Ancestry Magazine

Who needs Doc Brown’s time-traveling DeLorean from Back to the Future when a malfunctioning clothes dryer can transport you back to the simpler, backyard days of 1950s America?

When my clothes dryer broke last year, I was transported to another world. It was a warm, reassuring place inhabited by my mother and other World War II brides who were happy to have a family, a Cape Cod house, and a backyard.

In that yard stood an icon of America: the clothesline. Its rope staunchly stretched between two wooden poles that stood like pillars protecting and defining my mother’s territory, which was not measured by square yardage, but by what my mother knew belonged to her.

My mom belonged to the world of the 1950s where the clothesline was more than a place to hang wash. It was a place to chat with neighbors, watch children play on wellworn swing sets, and appreciate nature. She didn’t need spas or get-away weekends to unwind. My mother and her contemporaries were happy to have a yard to enjoy, a garden to take care of, and children to watch grow.

Over the clothesline, Mom would swap recipes with neighbors; afterward, she would actually find time to prepare them. My mother didn’t use a cookbook, she didn’t worry about calories, and she never heard the words “high cholesterol.” Her lifestyle and diet were naturally healthy. “Enjoy everything in moderation and eat things that grow seasonally” was her credo.

My mother never joined a gym—housework, including trips to the clothesline and then to the basement (for ironing), helped keep her slim and trim. She didn’t sit in the sun to get a tan. Her legs and arms were toned in both muscle and color from hanging the wash.

Hanging my own wash was like putting together a puzzle, maneuvering each item to make sure there was room for all my sweet-smelling treasures. Smoothing each piece of wash, visions of my mother in her crisp, pastel-colored shirtwaist dress with the deep pockets that doubled as clothespin holders appeared. I could clearly see her bending to the laundry basket, firmly shaking out a pillowcase, and straightening her back while reaching to secure the laundry with the wooden pins nestled in her pocket. Sometimes she would let me iron Dad’s handkerchiefs. How proud I was to get them folded into small white squares, stacked up, and placed like cubes of sweet sugar in his top drawer.

It took me several weeks to finally call a repairman to have my dryer fixed. Each time I hung a load of wash on the line, I was swept away to another time and place where mothers put their heads on their pillows each night after tucking away clean wash the same way they tucked their tired children into bed. Everything seemed a little cleaner and crisper from a day in the fresh air and sunshine. And I was reluctant to leave.

Sharon Hazard is a published author. Her most recent book is Long Branch in the Golden Age, Tales of Fascinating and Famous People, published in May 2007. Her mother, Dorothy Williams, is 96 years old and still lives in that cozy Cape Cod house.