Very early in our lives my two brothers, two sisters and I got ourselves out of bed, made breakfast, dressed, and headed off to school, on foot.  Since my mother and father worked many hours we set our own schedules.  We cooked and ate when we were hungry and we went to bed when we were tired.  Homework was done when we decided it couldn’t wait any longer.  Even my first day at Davey Crocket Elementary School in Grand Prairie, Texas was dealt with on our own schedule; my sister Roma held my hand and delivered me to the first grade teacher’s room.  Mrs. Braswell was a little surprised to see a 6 year child unaccompanied by an adult however my sister told her that “our mom and dad work so they can’t come to school.” In 1950 there were few rules and very little paperwork required.  

When the school day ended, my sisters Roma and Annie would come to my classroom to get me then we all walked home together.  When we arrived home, we had work to do.  Roma cooked our dinner and Annie and I washed the dishes afterward.  It wasn’t until years later that we got a television.

When Saturday morning rolled around we were busy at work.  We dragged the gleaming stark white enamel coated Maytag wringer washing machine up to the kitchen sink, connected the hose from the washer to the faucet and ran the water until the tub was full.  Washing clothes in a wringer washer was quite a bit more involved than washing in an automatic washing machine.  In fact it can actually be a little dangerous especially when left in the hands of very young unsupervised children. 

When we used the wringer washer we put the clothes into the main tub where they were allowed to be hypnotizingly swished back and forth in the soapy water by a post in the center of the tub which was called an agitator. After several minutes of swishing we unlocked the arm that held the two rollers and moved it into position over the first tub of rinse water.  As the rollers moved we fed clothes so that they passed between the rollers which squeezed out the soapy water.  However in the rinse tubs there was no agitator to move the clothes through the clean water.  So we used a long worn wooden stick to punch them down and swirl them the best that our small weak hands could.  This process was repeated until the clothes had been rinsed and rollered through two tubs of clean water.  The final pass through the rollers dropped the clothes into a dry tin tub which we carried outside to be pinned to the clotheslines.     

Washday was arduous however we just accepted it as “our job to do”.  One particular Saturday morning our job was going along as usual when Annie let out a shriek of pain.  She had gotten her fingers caught in the rotating rollers and couldn’t pull them free.  Always the alert one, Roma ran to the wall and unplugged the machine and flipped the lever to separate the rollers.  No serious damage seemed to be done.  We never called mom, dad nor anyone else for help.  This too we handled on our own schedule.

I am sure that none of today’s parents would advocate leaving five young children to run a household, nor was it safe then either, however I don’t regret the self-reliance that those lessons in survival taught my siblings and me.  They have served us well.