HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY – PRESSING ON

Today as I think of mothers everywhere, I give gratitude for labor-saving progress that has improved the lot of all women and homemakers. Since we were talking about ironing recently, I "updated" my thoughts with a look back to the day when ironing was not electrified.

I believe the first iron I remember in my Mother's home was not a steam iron – just a simple electric iron. Probably by 1960 Mother had a steam iron, but it didn't change the ironing process. She still sprinkled the clothes before she ironed them since the steam alone was not adequate to the task in her opinion. In fact, I suspect if she were here today, she would still sprinkle some items even though irons now emit a shot of steam or a fine spray of water to help erase a particularly tough wrinkle. Even I will sprinkle an old linen tablecloth or a cotton blouse before ironing it.

A friend was telling me that while visiting her granddaughter, a young mother, she asked to use her iron. The granddaughter confessed that she didn't own an iron. My friend and I agreed that we would not be able to get along without an iron and we often leave the ironing board up. It seems that something always needs pressing and the iron is still an absolute must for the seamstress. Mother advised that good sewing was in the pressing as much as in the stitching.

But – ironing in my mother's day still seems like modern times to me. Here at the farmhouse, Grandma Ina didn't ever have electricity – still didn't have it when she passed on in 1957. Once, when Mother and I were cleaning the farmhouse in the '60s, she decided a curtain needed pressing. She considered taking it back to town, but you know how it is – she wanted to finish the job at hand. She decided to take advantage of the fire in the old wood cook stove and use Ina's flat irons to press the curtain, thereby also giving me a demonstration of how it used to be done. She put several of the flat irons onto the stove. After some length of time, she inserted the interchangeable wooden handle into one of the irons and gave it the sizzle test (moistened index finger). It was a must to test the iron, perhaps as much to be sure it was not too hot as hot enough. When she deemed the iron temperature adequate, she commenced to iron the curtain. As the iron lost heat and became less effective, she put it back on the stove, picked up another iron, tested it for heat, and continued ironing. Believe me, she worked quickly in order to cover the most "ground" possible before the iron lost heat.

[In the first photo, my paternal grandmother, Ina Dobson, appears a little self-conscious as she hangs clothes in the grove in 1921. The second photo is probably Ina's youngest child, Aunt Shirley, hanging clothes in the 1930s. And here's a photo of Ina's flat irons and some of her other laundry tools which I use to decorate my laundry room. Mike weighed one of the irons in the old Dobson cradle scale -- 4 pounds. I don't know if the little one is a toy or if it was used to press out corners of shirts and blouses. At any rate, I found it in the old toy box. Flat irons make excellent doorstops.] KW

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