More About Ironing
March 9 2010
- Distilled water!
In “Aeons of Ironing” (sequel to "Loads of Laundry")I didn’t get into that extra problem with the early steam irons, though it was part of the reason why they were so temperamental. You couldn’t find distilled water in stores as easily as you can now, and when we didn’t have it we used plain tap water. Winifred Motherwell, whose reminiscences about ironing inspired the “Aeons” piece, wrote me after reading it that “The instructions always called for distilled water and the homemaking magazines were full of usually ineffective ways to ‘distill’ tap water for irons.” She added, “I’d forgotten the smell of freshly ironed cotton, but it’s a pleasure I can forgo for the ease of ironing today.”
Gloria Pond also was remembering the smells of ironing. She wrote me, “Almost smelling the near-scorch fragrance that arises from freshly-pressed still warm fabric, I have just relived with your Neighborhood piece 65 years’ experience ironing Daddy’s handkerchiefs, my dresses, starched petticoats, blouses, Larry’s shirts, table linens, curtains et al, and thank you for the reminiscence with no backache.” She recalled that “My California mother used to keep the ironing board permanently set up in the cool cellar and take down a portable radio for baseball games and Mary Margaret McBride’s daily hour of chitchat.”
Sally Barret wrote, “I vividly remember my mother ironing with the Red Sox on the radio. She and my father were rabid fans. I still iron every other week or so, to TV.”
Molly Katz wrote, “I don’t think I’ve ironed anything since the 60s,” and inquired, “What’s a mangle? Is it like a sleeve board?” Because I’d only observed Don’s mother’s mangle, never used it, and because the dictionary just defined it as “a machine for ironing laundry by passing it between heated rollers,” I asked Don to explain it, and he replied to Molly that “Yes, a mangle is like a sleeve board, only the board is a rotating cylinder controlled by the operator, rather like a sewing machine. The iron is a crescent-shaped press brought down upon the material being fed over the rotating cylinder. Wherever the name came from, the items often were mangled.”
Lib Kennedy, who’ll turn ninety this year, wrote, “I did stints on my mother’s mangle. I learned on napkins and handkerchiefs (which we all used before Kleenex) and later graduated to tablecloths, sheets, etc. I still have the mangle in my cellar. I’m sure no one wants it now, but it’s free if they do!! Now I don’t buy anything that has to be ironed.”
Jen Davis-Kay, a member of a younger generation, wrote that “I think of ironing—and mending—as opportunities to catch up on all the movies I’ve taped off Turner Classic Movies, which then pile up.” She added, “My friends always seem puzzled when I mention my mending basket, and I’m left to wonder what’s different in my household. Are we harder on clothes than the normal person? Or are modern-day women more inclined to throw out holey socks, pants, nightshirts? If something is thoroughly worn out, I will of course send it on its way, but a split seam? Come on!”
Mending. Now that’s an idea for a new “Neighborhood” topic, but I did get into it a bit in “Children of the Great Depression” with the mention of turning collars and darning socks. In The Husband Bench I wrote that Bev hates mending so much that her kids outgrew clothes before she got around to mending them. Here in our household, Don has learned that if he wants something mended, he’d better do it himself. My intentions are good, I always mean to get to the mending, but I have a mental block and simply keep forgetting. The other afternoon I discovered that Don had rooted around in my mother’s wooden mending bucket for needle and thread and was sitting in his wing chair mending a sock. It should have been a pathetic sight and I should have felt guilty, but instead I laughed.
© 2010 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved
