The Washing Monument

There has been a lot written about laundry lately in the family blogsosphere here and here. And I'm adding a little more. We just replaced our Harvest Gold washer and dryer (that came with the house) with a new set of front loaders. We stacked them so we'd have room to put in a deep sink, and WOW does it look cool! I must explain why the front loader: my mother had a front loading washing machine all of my life. She insisted (correctly I might add) that it does a better job of cleaning and it also uses less water to do so. Now that I live in the desert, using less water is important. I've owned only three washers in my life:

#1 was an old laundromat Speed Queen purchased for $50 from my former employer at Betsy Brown's Cleaning Town on University Avenue in San Diego. I worked there, part-time for about three years, quitting just before baby #2 was born. The washer was critical because I suddenly had two sets of cloth diapers to wash, including all the rest of our clothes. Since I wasn't going to the laundry (to work) everyday, the clothes had to be washed somehow. We just took the coin box out, and it had two cycles: on and off. But it was so durable that it lasted through three more babies (with the occasional belt or spin-clutch replacement by the versatile Cool Guy) before the motor just burned up. Then, back to the laundromat: our house in Port Hueneme did not have a washer hook-up (disabled by our cranky landlord to prevent flooding) and I took 15 loads a week out to be washed. Yes, 15. For six years. I had a system and a dryer---I washed out and dried in with the help of the rest of the capable crew.

#2 We rented a house with a new washer and dryer and inherited it when we left and our landlord could not return our cleaning deposit because of his financial straits. He traded me. I think I got the better end of that deal, what with the Oriental rugs and all he threw in to sweeten the pot. That set was bequeathed when a baby was born and the parents had a washer hook-up in their apartment.

#3 The new set....which brings me to the monument. My mom always owned a front loader, but was not always able to use it. When I was a youngster, our house water pipe would freeze most winters. This was the pipe leading from the spring to the house. It would happen if too many hard frosts came before the heavy snows, letting the cold creep down far enough to affect the main water pipe. My dad would go out and build a series of fires along the pipeline to thaw it out. One winter, the fires didn't work and the pipes burst leaving us with no water piped into the house for almost a year. We had to wait until spring to replace the pipeline. So my mom borrowed a wringer washer from her mother-in-law, and did the laundry for nine people, (including cloth diapers and chore clothes) the old-fashioned way from November till September. It took that long for the whole project. Each Monday morning my dad brought into the kitchen two milkcans of scalding water from the creamery in town. Mother would start up the washer, dipping from the cans while they were still hot, and wash everything, load by load. These clothes didn't go into a dryer. If it wasn't snowing, they went outside (to freeze-dry). If it was snowing, she hung them on lines over the stairs so the warm air could waft up and dry them. Then of course they got ironed--every single piece; no perma-press back then.

So: the monument: I got these awesome new machines because when she died last spring, she'd saved enough money to leave each of her kids a little something. And I've spent my little "something" on a product I know she'd love and I will too.