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My favorite memory is of my mom hanging clothes in the backyard while I pulled my baby brother and our boxer named tinker bell, around in the red wagon, enjoying the day.
My gramma came in with a freshly folded clothes from the line. When she set the basket down, she picked up her “Merry Widow” corset and my little sister’s bra. Gramma said, “it’s kind of like the Mac truck and a jazzy little sports car!”
I remember running through the laundry my mom was hanging at our little cottage in the country when I was small. Our duck, Ernest, our dog, Runyon, and our cat Seahorse were all in the yard with us. I must have been 4 or 5.
My favorite memory of hanging clothes on the line is the day my husband finished our massive line. We have adopted 12 of our 13 children so you can imagine my laundry load each day. My dryer was always running; non-stop. My electric bill, as a result, was unreal! With my new line, I not only saved money, but was able to dry 8 loads of wash at a time! We no longer have an electric dryer and just use the line. I love the smell, the sight of clothes on the line and my low electric bill!
Bravo!
My mother always had a dryer. But my grandmother went to the laundromat and then took it all home to hang on the line. She did this until she was well into her 70s. My family lives in the Hudson Valley of NY, and we watch the weather as we flirt with spring, waiting for the day when it will be warm/dry enough to put the clotheslines up and hang the laundry outside. It’s one of my few “favorite things” about the warm-weather months!
Hanging clothes on the line is a family tradition . I love the smell of sun dried sheets and towels!
I still hang clothes outside. I have always loved standing in the breeze and smelling the laundry when I bring it in.
Their is nothing quite like bedding that has been dried on the line. I’m in the process of getting a clothes line put in at our new house. I miss sun dried and mountain air freshened laundry!
Hanging clothes was a great way to be outside and not in doing dishes.
Our clothes line was under a covered patio at the back of the house. I would go with my mom while she hung the clothes. I would help hand her the clothes pins. Nice memories!
The best made clothes pins ever! I have been hanging my clothes out for 40 years and I absolutely love my new cloths pins! When you hang out work clothes and quilts you need a heavy duty pin!!!!
I loved my Mothers clothesline, hanging the laundry out to dry was my favorite chore. I actually volunteered for that job.
After the laundry dried I gathered old sheets & blankets then clothes pinned them all around the outside of the clothesline to make a fort.
I played card & board games inside the clothes line fort with my brother & sister & friends.
Great memories, to this day I still hang my laundry outside to dry. I don’t play in a clothesline fort because I am over 65yr. Old but it has crossed my mind.
Thank goodness for the invention of clothes pins.
I love the smell of laundry dried outside on a clothesline. It looks pretty blowing in the wind.
I still hang laundry on the clothesline as often as weather permits. I love the fresh smell of sheets that have been dried outside! My favorite memories of hanging laundry are when I was a young mom hanging my little girls’ clothes and diapers and then as a grandmother, hanging sheets and blankets as a backdrop for plays and playing peekaboo. My favorite definition of a clothesline is “solar clothes dryer” and I consider a clothesline a requirement for any home we have lived in.
Ruth, I agree! A home must have a clothesline in my book too.
Wooden clothes pins remind me of my mom hanging the sheets on the line and my sister and I swinging on our swing set watching the sheets flop in the summer breeze.
I grew up with a clothes dryer but Grandma hung her sheets on the line. I remember visiting in summers and the fresh smell of Grandma’s sheets and how different they smelled from ours at home. I also remember having to get used to the “stiffness” and loved hearing Mom’s memories of a childhood filled with laundry fresh from the line.
Loved bringing in the fresh dried laundry on a warm summer evening. The smell was amazing!
Playing hide and seek in the sheets. My poor mother! I’m guessing her sheets always had little handprints on them!
Before I was old enough to help with the “real” laundry, I was given my Dad’s handkerchiefs to hang up on my own special clothes line. I thought I was being such a helper! LOL And the fresh smell I still enjoy to this day 60 some years later!
My mom always hung laundry out on the clothesline as I still do. She always had the poles to hold up the lines. One day the line broke and all the laundry was on the ground. We all had a good laugh over this as mom had to rewash everything. The sheets always smelled so good when crawling into bed at night.
I’ve been hanging clothes out on the line since I was big enough to reach it. We used the old wringer washer until I was in high school. I love the feel of the towels when they are dried on the line. Mom use to have pant stretchers that we had to put in Daddy’s pants before the went on the line so they had the front crease.
