Thursday, September 04, 2008

At one time our acadian ancestors would wash their clothes on the banks of the rivers and streams. And they would sometime used a baille (barrel) made of wood ,usually a flour barrel or other barrel that were cut down to the height they wanted with usually two hole punched through to use as handles. They would send someone to get some well water to fill up the baille with and heat the water. They would first soak the clothes , remove the stains by rubbing real hard against a wash board. Then they had to change the water to rinse the clothes and then wring the clothes out by hand. And finally to hang the clothes on some kind of line to dry them. The more water they wrung out of the clothes the faster they would dry on the line. I was reading in the book Life in our Ancestors in Acadie and it continued to say that it would make the women feel great to be able to hang her clothes on the line before her neighbor did. After a good half day of sun, she could take her clothes off the line and iron them. On the top right is the kind of iron that they may have used. They would heat the iron over some hot fire or stove and then iron their clothes. Are we not lucky? We have automatic washers, automatic dryers, iron free clothing. Can you imagine how excited our great great grandmothers would be if only they could open their eyes today to see the many changes that has occured? I remember my mother had a wringer washing machine and she had a metal tub that she would fill with water and rinse her clothes in the tub and hang the clothes on her clothesline, I used to love the smell of the clothes after being in the nice fresh air for part of the day.

I do hope you have enjoyed todays blog, and I hope you will stop by again for a visit. I always enjoy sharing my stories with you. Have a great day


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