The Slow Lane

This wooden washtub came from my Grandpa’s. I remember it being used when clothes were washed under the shelter. The shelter was part of a multi-use building. The car was parked under one shelter with enclosed sides. There was a ladder leading up to the loft where the washtub was stored. The other shelter had a front part which was used primarily for washing clothes. The back part was used to house an old Delco power plant that was used to generate electricity before REA came through with power lines. This is an early memory of the Delco. I don’t remember much about it except that it had a lot of black soot in that part of the shelter. There was a door to get to that part of the shelter. Later, when I was older, the back part of the shelter was used as a smokehouse.

Wooden washtubs were soon replaced with galvanized metal washtubs which I associate with the wringer type washing machines.

I don’t know when people stopped using curtain stretchers. I never saw one used. Lucinda remembers one at a relative’s house, vaguely. We acquired this one many years ago probably at an estate or moving sale at the house where L remembers seeing one used. It was stored in our attic and moved a couple of times. You know, it was an antique, a unique artifact of olden times too rare to get rid of.  Besides, if one didn’t need a curtain stretcher, there should be some other adaptive use of the measured inch marks on the wood with the nicely spaced thin nails one inch apart. Now I’m not so sure, and we are ready to part with it. So far we’ve had no response on Craig’s list or Freecycle.

As I understand, the stretcher was used when sheer curtains (and perhaps others) were washed and put on the curtain stretcher to dry. When carefully attached to the thin nails along the wood frame, the starched curtains would dry and not need to be ironed.

My daughters have suggested that I document some of the tools, etc. that I have collected and how they are/were used. They also want right of refusal for anything I’m ready to part with. They were not interested in the curtain stretcher.