The Judge Eghart House

On laundry day, the copper boiler would be filled with boiling water and the clothes were boiled until clean. A washbowl with scrub-board on the kitchen table, a basket of laundry soaps at the ready and some elbow grease would be used to get stains out of table linens and little boys’ knickers.  Flatirons and a ruffle-making iron heat up on the kitchen stove next to a boiler full of simmering laundry. The ruffle-maker on the right was used to create ruffled borders to clothing and fancier  linens.The irons were heated on the nearby stove, and replaced with a hot iron when one grew too cool to press the linens and clothing.

Many clotheslines were stretched in the back yard to accommodate all the bed and table linens that would be washed along with all the clothing. The drying rack could be used indoors near the wood-burning stove to dry or heat clothing, sheets or blankets. The hydrangea bushes also helped, laundry dried out in the sun was naturally whitened by the sun. In summer, the laundry would have been done in the summer kitchen, removed from the main house. In winter, the kitchen would have been very steamy.