A note from Steve

Sorry about the double post, but Mom got interrupted and is still getting used to blogging and forgot to hit publish, so it was saved twice. Oh, well live and learn.

More thoughts...

I know I promised to go on with the story of my father but I washed today and got to thinking.. Bad idea! How many of you have ever had to wash on an old fashioned washboard? When I was growing up Mother used one and I never thought much about it. It was just something Moms did! She did, at one time have a gasoline run washing machine but still had to rinse all the clother by hand! I was married after Pearl Harbor which started WW2 and all metal products went into making tanks, bullets,etc. You could not buy a washing machine, refrigerator or aanything, no matter how much money you had! If you already had one you were O.K. but with Cappy and I, who had no furniture, let alone a washer and I have never. in all my married life and beyond had a dryer that I owned! So we were living out on a ranch where Cappy, my husband, worked with the Mexican Nationals that the Govt. hired to do the work for the men who were called into the Military. We had a nice "little" house furnished to us but there was no washing machine and so I had to buy a washboard and then the hard work began! We had a couple of "deep sinks and the washboard would go into one with the warm water and a bar of soap that was mainly lye, and so nice for the hands! I would take the jeans and heavier clothing, lay it on the board and take a heavy duty scrub brush, (incase someone doesn't kow what that is, women used to get down on their hands and knees and scrub their wooden floors to get them, as in my Grandmother's case, snow-white! Anyway, I would scrub and scrub those jease and clothing till all the grass stains, mud, etc. came out of them, then they would go into thee other tub where there was clean water and then they were "rinsed". Most of the time, they were rinsed once and then that water was drained out and clean water put in the sink and rinsed again. One had to wring the water out of the clothes by hand and then they were taken outside and hung on a clothesline to dry! Finally the war was over and one put their name on a list and you waited until your name came up before you could buy a new washing machine! The first washing machine I had was so old-fashioned that these big paddles would go around in the machine and literally bounce up and down on the clothes till they were, (or so the machine thought) clean! You still had to wring them and go through the rinsing process! Oh, the "ggod old days"!
Now back to my Father. He wqs working for the W.P.A. for #60.00 a Mo., remember? Well as the economy started to pick up he got a job in Kellogg, Idaho for a big mining Co. We had moved from Grandpa's house before this because Joe, my brother was born and there just wasn't enough room!!! We found a big house, two story about two blocks from the Immaculate Heart Academy, which was really nice. No more about 2 miles to school! I was a Senior there by this time and Mom had another baby, my brother David! My Grandfather died while we were living on "Wallace " Ave. infact he died about a month after I graduated! and so Aunt Josie had us move back in with hermove back up to the house with her. From there Dad got word about a new sawmill that was going in at White Pines, Ca. and so we moved to Ca. Dad came down first and the family came to Ca. before school started. But that starts another whole story so I'll stop for now. Love you all!

More about Dad, but first,

I know I said I woul continue with Dad but..... I did my washing today and got to thinking how very lucky people are today!!! So, I have to carry my laundry out to a shared laundry room, washing only when someone else hasn't tied the laundry up!!! But that is a minor thing! How many of you out there ever washed your clothes on a good old washboard? Believe me it wasn't fun!! When I was a child and saw my mother doing that I did,t think much about it! It was one of those many things that Moms did in those days, especially if you lived where we did in Wawawai, Wa. and had no electricity!!!!! Then after I was married which was right after Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese attacked our military bases in the Hawaiian Islands. Everything machinery-wise in the United States was sent into the war effort! All the metal, etc. and so they stopped making the "little" convenient things like washing machines. Now you could not buy a washer, if your life depended upon it!!! And dryers! I don't think they were making too many of those any way!!! I never in all my married life owned a dryer!!! So out came the good old wash boards!!! I used to put the heavy clothes like the jeans, etc. into a sink, (one of those deep kind, remember? or is there any of those anymore!) Then put the washboard into the sind and lay the jeans on it an reach for a scrub brush, (a heavy-duty kind that was once used to clean your wooden floors!!) I would grab a bar of laundry soap, most of it was made from lye, and rub it onto the jeans and scrub the heck out of the jeans until they came clean. Then you wrung (or squeased the water and soaout of them, threw them into a second deep sink with clean water in it. You sloshed (my word!) them around and sqeezed them again and then refilled the sink and rinsed them over again!!! Oh! Those good old days! Then you hung them on lines strung up in the yard and let the wind, or if it was hot enough, they would dry. Wrinkled, but happily clean and you didn't do this job every day!!! Once a week, if you were lucky!!! Any other clothes could be scrubbed on the washboard! Cotton shirts, underwear, and whatever! It was fun if you like hard, hard work!!! And everything had to be ironed! Some people were crazy enough to iron their jeans, sheets pillow cases, or whatever but one has to draw the line somewhere!!!!!



Back to Dad. After things started getting better with the New Deal programs from President Roosevelt, Dad got a job up in Wallace and Kellogg, Idaho working for the big mining companies that were going full blast! He and a neighbor share the ride up there, Dad one week and this guy the next!!! In the meantime, we had to move from Grandpa's house because #9 was on the way! This suited us because we were only two blocks from the Acadamy!!! I was now in my Senior year in High School, Genevieve and Bob in High school there too and the others down to Teresa, I think, were in Grammer school there.