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Writers Corner |
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The Gasoline Washer
I grew up in a small Newfoundland out port on the southern part of the Avalon Peninsula, namely Branch, St. Mary's Bay. I knew no luxuries in our community. We did not realize the convenience of electricity until 1965. But in 1958, we had a gasoline washing machine which we purchased on the "budget plan" from the Great Eastern Oil Co. in St. John's.
As I recall, we were probably one of the last families in Branch to buy a washer. So, when ours arrived and was subsequently set up, my older sister and I proudly trotted down the lane to the shop to purchase the necessary gallon of gasoline for less than a quarter. I can still see my sister swinging that gallon can so that everyone around could plainly see that we were now the owners of a coveted washer. No matter that we still did not yet have running water or indoor bathroom facilities.
The washer itself was a monster of a machine. It was started (and not easily) by means of a pulley, and once it got going, it made a noise comparable to the engine room of a boat. What intrigued us most the first time we used it was how it danced all over the kitchen floor. My baby brother, who was in his crib at the time, almost went into convulsions. How we solved the problem of the moving washer now escapes my memory, but it was eventually immobilized.
Once we got the hang of operating the machine, we could fill three clotheslines quite proficiently in jig time. Wash day was a continuous cycle boiling water on the wood stove, dumping it into the washer, pumping it out, filling it up with the rinse water and so on.
I'll never forget the steam rising out of that McCleary Easy washer. We did not mind the labour; we were moving into the age of modem times and we were not about to complain. We enjoyed passing the clothes through the attached wringer after we had turned off the dangerous agitator.
All the youngsters in the family waited their turn to pass the clothing through the wringer under the watchful eye of someone older. But enough about the mechanics. Recently I asked my 88 year old father if he remembered our gas washer. "Indeed I do", he said. "The first time we used it outdoors in the summertime, it made so much noise that Uncle Jack's old mare ran away and nearly killed poor old Lucy Ann."
I can't remember how often we used that washer each week, but I vividly recall the smell of gas that permeated the house, and I still sweat when I think of the steam filling the kitchen. The whole fiasco was quite the adventure for the first summer. Toward the coming offall, we were all sick of the washer, and everyone tried to pass the job to someone else. Today, my older, siblings fondly remember the gas washer episode, and the summer that we were initiated into the world of household machinery.
Marina Gambin
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