Honoring My Grandmothers

Posing with my paternal grandma,
Mamie Irene Tripp Gates when she
62 years old

_{Today, August 11, marks the 119th birthday of my maternal grandma, Gladys Vivian Rainey Smith. August 16th will be the 124th birthday of Mamie Irene Tripp Gates, my paternal grandma. Both women worked side by side with their husbands and committed the rest of their time to the care of their children and the upkeep of their homes.  One of the hardest work days of their young lives was known as Wash Day. We 21st century Americans need to be reminded from what “hardy stock” we descend and what caliber of people gave us our DNA. Maybe that will curtail some of our tendency to complain.}
Wash Day

                A look into the past provides a perspective that triggers a thankfulness that may be lacking in our lives. Revisiting wash day of yesteryear can do just that.

                The term for doing laundry in the days when my grandmothers were raising their children was Wash Day. The reason was simple. It literally took all day to do the family washing.

Photographed with my maternal grandma, Gladys
Vivian Rainey Smith at age 57

                The day began early with the water being drawn or pumped from the family well. In Mother's family, Grandpa Smith filled an oblong cast iron kettle with several gallons of water. He carried it into the kitchen. Their Home Comfort wood stove had a couple of sections on its top that could be removed, allowing a larger space for the oblong kettle to access the heat. Since Mother was an only child, her family could do their washing on the porch. Dad’s family, with as many as nine children at home some years, often heated the water over an open fire outside.

                Mother recalled the fear she felt one wash day when Grandpa began moving the boiling water from the stove to the porch. He yelled out when the scalding hot water splashed on him. Grandpa did not have lasting injury, but it frightened Mother to witness the scary event.

                My grandma, Gladys Rainey Smith, made her own lye soap as many women of the Bend did in the early 20th century. Soap making required a whole day, too. In Grandma’s recipes, Mother located her soap recipes. One recipe she labeled “an excellent soap” had been given her in 1940, by Cora Tripp Gallatin, the sister of Grandma Gates. Mother said the soap was always made outdoors over an open fire in an enormous black kettle. 

Photo of the Recipe Grandma Smith had from Grandma Gates's sister, Cora.

Mother's Wash Board with ridges
for regular fabrics photographed

The photo of Mother's wash
board showing the smoother side for
more delicate fabrics.

                  Wash Day predated the washing machine. Instead the clothes were washed in the wash tub or kettle as Mother’s family did. Without the gyration of the washing machine of today, the clothes were doused up and down in the wash tub. For stubborn stains, the wash board was placed in the wash kettle or tub and then the garments with tough stains were rubbed on the side of the wash board with rougher raised ridges. The activity tortured the laundress’s knuckles. The flip side of the wash board had smooth raised ridges for washing finer fabrics, lingerie, or anything delicate. Mother recalled rinsing the laundry in cold water. Instead of spinning dry in the washing machine, Grandma wrung all laundry out with her hands. Grandpa wore heavy denim overalls. No wonder Grandma suffered with arthritic hands in her later years.                              Grandma Gates not only laundered Grandpa’s overalls but, at one point, she and the older girls were wringing out the overalls of four sons/brothers! My grandmothers were indomitable women.

                Even today, I still practice the next step since Mother has no clothes dryer. Clothes were taken outdoors to the clothesline. The metal wires are wiped off with a damp rag just in case they are not clean. Then each laundry piece was shaken and hung on the clothesline using clothespins. Then the rest of drying was left up to the glorious sun.

                Dad said Grandma Gates used her lye-infused wash water to mop her wooden floors of their two-room house before she tossed it out. Grandma Gates did this mopping weekly. These women lived out Waste not, want not.

                Washing bed linens represented a cumbersome task. Dad related Grandma Gates took unpatchable overalls and converted them into heavy quilts for the boys’ winter sleeping in the unheated bunkhouse. What laborious job laundering those heavy denim “overall” bed coverings were!

                Another day of the week had to be designated to iron the fresh laundry. My mother still expresses astonishment that her aunt, Pearl Bierman Rainey, ironed almost everything, even Uncle Lewis’s overalls and her sheets.*

                As I mused about the lye soap recipe, Jeremiah 2:22 came to my mind. The weeping prophet of the era of deliberate waywardness in Judah wrote of the sinful state of his fellow citizens in this verse:

“For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, Yet your iniquity is marked before Me,” says the LORD God. **

Embedded throughout Jeremiah’s prophecy are warnings about idolatry, injustice, disobedience, violence, insincere pleas to God for forgiveness – all based on a blatant disregard of God’s principles found in His Word. As I think about my grandmothers, both wanted their children to follow good principles. The reasons for emphasizing and requiring adherence to their principles were grounded in their concern for their children’s safety, the overwhelming desire for their children’s effective interactions with anyone they met and success at whatever work they were gifted and called to do

My grandmas had more concern that their children were “good” rather than “happy”, so they required obedience to their instructions. In the same way, God’s desire for our obedience supersedes our happiness. But what a promise Psalm 128:1-2 gives us:

Blessed is every one who fears the LORD, Who walks in His ways,  
When you eat the labor of your hands, You shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.

Our obedience results in gladness, internally and externally. As I think about my grandmas, I think how many times I heard my parents praise their mothers for instilling life-directing principles in their early lives that paid off in their adult lives.

                Lord, help us to live by Your principles as Mamie Irene Tripp Gates and Gladys Vivian Rainey Smith did. May we not take the easy path, but the path of obedience to You -  following You. Thank you for giving us families founded on You.

*Ironing Day often followed Wash Day. This workday was featured near the end of the blog posting entitled Unsupervised Kids in the 1930s 

https://bernadeanjgates.blogspot.com/2017/10/unsupervised-kids-in-1930s.html

**The Apostle John clearly explains in his first letter, chapter one, verse how we can have our sins taken away. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.