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One look at this recipe for laundry day, and if you're like me, you'll be thankful to live in this day and age rather than 100 years ago.Today’s recipe comes compliments of my sister. She passed it along a year or so ago and reading it reminds me of how easy life is today compared to the lives of our grandparents and their grandparents. I haven’t tested this recipe, and don’t plan to. But if you take a crack of it, come back after you’ve had a few days to recover and leave a note about how it worked for you.

Grandma’s Washing Receipt

  1. bild a fire in the back yoard to heet kettle of rain water.
  2. set tubs so smoke won’t blo in eyes if wind is pert.
  3. shave one hole cake soap in bilin water.
  4. sort things, make three piles: 1 pile white, 1 pile collord, 1 pile work britches and rags.
  5. stur flour in cold water to sooth then thin down with bilin water.
  6. rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard. Then bile. Rub cullord but don’t bile—just rench and starch.
  7. take white things out of kettle with broom stick handle then rench, blew and starch.
  8. spred tee towels on grass.
  9. hang old rags on fence.
  10. pore rench water in flower bed.
  11. scrub portch with hot soapy water.
  12. turn tubs upside down.
  13. go put on cleen dress—smooth hair with side combs—brew cup of tee—set and rest and rock a spell and count blessins.

This is an authentic washday ‘receipt” in its original spelling as it was written out for a bride in 1900. Donna Barlass, Church Cookbook, Lenark Illinois