the old wringer washers?

Question

Did anybody ever have one or knew of someone who did? I am only 31 and when i was little my grandmother still loved in the house she grew up in. It had no bathroom, only an out house and also had the wringer washing machine. i remember her yelling at me one day because i tried to put my brothers arm thru it

Answer 1

Oh yes, my mother always said, stay away from the machine, and at 5, of course, I didn't...I put my finger to the wringers and it grabbed my hand, then arm...I was screaming, she bounded down the basement stairs and hit the release on the top....saved me from a nasty raw arm...and then she spanked me for doing what I was told not to do...I didn't do it again, that is for sure! Brings back some interesting memories...The fastest way to get me to do something as a kid was to tell me not to do it! Goldwing

Answer 2

When I was growing up we had a wringer washing machine and an outhouse. I did get my hand in the wringer as well, but I was doing laundry at the time. We had 3 big wash tubs sitting right there beside the washer. One was to soak the clothes in before they got washed and one was for the bluing that was used on the whites and the other was to catch the clothes as they came threw the wringer. Once the jeans were washed and ready to hang out on the line, we would put stretchers in each leg to make them straight. All the clothes were hung on the line as there was no dryer.

To this day now, mom still has the wringer, but now it is outside in the shed. I am pretty sure that it still works, but she has an automatic washing machine now. I still hang my clothes on the line even though she has a dryer. One of these days I would like to get that wringer out and see if it still does work and see about using it again.

Now the outhouse has been gone for years. I hated that thing, way to many spiders in there, lol.

Answer 3

My mother had one of those old wringer washers and I learned how to do a Great wash as a Child and the neighbors bragged to my mom when she returned home from having my baby sister that I had the whitest clothes hung out in the block---quite an accomplishment for an 11 yr old girl back then with a family of 8 to wash for that week. That was a whole lot better than scrubbing the clothes by hand and wringing them out with our hands. We had to carry the water from across the road---the road being Il. State 130 and the neighbors bank was steep and I can't tell you how many times we slid down that bank dumping all the water as we went.

Answer 4

Being the oldest granddaughter yes I helped Grandmother use the wringer washer twice a week. For 5 kids and 2 adults. In the winters your hands froze. My job was to catch them after she put thru the wringer.

Answer 5

Yes, I grew up in a household with 9 kids, and I did the house keeping and cooking. I used a wringer washing machine for at least 10 years. It sure cleaned your clothes well. Of course there were occasions when I would get my hand or my hair caught in the thing. It would pull you bald headed. Thank God I survived:~)

Answer 6

yes, I had one , it was great for laundry, you could do whites first , and on down the line to darks, I had 2 stationary tubs to rinse in , And the only problems I had was that you needed to keep snaps open or when it squeezed the water out the wringer would make them so the snaps would no longer stay snapped, and you needed to make sure the rubber pants didn't go through there as they held water and generally wound up poping a hole in them . Other then that, you needed to be free to take care of the laundry, as it didn't do it itself. You knew what laundry day was , back then. But , it sure beat the scrub board, which I still have for when the washer breaks down,

Answer 7

I had the same thing happen to me that some of you had happen to you. My aunt, who I used to stay with during summer vacation, lived in the country and had an old wringer washer "out back." It was my job to do the washing, and in trying to free a sock from the rollers I got my fingers stuck and it grabbed my whole arm. I screamed my head off and a neighbor heard me and sent my aunt running to free me from the thing. Apparently it had a safety feature so that if you hit something on the rollers it would release the grip. But I was terrified, and remember it to this day.

Answer 8

That was the only kind my mother ever had. I remember helping her do the laundry and getting my thumb caught in the wringer. I bought one for myself when I had two preschoolers. It was $15 and I was glad to have it. I had been doing laundry in the bottom of the shower before that. I had no tub. When I was financially able I got an automatic washer and dryer and vowed to never be without them again. And I haven't.

Answer 9

My mother had one when I was in my teens, we used it in the kitchen, using the kitchen sink to rinse in, you ran clothes through the wringer twice, and folded them a certain way, now that I think of it with two it was kind of fun, as it was a time for good conversation. It wasn't that difficult as it was
the era! It beat a wash board and doing them by hand. My older sister married and her's was in the basement, with two
big rinse tubs, so clothes could be rinsed twice, three times
through the wringer. I was married in the very early 50's, By
that time washteria's were in vouge. You most likely
scared your Gram, as fingers were pinched badly a good many times, if one wasn't careful. Especially if it was electric
wringer. Use to be a nasty joke, "Don't get your- - - caught in
the wringer" Thanks for the memory, I haven't thought about that for a long time. *

Answer 10

OMG did you really? LOL. Were you thinking he'd come out
like Gumby, the rubber flat 'man' toy, with bendable arms and
legs?
We had a ringer washer until I was a sophomore in HS. My
mom preferred how they washed her clothes, and she was
reluctant to upgrade for years. When I was little, I somehow
got my sleeve caught in the wringer while she was there
putting clothes through, and she barely got it apart in time to
stop me from getting hurt. She was more scared than I was.
That was at a time when there were cement & stationery
tubs that held the rinse water and 'blueing' for making white
clothes whiter. There was a sink next to it, for taking the dirty
water from the machine and putting down the drain to the
sewer.
Oh, I know you wouldn't have any idea of what a 'mangel'
was. But it was a presser of things like sheets and other
flat things. Now that machine was really scarey to me.