Ironing Hankies & Other Important Tasks

It must have been a summer Tuesday morning when I was about nine years old, because the ironing board was in use. Mom washed clothes every Monday, and on Tuesday, pretty much every Tuesday, she ironed. The basket that had been full of wrinkly clean clothes lay almost empty by the open window from which a gentle breeze and nice daylight entered the room.  Shirts, pants, skirts and dresses, now on hangers, were freshly pressed and ready to be taken upstairs to bedroom closets. The only items left to iron were Dad's white square handkerchiefs. With a quick movement, Mom turned and looked at me with intensity, almost as if she were seeing me for the first time. My two older sisters must have been busy elsewhere, because Mom evaluated me quickly and determined today was the day I'd learn to iron hankies. 

Our ironing board was built into and folded out of the kitchen wall when in use, and had a cabinet style door that closed when the iron was put away. Its location in the kitchen and height couldn't be changed, so Mom quickly pulled the kitchen stool right up next to the ironing board. Then she assessed the length of the heavy iron's electrical cord as she knew my left handedness would make a long cord important. Then she said, "Karen, hop up here, I'm going to teach you to iron Dad's hankies!" I beamed because this was an important task. It was not dusting, folding clothes, wiping dishes, vacuuming, or sweeping, but ironing! Only the big girls and Mom ironed. Today was my day.

To begin, Mom demonstrated how to lay the hankie out, press it to the corners, squirt a bit of water as needed, fold it just like Dad liked, and set it aside. Then she reminded me to be extra careful with the very hot iron and always stand the iron up when not in use. After watching me work for a few minutes she went on to other duties. I was on my own.

After I'd ironed a couple of hankies and set them in a neat pile, my older brother came blasting into the kitchen for a drink of water. He had the cool responsibility of working outside or in the farm shop with Dad. His jobs were without fail more exciting than any job in the house in my opinion, but roles in our home were clearly defined and I was a girl. His work was outside, with Dad, and very important. Being the youngest of three sisters, I felt all my jobs was dull, menial, and inferior except for ironing. 

When Rob noticed that I was ironing, he decided to walk his thirteen year old self over and supervise my work, while he noisily glugged down a couple glasses of cold water. He probably saw my satisfied smile and determined I was rather proud to have this new and important task. As the older sibling, he cockily stood there observing and then remarked. "Looks like you're putting in more wrinkles than you're taking out." Naturally, I was offended and hurt. I believed I was doing a great job and declared that certainly he couldn't do it better. After all, he was a boy. He then announced that there isn't a job anywhere that a girl can do better than a boy. This caused me great concern, and a desire to defend all womenkind, so I proudly stated that girls can SEW better than boys, to which he replied, "No they can't, in fact, a man invented the sewing machine!" I had no response. He strutted back outside. 

With a very small burn on my arm, and newly deflated feelings (thanks to my brother) the hankies were ironed. When Mom came back to check on me she said I'd done good work, thanked me for ironing, and gave me an appreciative smile and loving hug. She said, "Dad will be proud of you too." 

Recently I was cleaning our master bedroom closet and found Tom's mostly ignored (since retirement) white plain and monogramed hankies in a pile high up on the top shelf. I washed them up, and while ironing each one, I remembered that sunny summer day, those conversations and the intense emotions in great detail. My lessons leaned include remembering that it is important to accept new challenges and ignore those who doubt you. Kind words and belief in someone can build them up. Although men and women are different, there are few things a woman can't do. Of the enormous number of things women can do, many are done better by women than by anyone, male or female. 

Happy New Year!

 

The skies are a perfect blue and feature random splotches of fluffy white clouds on this first day of January 2025. The wind is blowing just enough to sway the bare tree branches and add to the chill on this 49 degree day. Tom and I are recovering after a week long bout of some winter flu bug I picked up on my football game travels to Fargo. (We won! Beat South Dakota State University in the semifinals  28-21!) The fireplace feels delightful as do the incrementally longer days and confidence in our improving health as we welcome 2025. 

 

My first recollection of a new year celebration involves new year’s eve with my siblings at home on the farm; it might have been 1967. Our parents were out celebrating that evening with their friends, but before they left, we learned that our kid party at home would include sloppy joes, potato chips, onion dip, and to drink…. 7-Up! Our oldest sibling, Laurie, was officially in charge, but Robert, only a year and a half younger, had his own ideas of who was the leader of our little pack of four. As supper time approached and we got hungry, he deferred and Laurie responsibly took the lead.

 

We gobbled up our party food to our hearts delight and since cleaning the kitchen was routine and expected, I’m sure we did. We played Wahoo, listened to 45’s on the hi-fi and danced around the living room which was our idea of a party. At some point, we must have become unsure if our party plans were sufficient for this auspicious night and Robert got an idea. 

 

Although I credit Robert for dreaming up the plan, it might have been Laurie or Pam. Apparently we needed confetti to toss wildly into the air to welcome 1967 at the stroke of midnight! Our parents probably provided noisy horns to blow or streamers to throw, but we didn’t have confetti. We did have a number of huge well-worn Christmas catalogs though and we soon discovered that the glossy pages, when torn into miniscule pieces, made magical confetti! I’m not sure why we were so motivated, but with four of us working we cut and tore confetti with energy. When midnight arrived on the east coast and the ball in Time’s Square dropped, we watched and waited. Perfect, we had another hour to work. 

 

With short snack breaks for more 7-up and chips and fewer and fewer catalogs to shred, the midnight hour approached in the Central Time Zone. Bowls full of confetti were staged strategically around our feet in the living room as the moment approached so each of us could grab and throw them high into the air at the appointed time. The bigger bowls were nearer to the older kids, but as the youngest, I was proudly responsible for a bowl or two too. 

 

I believe Robert used his brand new water resistant, self-winding, luminous hands wrist watch for our midnight count down. On his cue and with added screams of “Happy New Year!” we threw all the confetti as high as we could. The room was filled with colorful confetti! Our hair, our shirts, our eyelashes, the furniture, the rugs, the coffee table and all the lamps were covered with a fabulous blizzard of billions of little paper bits. It was so beautiful in our eyes, but soon it settled and we recognized a minor dilemma. We needed to clean this mess up before Mom and Dad got home.

We swept, dusted and vacuumed up as much of the confetti as quickly as we could that night. We were pretty confident that we had done a good enough job but Mom saw the evidence right away the next day. She questioned us about our confetti escapades in disbelief. Many weeks later I clearly recall Mom up on a step stool cleaning lots of confetti out of the flush mounted ceiling lamp fixtures in the living room. I watched as she shook her head in amazement that her kids would spend time creating that much confetti to throw high in the air on New Year's Eve. I think she also smiled a little.