From the Home Place

December 23, 2025

Please allow me to set the record straight, around this outfit, I run things! I run things like the dishwasher, the vacuum cleaner, and the washing machine and dryer. As I was visiting with the Lord around 3 a.m. today, my mind wandered back to helping my mom do laundry for the eight of us. An old ringer machine sat in the porch and each Saturday we would do laundry, starting at daylight with the lighting of mom’s wood burning kitchen stove. That meant lots of extra wood for the stove. When the top of the stove was too hot to touch, we would place three milk pails full of fresh water onto said stove.

While the water was coming to a boil, we would drag the old wringer machine into the center of the porch. Then we would go outside and carry in the two “rinse” tubs. They were made of galvanized steel and stood on their own legs; one leg was bent and twisted enough that it had to sit up against a wall with a brick underneath the leg, so the tubs were fairly level.

Those tubs were then filled half full of cold water for rinsing clothes as they came out of the washing machine. By the way, all of the water was carried from the supply tank, out by the corals. I could only carry two half-full pails at a time, so on wash day I would make several trips out to the supply tank, or to the windmill if the wind was blowing. Always watching for rattlesnakes as I walked back and forth through the weeds carrying water.

Hot water went into the washing machine, two “slivers” of homemade lye soap were added and stirred. The lye soap was made of rendered lard with a bit of lye and some powered soap added to it, making a bar form of laundry soap which would do several loads of laundry. (The soap making process is another story for another day.)

When the water was ready the machine was started. Underneath the machine was a small gas engine that was used to turn the agitator on the machine. When, and if, the engine was started, then clothes could be slowly added. When the clothes were cleanish’, a wooden broom handle was used to remove them from the machine, allowing the soapy water to return to the machine tub for the next batch of clothes.

Once the clothes were removed from the wash water, they then went through set of rollers that would remove the excess water. After the clothes were rung out, they had to be shook back into their original form and then added to the rinse tub. Once again the wooden stick was used to agitate the clothes, removing a bit more of the soap from them. Then that batch was wrung by hand and added to the second tub for another rinse. Finally, the clothes were washed, rinsed (twice) and wrung as dry as possible. The next step was to hang the clothes on the clothesline for drying. Hanging was usually blessed by thirsty bees who would be most willing to sting a person if you were not extremely careful.

A few hours in the sunshine, the clothes were dry and could be gathered, leaving the bees outside, hopefully. (In the summer, we would leave the clothes on the line and take cream and eggs to Lusk.) After getting back from town, changing into chore clothes, I would carry the baskets of clothes into the kitchen, where mom would have the ironing board set up. Three different sizes of irons were heating on the wood stove.

I would use the ironing board and iron all jeans and work shirts. Mom would use the kitchen table and iron everything else. All together it would take us most of the day to do laundry for our family.

In the winter, if the sun was shining, mom and I would take the clean clothes to the clothesline and pin them up to dry for a couple of hours. Usually that meant when we went back to retrieve the clothes, they would be frozen stiff. A condition that required great care when removing the clothes pins, so not to break the pins, nor tear the clothes. Then I would carry the frozen clothes into the porch, where the pot-bellied wood stove had heated the room nicely.

Then mom and I would string pieces of bailer twine onto nails in the walls, rehang the clothes and let them finish drying – hopefully. By the way, while the clothes were drying, there were always dishes to wash, floors to sweep and mop and wood to carry. Oh, I so remember the day we were given a used washing machine with a wringer attached to it. The whole thing ran on electricity and by then we had water in the house too!

Today, I throw a plastic pod into the washing machine, add clothes, push a couple of buttons and push “start.” In a short time, the clothes are washed and rinsed, ready for me to toss them into the dryer. More buttons pushed, a few minutes later and the clothes are dried, very few of them ever needing ironed. Oh by the way, they all smell nice and fresh because I added softener sheets to the dryer.

My point, much like doing laundry today, we have become a “soft” people, even in our Christian faith. I marvel when I attend a “Bible Church” how few people carry a Bible in with them. Today, we expect Pastor to project all scriptural references up on the big screen, so we don’t even have to look them up.

Then we want the pastor to explain said Scripture to us in such a way that it makes sense. In some churches we may scribble a few notes on a sheet of paper, stuff it in the back of our Bible and once a month clean all said note papers out and toss them into the trash.

How often do we pull those notes out of our Bible on Sunday afternoon and continue to study the passage our pastor worked so hard to share with us on Sunday morning? How often do we dig into our own Bible to find the golden nuggets buried there? In short, how hard do I work at growing “in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Chris?” (2 Pt. 3:18)

You see my friends, someone still has to put the clothes in the washing machine before they can be cleaned. Likewise, we all need to put the Word of God into our lives so that our lives can be cleansed. Faith is an interesting critter: It is easy to be soft and expect someone else to feed me, or I can do the work and feed myself. The first produces soft Christians, the later produces growing Christians.

Growing with you, Neal