I remember hanging and pulling the clothes off the line with both of my grandmothers. One had a clothes line on a pulley off the second story back porch. So the clothes where high above us as we played in the backyard. My other grandmother used pants hangers for my grandfather’s khaki’s. Those hangers fascinated me. And I just bought a big clothes line and hopefully it will get put up this week. Perfect timing for using these clothes pins.
I have always loved the smell of freshly washed clothes hung on a line. 5 years ago my dream of a farm came true. We moved into a 400 sq. ft. cottage without running water, on 35 acres of prairie land. Electricity was at night only by generator (yes we used an outhouse and bathed with a galvanized tub). Cooking was done on the deck with a propane camp stove. Laundry was done at my daughters 40 minutes away and brought home to hang. When my husband finished building our house with indoor plumbing, solar electricity, a clothes line was one of the first things to go up! Oh how I love going to bed with freshly washed sheets, showering with fresh air towels and putting on air-fresh clothes.
Memories of beautiful sunny days on the farm with my Grandmother. She had the ole ringer washer and we would go out to the line and hang up the clothes and talk and just spend time together doing her chores.
Just this April, I was hanging wash at night and a beautiful barn owl, flew in and hovered over me. Her feathers were so white that they reflected the moonlight. I could see the curve of her body as she bent her head down to see what I was up to so close to her nest in our owl box. I just stood frozen in awe watching her.
I remember my mom’s huge bag of clothes pins she’d hang on the line pulling the pins out as she hung each item. I too loved to hang clothes on the line, and especially diapers, in the fresh air to dry, when my babies were young. Clothes always smelled so fresh and nice and the sun helped to bleach the white items and the breezes made everything nice and soft. I still use clothes pins for chip bag closures, cereal bag closures, etc. They are handy for so many things!
My favorite memory is not the distant past but as recent as last summer. I enjoy hanging out the wash and feeling the warmth of the sun. I like watching the clothes flap in the wind and the smell of my fresh, clean clothes.
I remember that on cold days my laundry would freeze once I finished clothespinning it. It would later thaw and dry as the temperature warmed up.
I love hanging laundry in the moonlight, before sunrise. I have just enough light, can hear the mockingbird running through his repertoire, and let the dew soften my bare feet (better than a footpath!). We haven’t had a clothes dryer since we moved here 19 years ago, and no plans to get one. The fresh air and abundant sunshine are all we need. And in the winter, we hang our damp laundry on a retractable indoor clothesline in the guest room. Keeps the upstairs humidified and lightly scented. So lucky to live where we do, and how we do!
I hung all of my babies diapers on the clothesline with clothes pins. I loved the smell of them when the wind would blow and they would wrap around my head.
My momma wanted to make sure that all the underwear(family of 5)was on the back line and everything else on the front line.Also each piece of laundry had to have a hard shake before hanging very straight.
A Memory?? Like Monday?? I have been hanging wash on the line through much of the summers for years.. Like my mom did!!
When I was around eight or ten I lived across the street from my maternal grandparents. I would go to their house very frequently and spend time with my grandmother while she did her housework, laundry, etc. On laundry day I would help her bring the clean clothes up from the basement to the back yard and we would hang them on the clothes lines that stretched from the corner of the house to the garage. I remember how the white sheets would billow out in the breeze and that we hung the underwear between two lines of sheets, sort of for privacy, I guess! And I remember how the clothespin bag hung on one end of one of the lines. And, the smell of the clean clothes–delicious! Also, the clothespins were the old-fashioned ones made of wood but without a spring, just a slot to hold the items to the line. A different time–the 1950’s.
I have a picture of my favorite memory, my Mom taking time to pose for me while she was hanging sheets and pillow cases.I took it with my Brownie camera, I had gotten for my birthday. She had on a pretty white blouse and green pedal pushers and white tennis shoes
I come from a long line of Southern women that enjoy fresh air and sunshine.. My great grandmother taught me how to properly hang clothes. II think of her often when fighting the wind to keep them on the line!
As a newly-wed in the early 1960’s in small town America I used the only “laundry” there. It was in the former garage of an elderly couple holding several wringer washers, complete with a soaking tub and two rinse tubs. The very kind and helpful owner filled all tubs when ready to use. Whites washed first, then colored clothes, then dark, all in the same water. Imagine that! No gas or electric dryers then, of course, so all laundry was hung on outside lines during good weather and inside during winter. Of course we needed a LOT of clothespins. And I was gently lead to hang like things together so that it all looked nicer! I look back on that as being a wonderful time of life in the slow lane.
