Automatic dishwashers now do the work we used to do by hand. With some models you don’t even have to rinse the dishes. Everything comes out clean as a whistle. That’s not the way it used to be.
I remember as a small child growing up on that tenant farm during the Great Depression. I watched my mother do the dishes every day. Our old cook stove was kept hot all day from morning breakfast to evening dish washing. The stove’s reservoir held a good supply of hot water. There was also a pail of cold water, with a dipper, nearby as well.
Mother had two enamel dishpans she used for the chore. One for hot soapy water and the other for hot rinse water. She placed the rinsed dishes on a laid out towel to drain. Sounds simple enough, but still was a lot of work. There was no kitchen sink or counter- top to work from. All was done on the kitchen table. That poor old table also doubled as our eating place and homework by lamplight location.
I could hardly wait until I was big enough to stand at the table and wash dishes. I begged and begged for the chance to learn. Finally, when I was about five years old, Mother placed a stool at the table, filled the dishpan with water and some shavings of Fels Naphtha soap. Mother used that strong bar soap for washing clothes as well. She didn’t have any bleach, but filled the copper boiler with hot water, added some shavings of Fels Naphtha soap and boiled our whites until clean.
Back to the dishes, I was overjoyed. But my joy was short-lived. As we all know washing dishes by hand is no fun. I learned that very quickly, but was locked in my new responsibility.
What our modern dishwasher make short work of, took a while back then. If food was stuck on baking pans, they were allowed to stand overnight in baking soda and water. That usually loosened the offending particles.
I haven’t mentioned how we dried the dishes. Mother could have let them set at room temperature to air dry. That wasn’t an option. The table would be needed for other chores after supper. Things like homework or mending, for instance. We would use several dish towels for drying. They would be hung on the side of the cupboard and be dry by morning to be used again.
There was no counter space. The only cupboard was a free-standing cupboard that also held the covered bread drawer and covered flour drawer. Mother bought flour by the 24 pound bag and sugar by a 10 pound bag. There wasn’t room for many utensils or pots and pans in that old cupboard. Built -in cupboards and sinks with running water were still far in the future.
So when you clear the table after supper and load the dishwasher, shed a tear for us way back then. We had no idea that there was any other way to “do dishes.” It was a boring daily chore, but it still is.