Mom's Top-to-Bottom Spring Cleaning

Late March or early April was the time of year Mom did her spring cleaning. As soon as the coal furnace was shut off, Mom got busy. Every room of the house was cleaned from top to bottom. Everything was covered with black soot, but it really wasn’t noticeable until you started cleaning. The ceiling, the curtains, the walls, the windows, the furniture, the drawers, the floors, the rugs—everything was scoured. The curtains were washed and put on a curtain stretcher, then set outside to dry. The curtain stretcher looked like a picture frame made of wood, but it had thousands of little pins all the way around the edges. The frame stood on four legs and had wing nuts on all four corners that made it possible to adjust it to any shape or size. The idea was to hook the fabric to the pins and stretch the curtain to keep the curtain wrinkle-free while drying in the sun. (The curtain stretcher can be seen leaning against the house on page 8 in Barb’s memories.) The cupboards were stripped bare, and every dish was washed, as well as the inside of the cupboards. Mom would reline the shelves with new shelf paper, and in the cupboards with the glass windows she would put shelf paper with a beautiful border that folded over the edge of the shelf with pretty patterns of fruit or berries with scalloped edges. All the winter clothes were stored away with mothballs. As Mom was sorting through all the winter clothes, she always set aside the clothes that could be used as hand-me-downs. The storm windows came down, and before the screens went up, the windows were cleaned shiny clean inside and out. The mattresses, rugs and our one carpet were taken outside and beaten with a special rug beater. Rug beaters are collectible today. Mom did her spring cleaning religiously throughout her whole life. Whether it needed it or not!