How to Wash Clothes

"In brygghuset, there was also a great big stove with a great big kettle. This is where we heated up water when we were washing. There was one time when I wasn’t terribly old when Midi and Brita were going to wash and I begged to be able to wash too. Dad cut off the legs of a scrub board. When I stood on a

wood block and put the scrub board into a tub, then I could reach down and wash small items. I was quite proud that I got to do such grown up work. There is a picture in the albums somewhere where Midi and Brita and I stand with our scrub boards on källarbacken, and we have burlap aprons and scarves on our heads.

Twice a year they did a big washing. It was called a byk. It took about three days. The first day they washed regular clothes that we were wearing. Then the second day they washed everything white, kitchen towels, sheets, pillowcases, and the fine linen like tablecloths and such. They had a great big wood tub sitting up on legs and in that they would put first the kitchen towels on the bottom layer and after that came sheets and pillow cases and on top were the fine linen.

Then they made up a kind of detergent. They called it lut. I don’t know what they made it out of, but that was all mixed into water and it was all heated up in the huge kettle and scooped up and poured over the wash in the wooden tub. There was a plug in the bottom. They drained the mixture all out and then they heated it up again and poured it over the wash again. This they did several times. You can imagine that this was sort of hard labor, so when they had a byk somewhere the neighborhood boys or young men would come and help scoop that lut up over the clothes. Then they had a little party after out on the grass. Then the lut sat on the clothes overnight.

Mom's klappträ lives in Marcus' room now :)

In the morning, they drained that out and the clothes were put into smaller tubs and put on a wagon and we took it down to the crick to rinse. We would have something called a klappbord. It was a long piece of wood with two long legs on one end and two shorter on the other. The long legs were put down in the creek and the shorter were up on shore. They would lay down on their knees and rinse the clothes in the water and then they put them up on the board and they had something called a klappträ that they hit the clothes with. I have one of those hanging in my kitchen. They had a certain rhythm when they did that and it sounded like this: Whump Whump slapslap Whump Whump slapslap. Oh how I wished I could do it that way and I begged again so Dad put up a little klappbord for me and I tried so hard to do it just like Midi. Well then, the clothes were taken home again and with such a big wash Dad had to put up extra clothes lines and the clothes were put up to dry, so that was the third day.

Otherwise, they washed maybe once a month. There were two girls who used to come one at a time and help with the washing. They were sisters and their names were Anna and Astrid. In summer time then, all girls – big or little – wore hats. One of these girls had the most beautiful hat that I had ever seen. It was a straw hat with a cluster of cherries on the side and I thought, “When I grow up, I’m going to buy a hat like that.” I haven’t yet though and I think it’s getting a bit too late now.  Those two sisters were tall and slim and they had hair that was cut real short. When we first wanted to cut our hair, Mother said that we had to keep it cleaner than Anna and Astrid. They had a brother; he was also real tall and skinny. He was our hired man for a summer or two. He was called Lång Anders, or Tall Anders."

Note: the short video included here is one Amanda took of Mom illustrating the rhythm the women used when beating the water out of the clothes with the klappträ.