Spring and Fall Housecleaning Time

Housecleaning time is here. That was the expression that was heard in every householdsixty or seventy years ago. This was the time when the wife and mother gave the commands as to what had to be done in the home. Not a single room was missed, not even the cellar.

Everyone was assigned a specific job except the husband who had his chores to do in the fields and around the barn.

Many times, however, his manly strength was needed momentarily to move a heavy chest or chest of drawers or dismantle the heavy old bed and carry them out of the room so that the loom-woven carpet could be removed. To do this was a chore. Several tools, a tack puller and tack hammer and a cigar box or deep dish were needed. A tack puller was an iron instrument, tapered at the end similar to a screw driver except that the blade had a deep V' cut into it. With this tool the user, on her knees, could insert the tool under the tack and pry up to remove the tacks from the carpet and wooden floors. All carpet at that time had to be fastened at each end by means of tacks. The cigar box or dish was used to deposit them. After the tacks were removed, the carpet was carefully rolled up and carried out into the yard and hung up on a very strong clothes line. This is where the work began. To remove the months of dust and dirt particles from the carpet fibers a carpet beater, generally a long heavy coiled spring wire about 12 to 15 inches on the top with the ends looping backing into a wooden handle, was used to beat the carpet. Sometimes a cane or long stick was used as a beater.

The first several whacks of the beater would raise a cloud of dust which almost resembled that of a herd of cattle on a dusty country road. The person who was assigned to this job had to wear an old hat or large bonnet and old clothing to keep the dust from the hair and body. Even so, by the end of the day, the beater had to take a good bath in the old wash tub to remove the dirt from the face, hands and arms.

Before the cleaned carpet was brought back into the room, the floors also had to be cleaned. First, the previous years old newspapers which had served as padding and insulation between the carpet and wooden floors had to be lifted carefully in order to retain as much dust and dirt as had accumulated here. After these were removed, and the floor swept, mother and grandmother would get down once again on their knees and scrub the floor with home-made soap, scrub brush and water in a wooden bucket Usually the windows were opened in every room to allow the air to circulate and thus allowing the floors to dry out. While this 'drying out' took place, mother would go through the clothes closet and chests.

In the spring, she carefully packed away the winter clothing and brought out the spring and summer apparel. Every fall the procedure was reversed. The chests and chest of drawers were also given a careful check for moth damage and perhaps a mouse nest in some of the old hat boxes stored away for a long time. Grandmother usually applied generous quantities of lavender leaves or perhaps small roots of sassafras in each drawer to give her clothes and blankets a fresh aroma during the coming months.

After the floors had dried thoroughly, a new layer of newspapers was gently laid out on the floor. It took time and patience to replace the carpet back on the floor. Special care had to be given to prevent the papers from wrinkling or bending in folds. When this was accomplished, it was now necessary to have help to stretch the carpet while mother on her knees proceeded to use the small tack hammer to pound the tacks carefully on the one end. She had learned many years ago the knack of inserting the tack into the fold of the carpet and then holding the carpet next to the wall and to hit the tack accurately on the head in order to hold the carpet in place.

We must remember that at the turn of the century few women had carpet sweepers. Those that did have them had the old style 'Bissel Sweeper'. They only picked up lint, hair, mud particles or crumbs but did not take up the dust from the fibers. Today the housewife has all modern conveniences. She has electrical facilities that simplify her housecleaning chores. Grandmother's lacy curtains had to be soaked and washed with 99-100 per cent pure soap and then stretched on to small metal pegs in wooden frames to dry. Today the curtains are either placed in an electric washer or sent to the dry cleaners.

It was also a custom for the ladies of the home to hang all bed coverings out on the clothes line on the first warm sunshiny day in March. This always gave the quilts and blankets a fresh smell.

There was also another housecleaning chore which was a yearly event. It is very seldom heard of now. This was the cleaning out and 'white washing' the cellar walls. Years ago the cellar walls were built of field stones. The floor may have contained a few flat flag stones because the floor was never cemented. The winter's supply of potatoes, apples, garden produce as well as barrels of cider and vinegar were stored here.

To make the cellar more attractive, it was customary to purchase a quantity of slaked lime, a brush with a long handle. The lime was placed in a bucket and mixed with water until the contents were about the consistency of paint. With the brush the stones were covered from floor to the top with a fresh coat. Boys in the home were usually given this job as well as coating the wooden fence around the yard. This was much cheaper than paint.

One has to travel for many miles today to find such a country picture.

This was housecleaning in our grandparents time.