A long time ago

[PWC]

How many remember flannel PJs? Every winter when the Alberta Clipper jumped the 2 strands of barbed wire and came down onto Oklahoma, my mother would have a thick pair of flannel PJs. 68 years ago they 8didn't have waffle weave long johns with cuffs round the ankles only the scratchy kind.

Mom, sisters, and grandma made quilts. Sadly, all but 1 has been lost thru childrens divorce.

Wash day on a wringer washer and hanging on a line, mom' hands would turn as red as a 12 ga shell. After mom said they were freeze dried, I would go out, take them down and break them onto the laundry basket.

Our bathroom had a little gas stove, and I remember at 8 lighting that stove for a bath; " remember light the wooden match, then turn on the gas slowly and stick p it in the ceramic grate." Use a hatchet to split kindling. My grandkids...no way!

My parents were born in 1911. Grand mother was born on 1886 in a covered wagon in Oklahoma Indian Territory near Apache OK. She could skip a tin can across the ground with her pump .22.

That's when I learned girls can shoot

[Allen]

Ironically my mother had a .22 pump. The only gun she had and now I have it, a 1890 Win. with an '06 barrel. I assume the round barrel was installed to make the gun lighter than having the octagon barrel. I asked her, she didn't know. She said she would pick up a box of .22 LR in the grocery store for 25 cents. They were on the shelf like anything else for sale.

My grandmother had a wringer washer and a flattened finger tip that got caught in it one day.

I grew up with the little space heaters too.

[barretcreek]

Maternal grandmother had a wringer washer too, and a coal fired furnace. Uncle lived on first floor and she lived on third. Rented second; tenant's kid stuck his arm in the wringer.
Near North Side of Chi.

[Vern Humphrey]

After WWII, houses were being built everywhere. There was a dump near where I lived with my grandparents in Lake Charles, LA. I used to pull my wagon to the dump and load it with off-cuts. My grandmother used them to build the fire under the wash boiler (looked like a witch's kettle.)

[dryheat]

Flannels? it just made sense. There's no argument. If anyone wants to aurgu about it.

[lyman]

my Wife's maternal grandmother uses a 'semi auto' wringer washer until the day she passed,
big barrel looking washer on a stand, with the wringer above it, and what looked like a gear shift for a tractor or big truck one one corner to make the washer work (hense semi auto,,, a joke)


my maternal grandparents lived on a farm,
house built in 1835, updated sometime around or before WW2,
oil heater in the one bathroom, and in the grandparents bedroom (the room was the original Doc office for the doc that build the house) and a wood stove in the main room
the bedrooms upstairs were not heated, (doors to each heated room were kept closed, the house had little insulation)

so when visiting in the cold months , we slept under a handful of quilts, handful sometimes being 6 or more,

[PWC]

This year I'll be 79. I now have time to realize what those that went before did for me, and that's only the things I know of. It's an honor and a blessing to remember them.

[lyman]

This year I'll be 79. I now have time to realize what those that went before did for me, and that's only the things I know of. It's an honor and a blessing to remember them.

well said,


re that wringer washer, I remember when she passed (peacefully in her sleep) and he husband, (wife's grandfather) moved in with her mom, they cleaned out the house and sold the old , still working like it was new, washer for more than you could buy a new modern washer for


I joked with the wife that we should have taken it home, since she hated the one we had, but she said her grandmother never taught her how to use it,,,
I do know you had to roll it over to the sink and attach a hose to it for water

[SDigger]

Pushing 70 hard & can still recall the coin fed gas meter’s that fired up the old copper wash tubs that nana used along with the hand wringer later 50’s,the old 20ga rabbit shotgun the grandparents both used from earlier previous year’s to feed their kids (mum & siblings) through the hard times in Oz.Flannel pj’s & hot water bottles we used in the winter time’s too.

[Allen]

Wringer washer. For those of you who may not have seen one the wringers (2 of them) above the washer looked like big kitchen rolling pins covered in rubber. I remember my grandmother (who used it) saying the wringers were really bad for cracking/breaking plastic buttons.

[dryheat]

There used to be an old saying; 'got his tail caught in the wringer.'

[Mark in Ottawa]

I remember the wringer washers very well. When I was about 11 years old, my mother got a new one that, unlike our old one, had a pressure release so that if you caught your arm in the wringer, the top would release and you wouldn't break a bone - a major safety improvement.

[RED]

Do you remember blueing?

I was 4 years old on the back porch when my mother was washing clothes in a wringer washing machine. There were other tubs with rinsing water, blueing water, and bleaching water. I was playing when I ran into a red wasp nest and they stung me dozens of times. We lived in Cass, AR (look it up) and we were isolated. My mother doctored me. She used turpentine, mixed with sugar and baking soda. I regained consciousness after 3 hours or so.

No big deal! How many of todays mothers would know what to do?

[Allen]

Do you remember blueing?

I was 4 years old on the back porch when my mother was washing clothes in a wringer washing machine. There were other tubs with rinsing water, blueing water, and bleaching water. I was playing when I ran into a red wasp nest and they stung me dozens of times. We lived in Cass, AR (look it up) and we were isolated. My mother doctored me. She used turpentine, mixed with sugar and baking soda. I regained consciousness after 3 hours or so.

No big deal! How many of todays mothers would know what to do?

When I was very young I was stung by something, probably a wasp. One of my Grandmother's friends took a cigarette, opened it up and packed the loose tobacco on the sting wound. It, like the baking soda absorbed the wasp venom or whatever you want to call it. Decades later my brother was stung and I suggested the cigarette since he smoked. He was amazed how well and quickly it worked.

Blueing I remember. I just don't remember any of my family ever using it. I think we just used bleach. Used to see the bars or tablets in stores for sale. It is still made and used in the tablet form and now the liquid form too.

Watching the History Channel it was mentioned that before people had refrigeration and meat and milk spoiled so quickly that sellers added laundry blueing to milk to make it look more fresh and attractive. Thank God we have laws now preventing such.

[lyman]

When I was very young I was stung by something, probably a wasp. One of my Grandmother's friends took a cigarette, opened it up and packed the loose tobacco on the sting wound. It, like the baking soda absorbed the wasp venom or whatever you want to call it. Decades later my brother was stung and I suggested the cigarette since he smoked. He was amazed how well and quickly it worked.

Blueing I remember. I just don't remember any of my family ever using it. I think we just used bleach. Used to see the bars or tablets in stores for sale. It is still made and used in the tablet form and now the liquid form too.

Watching the History Channel it was mentioned that before people had refrigeration and meat and milk spoiled so quickly that sellers added laundry blueing to milk to make it look more fresh and attractive. Thank God we have laws now preventing such.

go read up on what some ice cream was back in the day,



scary,


I have heard of , but not seen Blueing used,


my Maternal Grandma, when she wasn't doctoring on us (playing on a farm tended to get you bloody or bruised once in a while, ) always went for the Salve first,
not a clue who made it or what it was, guessing some first aid cream that looked almost like Vaseline, (probably a major component of it)
she would dip a finger in the jar, rub it on you and tell you to get back outside,

sometimes if we stubbed a toe etc, it got soaked in turpentine and hot water,

wasp and bee stings??

bee stings were followed by 'I told you to wear shoes'
wasp or hornet, were followed by , ' I told you to leave that nest alone, guessing you will next time'