Ironing in Yesteryear
Morning arrived and I was unprepared as far as this blog was concerned. As I struggled toward the bathroom with this on my mind, I thought back to my high school days and what would I have been doing on a Saturday morning. Now I graduated in 1945 and electricity did not come to this house ’til 1949. Saturday would have found me pressing and ironing clothes for the next week. I had some pretty wool skirts with pleats and I pressed the pleats in using a wet pressing cloth and the old black iron.
First off, the ironing board would have to have been dragged out and it was a board. My daddy made it — one end was narrower than the other, but not rounded as today’s ironing boards are. The padding was part of a worn-out quilt and the ironing board cover was a guaner (yes, I know it’s guano, but we didn’t pronounce it like that) sack. The board had no legs and had to be propped up on two straight-back chairs. The person doing the ironing had to be careful not to have one of the chairs turn over during the ironing process.
Now in that day we ironed dish clothes, men’ handkerchiefs, men’s boxer shorts and everything. Such things as pillowcases, tablecloths and wearing apparel were starched and had to be sprinkled and allowed to “set” a while before ironing. There would be a big fire in the fireplace and with lots of hot coals (red). We used two black irons — called smoothing irons — and they were set up close to the red coals to get hot. Another thing we needed was what we now call a pot holder, but back then it was called a lifting rag. John still calls it just that. The handle of those old irons were really hot, so the lifting rag had to be ample — we also had to have another rag to wipe the iron with — they would get “black” on them setting down at the fire.
Not many strokes could be made before you had to change irons and get the hot one. Ironing is a job to say the least, but in that day it was a big job requiring more than one skill. That definitely was country living.
Smoothing Irons
I get up every morning hunting your blog, love it! I remember during the hard years in the 40’s that my daddy made ironing boards that had legs & would fold up. I still iron on Mama’s. He gave each of us girls one when we married, but mine burned in our house fire in 2000. He also made baby beds & swings both for the porch & yard standing swings. All this he put on our big front porch & people would see them & stop & buy them.