Laundry is done whenever it’s a “good drying day”. I hesitate to use a dryer at all; seems like pants get shorter and the clothes are more likely to be wrinkled coming out of a dryer. I’ve always had a clothesline and so appreciate it.
Every time I hang clothes on the line is a new memory made on our farmette! I love the fresh scent of sheets that have been line-dried!
When I moved back home to Alabama in 2012, I found my Great Aunt Agnes’s clothespin apron complete with her clothespins. I put the apron on every time I hang out clothes in my back yard. Whenever I touch the clothespins, I feel very close to her because she touched the clothespins in her apron. I love wooden clothespins!
Love the smell of fresh sheets when they’ve been hanging on the line in the spring. I have pictures of my sweet stepdaughters hanging clothes!
One year, I worked from May through September at a 37-cabin resort in Colorado. My job was cleaning cabins and doing laundry for more than 100 beds and 50 bathrooms. The owner preferred all the linens to be hung out to dry in the alpine air as opposed to using the clothes dryers which I didn’t really understand at first. But as she taught me the rhythm of the work (gathering sheets and towels from the cabins as guests checked out, throwing them in the washers, hanging the previous loads, taking down the air-dried linens, making the beds with fresh sheets, placing perfectly folded towels in each bedroom), I fell in love with the whole process. And, I GOT why she loved it so much! It became a working meditation when I worked alone and a beautiful sharing time when the owner and I would hang the laundry out together and discuss the days events. Now, years later, I still dry my laundry on a clothesline – don’t even own a dryer!
Our clothes line was near a small maple tree and as I was small my mom would hang the clothes and I would climb the tree – – it was always fun to be near my mom as we spent time together!! Of course as I grew older and she grew older I often removed the clothes she had hung out earlier from her clothesline when I’d go to visit. I love hanging out the clothes – a habit instilled from childhood…..thanks Mom!
I can almost smell the scent of the wood as the clothespin grabs the thick wet towel. Beautiful photo! We are still in the 40’s and building wood fires in our stoves, but soon I’ll be able to hang the laundry outside to dry, a welcome chore. There is nothing like the scent of sheets and pillowcases dried outdoors on the clothesline
My best memories of laundry hung outside are of my great-grandmother and grandmother and my mother each smiling as they hung clothes and later took them down with my help. All three , each in her own way, made me feel loved and all was right with the world. Each had her little dress clothes pin bag that sometimes held a special treat for me.
Thanks for jogging the memories.
My Grandmother taught me to hang clothes on the line. I loved the smell of the sheets when we went to sleep each night. After a long day of hanging out clothes, she would draw me pictures of a farm with a farm house, a barn, animals and my favorite… A clothes line full of clothes drying in the sunshine. Precious memories!!!
My first apartment after graduating college in 1974 was in an old mansion, and I lived in the
“Dungeon “. But the back stairs led to a wonderfully blooming back yard with a clothesline. I had excitedly hung my first load
Only to discover a sign that said “Please do not hang clothes on Sundays” ! It was too nice
out to wait another day, but I did change my
laundry day.
I grew up on a cattle ranch in Baker County, Oregon in the 1950’s. We did not have clothes dryer back then. All the clothes were washed in a wringer washing machine and hung in the line to dry all year long no matter the weather. I loved those years on the ranch.
As I got older I tried to always have a clothes line wherever I lived. One favorite memory of recent years was when my niece moved back to Oregon from Arkansas, heavy with her first pregnancy, but very relieved to finally be back home. The first thing she wanted to do was help me hang the clothes on the line, catch up on lost years, and eat blueberries off the nearby bushes as we pinned each item to those lines in the warm september evening air.
I knew she was very tired, now home to stay, so I tucked her under a quilt on our daughter’s bed who was away at college. It was a warm feeling of contentment for her and me. She found her way back.
My favorite memory of hanging laundry is gathering it from the line when I was growing up and smelling the fresh scent of clothes dried in the sunshine. I still love that smell and dry my clothes outside as often as possible.
I like to hang out the bed sheets in the wind for a fresh smelling bed.
I love everything about hanging laundry out on a clothesline. It saves money , gives me exercise and just smells so good. Wish everyone did it.