March 1, 1963
Fri 5-20 cloudy snow starting about 1 pm and continued most of the night about 4 to 5 in. I washed in the am. Clifton took our car to Raymonds and had a clutch put in. Earl and Lillian called in the afternoon. Carol and Wayne went to ball game on bus. David took our car and went.
Comment: David's car still not running apparently. Dad's car also with problems. All the kids at home went to the basketball game..and the wash again. I remember an old gasoline powered wringer washer that my mother used to use and I think our Grandmother Agnes also had one they used. The gas powered ones were common before the Rural Electrification Program began to provide electrical power to the remote areas in out country. Hubbard Hill got electricity in about 1946 when I was eight years old. The wringer washers, see picture below, could be very dangerous especially for kids who could get their arms caught in the wringer. I can remember seeing some kid with a massive scar in the crook of his elbow and it was from being caught in a wringer. The rubber rolls would take the arm as far as the elbow and when the elbow did not go through, the rollers would spin in the elbow crook and rapidly take the skin and flesh down to the bone if it was not stopped.
After the clothes were washed they had to be dried somehow and this usually meant hanging them on a outside clothes line if it was warm enough or on inside lines throughout the house. I remember many times when the clothes would freeze on the outside line and would be brought into the house to thaw. It's hard to overestimate the effect that electrical power had on the rural farms in terms of saving drudgery......
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