. Come back in an hour or two, put the clothes in the tumble dryer for half an hour, take them out, fold them up and put them away. Then make yourself a cup of coffee and sit down and remember how it was done sixty years ago.