Does Anyone Iron Anymore?

In honor of my mother’s 91st birthday, a reflection on laundry.

For most of my mother, Maxine’s childhood is a mystery. We could never get my mom to talk much about growing up in Quincy, Illinois. She was a depression-era baby born in 1930 and didn’t enjoy dwelling on any tale of difficulty or pain. Most of us conclude her silence meant a difficult time. However, Mom was quite ready to tell us about her job at 14, working at a local laundry and being in charge of the operation at 15. Her salary went directly to support her family. 

I am sure it was this pride and early expertise that made her such a laundry machine. Before the current lazy genius way of life, my mother had already figured that out by raising 12 kids and washing their dirty clothes. Growing up, I remember the routines to make managing that amount of laundry doable. During the school week, we had two changes in Catholic school uniforms. Mom loved the laundry-reducing benefits of a school uniform! We immediately hung our uniforms and changed into play clothes when we got home. Clothing left on the floor got smelly and wrinkled faster. I am pretty sure play clothes are just what we wear every day.

After we left for school, my mother would go upstairs, straighten rooms, and take any dirty laundry down to the washer. Then she locked the upstairs rooms. We had hook-and-eye latches on the outside of our doors so that the youngest ones still at home wouldn’t go in and mess with clean rooms. When we returned home from our school day, there would be clean and folded laundry to take upstairs and put away.

Lest you think, my mother spent her whole day doing laundry; that was the mystery. Mom would be in the TV room when we returned home watching her soaps, “One Life to Live” and “General Hospital.”

She taught me how to iron a shirt: sides, yoke, collar, then cuffs. She used sizing, never starch. For the life of me, I have looked for Magic Sizing in the local stores for months and can’t find it anywhere. Proof that most of us don’t iron anymore. Maxine hated dry cleaning. I can’t count the times I’d be out shopping with her, and she’d say, “Don’t get it: it requires dry cleaning.” She’d sure as heck iron it but don’t ask her to go to the cleaners. 

When any of the twelve kids came home, Mom did our laundry, and she did our ironing. Gary and I lived with our six children for ten months in her home. She did all the laundry for our family. Even in her 70’s’ Mom could pace and keep focused. Gary and I would scratch our heads wondering how in the world she got it all done.

Whenever I moved into a new home, my mother’s first question would always be, “Where is the laundry room? She thought it was lunacy to have it anywhere else but right next to or in the kitchen. Everything you need to keep the home running in one space. Lazy genius. 

There were other habits to my mom’s laundry routines. My mother would never let us operate her washer or dryer. If she was in the house, you did not touch her machines. She just took care of her stuff and didn’t want someone else who didn’t care as much as she did to break it. As a testament to my mother’s common-sense practicality, she was a personal friend to the mechanic who came and serviced our machines. Twenty years after moving into her home, the original dryer is still in operation, approaching 40 working years, and we only replaced the original washer about five years ago. 

Even when mom moved to a senior retirement community, she asked that my husband Gary bring his dress shirts over to iron. Laundry was her love language and her practical way of serving others enduring through her physical decline.

Mom’s ironing board is gone, and Gary irons his shirts these days. All those who live in our home do their laundry. But I have learned from Mom that while we are still together, everyday living, whether laundry, cooking, or cleaning, is an opportunity we get to do with and for those we love.