My grandmother hung clothes out on sub-zero days in Minnesota. Fierce prairie winds removed some of the moisture. Then she’d carry in a stack of grandpa’s freeze-dried pants and stand them upright in the corner of the basement. She hung them on the basement clothesline overnight, and by morning, Grandpa was in them.
My grandmother had two; my mother has one; and I have one. Once, every backyard had a clothesline.
On washday I used to follow my grandmother to her clotheslines. Although I was too short to hang clothes, I was a dutiful clothespin holder. I’d hand her a well-timed clothespin—just as the corners of the sheet came together. I felt so useful. Once the clothes were dry, being close to the ground was an asset. I’d fold the clothes as she dropped them in the clothesbasket. I took a break once, and when I returned I found a lump in one of grandpa’s shirts. And it moved. When I tried to fold it, a dozing cat objected.
Elsie Penner, their neighbor, told my grandmother about her husband Ike’s cataract surgery over the clothesline. While you hung clothes you talked—about remedies for the croup, how to fend off cutworms and the unwelcome advances of the lusty druggist. At the clothesline you always took away news you could use, like the arrival of the Janzen’s baby.
The clothesline was the earliest birth announcement. Diapers and pink bibs flapping in the breeze revealed the arrival of the Janzen’s baby girl long before they got their announcements in the mail. From the number of bibs you could tell that she spit up a lot. Colic was sure to be a topic over the clothesline on the next washday.
There was sustenance among the socks and sheets—a tender trade-off of useful and comforting conversation took place as Minnesota prairie winds dried and stiffened the laundry. There were disasters too—in one flyover a bird full of mulberries could mar the morning’s work.
A rhythmic order and efficiency reigned on washday, which was always on Monday. First, grandma walked the length of the clothesline with a damp rag before she hung anything. Water was a prized commodity, so the whites were washed first, then the colored clothes, then Grandpa’s gas and oil-stained work clothes were washed with Fels Naptha, and lastly, the rugs. This succession ensured you could recycle the water with each load.
White clothes where hung with other whites. Sheets and towels were hung on the outside lines to hide personal items from prying eyes. No self-respecting woman would hang her brassieres or her husband’s underwear on the outside lines for all to see.
It was unthinkable to display your unmentionables.
Each item didn’t need two clothespins, but shared a clothespin with the item next to it. Now that’s true efficiency. The clothespins were never left out in the elements; only the slovenly left clothespins on the line to produce stains on next Monday’s wash.
If you had plenty of clotheslines, you could hang your clothes taut from clothespin to clothespin. But if the amount of wash exceeded the amount of clothesline, you could let clothes sag at the center. You’d never hang a shirt by its shoulders since that left marks and little bulges that gave the wearer the appearance of growths or protrusions. But there were worse things. If you left your clothes out in the rain—this was announcing your sloth to the world. If you left them out overnight, you were considered just plain nuts. It was like a certificate of insanity, and you steered clear of the homes that had wash out for days.