Keeping House

Our house seemed big with 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a living room, dining room, and kitchen. I sometimes wonder how much real area the house contained. It may have been very small. We lived in every square inch of the house and our chores were designed to make it as livable as possible for the 8-10 people who may have lived there at any given time during my childhood.

Every day we were expected to set the supper table for 8-10, just plates and forks if we could find enough.We played with spoons and forks outside digging in the dirt and making mud pies. We probably lost everything Mother ever had.She didn't say a word. One of Mothers creative endeavors was art and she started painting on the dinner plates. We had accepted it as routine to go hunting for plates and forks at suppertime.

The table had to be ready for bowls of hot food whenever Daddy was ready to eat. Sometimes he wanted to eat as soon as he got home from the mines but other times we waited until he did something or another outside. He liked to play with his little garden, or go "under the floor" to unwind a little. The food was always hot and ready on demand--Mother had that down pat. Amazingly, we all sat down together for supper, every day. No prepared foods--everything prepared every day, from scratch.

After supper, the girls raked out the dishes, cleaned the table, swept the dining room & kitchen, washed the dishes, scalded the clean dishes with boiling water, then dried them. Rodney & later, Johnny carried in the coal. I'm not sure what other chores the boys had. We always messed up the kitchen again finding snacks at night. Cornbread and milk or homemade fudge if we had the ingredients; or,ice cream & pop charged to Daddy's payday at the fountain.Sometimes, soup-bean sandwiches. We took whatever we could get.To this day, in Mexican restaurants, I say, "No frijoles, por favor".

On most Saturdays we were expected to clean the entire house--sort of. Mother was far from being a good house keeper but there were certain things we had to do--Toby laid out the cleaning rules, Peggy helped enforce them.The oldest were always in charge of the youngest. It took years for me to be "the boss".

Sometimes, we dug down into the sides of the couch cushions to retrieve bobby pins, marbles, pencils, combs, and brushes that we had already replaced by charging new ones at the Company Store. More than once Daddy asked us what we did with all this stuff. We could never find a comb or brush or bobby pins. " G'Damn", he would say over and over.

We swept the whole house--and put all the dirt into the trash, not sweep it out the back door, which was much easier. Then we mopped all the floors (every now and then we had to wax the hardwood floors).Toby made us dust and arrange the coffee table with the nice magazines Mrs. Spotte or Mrs Bradbury had given Mother. Karen and I couldn't do it to please Toby so were pleased when she and Peggy ran us out and we didn't have to clean inside anymore. We did a fun job, though; we scrubbed the front porch with water and soap. Karen and I laughed and played on the slick enameled surface in the soot colored foam before we had to rinse it all off with buckets of cold water.

Oh yeah, on Saturday, we made the beds and "shook" all the sheets. I wonder what may have been in them?

Once a year, Mother made us spring clean. Her idea of spring cleaning was to paint the dining room table, chairs, and cabinet; wall paper the living room and dining room--they got so dirty with the coal stove going all the time. We helped with the wall paper...cutting the roll of border, holding the sheets of wall paper covered with gooey paste so Mother could line them up. One year a product came out that was supposed to absorb the dirt from old paper when it was rolled up in a ball and used to wipe down the walls. That was an adventure in itself.

We also put all the mattresses outside to soak up the sun while we cleaned the bed-springs. The front room floors got shellacked or varnished--I never knew the difference--every year or two. They needed it badly because Mother let us roller skate in the house, crack nuts on the floor with a big rock, and, in general, do whatever we wanted.Somehow all of this got done, maybe half way done, but as Merle Haggard said, "Mama Tried".

I don't think any of us worked too hard.We spent every spare moment playing in the hills, at a friends house,in the gym, or elsewhere in the camp--until dark every day.

I watched David homemakers--my friends' mothers do laundry on Monday, iron on Tuesday, grocery shop with a list, and do preventative maintenance on their homes.We did none of that on schedule and I wondered why Mother was different. With a household of at least 8 people, there were always dirty clothes and always the coal dust covered work clothes Daddy wore underground every day. The washing was a back breaking chore and everything was dryed on a clothes line...even in the freezing winter. Mother got it done somehow. Things were washed as they were needed, ironed only when necessary. Folded at times, but there were no predictable routines within our home. The most important laundry was Daddy's dress clothes, which were sent to Shurtleff's dry cleaner and laundry in Pikeville. Daddy's shirts were starched, folded, and very white, his handkerchiefs were beautifully cleaned. Mother's priority was to have his wardrobe laid out on the bed so he could step out, looking handsome and stylish every weekend when his 5 1/2 day stint, at least one mile back under the hill, was done.

And, that's how we kept house.
Peace,
Judy