Maggie's Farm

I read that all the "time-saving" household appliances didn't really save time in the end. Carpets used to be taken up and brought outside occasionally to be hung up and beaten. Twice a year they'd be changed out. Along comes the vacuum and now they get vacuumed constantly. Laundry was done as things actually got dirty -- you wrote clothes much more than once because washing was such a chore to do. Now, we do at least one load every day.

They may not have saved time, but they sure did make chores a LOT easier to do!!!

My dad was a little boy in the late twenties and early thirties. He lived part of his younger childhood in a small town in upstate New York. He told me about the house: the front room and kitchen had electricity. There was a large wood stove. They had a wash tub that would be heated up on the stove. You'd crank it by hand, and there was a wringer on it to wring out the clothes. I think you'd wash hot but rinse cold.

The bed rooms had no electricity. The wood stove cooked, heated water for laundry, and provided heat for the house. (I never figured out what went on with bathing. It seemed to me that there was some sort of a water heater set up with the wood stove. They had running water... I wish I could ask about it, but my dad passed away fifteen years ago.)