The White River Museum is a wonderful way to spend an hour or two. Teresia, Kevyn, staff and the Historical Society have organized it into a place full of ooohs and ahhhhs. I highly recommend a visit if you haven’t been in for a while to see new things and revisit old memories. One room always draws me into the everyday world of the housewife. It is the room with all the LABOR-SAVING DEVICES of the 20th century. You know, gadgets like washing machines, butter churns, toasters hand operated cherry pitters, meat grinders, sausage stuffers and corn strippers. My great-grandmother, Grace, pretty much raised five kids on her own. My great-grandfather, Edward, was a railroad conductor and was away most of the time traveling three states. Grace rented out small cabins to the single coalminers in Lafayette, Colorado and cooked meals for them. She was born in Ohio in 1872 to two English immigrants. She was remembered by family as a lady who would pour her coffee or tea cup into her saucer to cool and drink from the saucer. I assume she pointed her little pinkie out while she did this. She referred to the garage as the carriage house, pronounced with a “G,” like “garriagehouse.” Grace cooked on a cast-iron stove. Actually, she had two stoves. One was outside under the porch overhang. She used this one in summer so she wouldn’t overheat the house while cooking for her family and the boarders. This was rather ingenious, I think, since her coal cookstove was always lit. One day a week was set aside for baking bread, which was an all-day affair. Cooking those days involved having something cooking from 5 a.m. to after dinner in the evening. Coalminers, before unions, worked a 12-hour shift. My great-aunt remembered painfully being told as a girl that should couldn’t have a piece of pie. All the dozens of fruit pies being baked were for sale to the boarders for extra money. Money that was needed to keep a family fed and in shoes. Housework was an 18-hour job, seven days a week. I am very proud of her. Cleaning a floor meant pulling the heavy rugs, hanging them outside and beating them with a rug beater, mopping the hardwood floor with a string mop and water hand pumped from the well. Today we just whip out a Swiffer, slide it over the engineered flooring and pull out the electric vacuum. Wash was accomplished once a week with water boiled on the stove, lye soap, and a washboard. Drying the clothes meant wood clothes pins and a clothes line strung up outside. She always had to gamble on weather and a neighbor upwind not burning his garbage in his ashpit. This usually resulted in a lot of unladylike swearing. Ironing, (YOU KNOW THAT THING BEFORE WASH AND WEAR CLOTHES), was done with a heavy cast-iron plate heated on the stove, then attached when hot to a wood handle. Repeat that a few dozen times and you will understand why women didn’t need to go to a fitness room to work out. You can still buy washboards by the way if you want to “experience the good old days”. The first time I saw one was in McGuckin’s Hardware in Boulder. McGuckins’s is a legend for having everything you ever needed or imagined. Not only will they direct you to the aisle, they will ask you what SIZE of washboard you want. I will cover the lure and wonder of touring hardware stores in a future article. SO, NEXT TIME YOUR WASHBOARD WEARS OUT, YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND ONE
By ED PECK – Special to the Herald Times
