Hello, In our old Westside of Long Beach Craftsman Style house, we had a very small kitchen, a single basin, a 4 burner oven/stove combo and refrigerator that was not very tall. Everything fit and at the time, my brother and I thought that is how all kitchens were made. But, our kitchen had an arch way that was open to another small room that had a door leading out to the backyard. The extra space looked like it was for storage as boxes and “stuff” was usually piled up there. But, near the door was this odd looking machine and a concrete square sink. Our mom told us that it was a washing machine for our clothes. Soak the clothes, wring out most of the water and place it in the circular tub evenly. On the concrete sink, was a similar apparatus that clamped on to the side. After washing the clothes, the wet clothes were taken out and sent through the rollers. When they came out on the other side, they were a little less wet and fell into a basket. Once all of the clothes were in the basket, they were taken outside to a set of clothes lines, hung from the old house siding to a funny looking “T” pole, a short ways away from the house. The next generation of upgrades to the washer + wringer and the old standby roller wringer apparatus. a clamp on to the side of old concrete sinks or such old sinks. Jnaki Our mom allowed us to crank the handle and watch wet clothes get squashed into a flat piece coming out on the other side. But, she was the tall one to hang each item on the two lines outside. When it was raining, that little box of a room, was a hanging clothes cave. No dryers at all, except for “air drying.” So, that room was a series of lines across the room from wall to wall and clothes were hanging from them for a couple of days. It felt like walking around through a foggy tunnel to get to the backyard for our play areas, when the rain stopped, but the clothes were still moist. Note: In our next house from 1953, the washing machine was in one side of the two car garage. It stood next to a double concrete deep sink with hot/cold water. Attached to the side was the same old crank handle set of rollers that we used to flatten out the “chamois” skin drying material when we washed our cars. It was the best thing to get 90+ % of the water out. No amount of hand wringing got the chamois skin as dry, ready for the next section of water beads… 1956 when the Oldsmobile was on the far left side of the small garage. When my brother got his first 51 Oldsmobile sedan, we had to move the washer into the side door opening between the counter and concrete sinks. Now, both the 51 Oldsmobile and 53 Buick sedan could get put into the garage side by side. After altering the tall cabinet to fit the grille/headlights of the Oldsmobile Sedan. The rollers made fast work of the wet chamois skin material to get the last water soaking out. The spots on any car was gone almost instantly. Wipe, feed to the rollers and then it was ready for the next area of the old hot rod sedan surfaces. When we worked in a small store, one of our jobs was to mop the floor after closing. Hot water in a rolling galvanized bucket with a smaller roller unit attached to the side. It did the same thing as the old wooden one attached to the side of our concrete sinks. Roll to get the moisture/water out! YRMV Note: Those old roller squeegee thing were the best for ease of wringing out water. But, for some reason, there is no such product on the market unless you are in the industrial cleaning business. Even a small portable unit attached to a vise in the garage would help wring out the last water drops out of damp wiping materials. Then, instead of a rolling ankle biting apparatus taking up valuable floor space in any garage, the small bench top squeegee thing could be put away. YRMV
The Jalopy Journal
