A PRESSING TALE

A recent post on modernretrowoman.com served as a reminder of what was once an important homemaking skill "back in the day" – ironing. In the days before "wash and wear" or "permanent press," virtually all laundry had to be ironed, and ironing was indeed a skill. Some women earned money by taking in laundry and/or ironing. In our case, when I was very little – perhaps three, my mother had an ironing lady, Mrs. Murray, who came to the house one morning a week to press the family's laundry. Mother would set me in my youth chair and I was fascinated for the duration of Mrs. Murray's work. I loved to watch her smooth the wrinkles out of the clothes.

As older siblings left home and I was off to school, Mother no longer needed Mrs. Murray and did the ironing herself. How well I remember the process. Of course, it actually started with the washing. In the days before dryers, laundry was carefully hung on the line and smoothed for a minimum of wrinkles and creases. Mother's sprinkle bottle was a purchased corked watering cap inserted into a pop bottle, but sprinkle bottles could be purchased. She also had a "sprinkle bag," a zippered plastic sack designed for the purpose of holding the damp laundry. The bag had a divider to separate the whites from the colored clothes. As Mother sprinkled the clothes, she would fold and roll them and place them one by one in the sack, then cover it with a clean old towel and let the damp laundry set for a while. I can still smell the fresh scent of the damp textiles. Sprinkling was evidently an important step because in the whole of my growing up years she never allowed me to sprinkle the clothes. She said it was important that they not be too wet. I assume I am still an inept "sprinkler." Once the clothes were sprinkled, you were committed to finishing the job. Forget about the contents of the sprinkle bag and the clothes would mildew.

When I was 10 or so, I was assigned certain items to iron as part of my household chores — my dad's boxer shorts and pajamas, pillowcases, tablecloths, handkerchiefs, etc. Embroidered pillowcases were given special treatment. Mother taught me to put a towel under the embroidery as I pressed to protect it. (Crocheted edgings and doilies also received this special treatment.) Mother ironed all other items of clothing — and very carefully. She painstakingly pressed pleated or gathered skirts, ruffled blouses, creased pants. It was amazing what she could do with the point of her hot iron. I could never be her equal.

We also had a "mangle." My old dictionary defines a mangle as a machine for ironing laundry by passing it between heated rollers. The word could also be used as a verb – to mangle or mangling, meaning to smooth damp laundry by means of a mangle. As I recall, the operator sits on a chair in front of the mangle and places the fabric evenly over a horizontal roller, then causes that roller to move into the hot sleeve. Mother's mangle came out when she laundered the sheer curtains that hung in windows across the front of our house.

Mother's comment on permanent press: "A permanent press shirt doesn't look good unless you press it and even then it doesn't look much better." A friend points out that as life changes, our symbols change as well, and the symbol of the well-ironed shirt was disappearing. While Mother appreciated the crisp, clean lines of a beautifully pressed garment, she knew that the process of ironing was hard on textiles. She told me that she had received three sets of colored sheets when she was first married in 1929. She especially loved the lavender set, so she kept them for special and ironed them. She said that while she used that set far less, it wore out first.

[Photo – Mother's ironing board sat before this window for years. Eventually she updated and improved the little passageway, installing these "plant holders" for her African violets.] KW