So I'm beginning to feel a little strange about leaving my bed unmade all day.
My 1945 housekeeping manual recommends that the bedcovers be turned down before leaving the room to prepare breakfast, but that the housewife needn't return to the bedrooms to give them their daily cleaning (including making the beds) until after she's cleared away the breakfast things and given both the living room and dining rooms their daily once-over. Every room in the house should have had some attention - and the beds should've been made - by the time the "early forenoon" has come to an end or about 10:00 a.m.
My 1947 housekeeping manual doesn't give me any advice about when to make the beds; it just states that this is one of the daily chores in each bedroom.
When LIFE magazine profiled Jane Amberg of Kankakee, Illinois in the 1941 article "Occupation: Housewife," she told them that she made four beds everyday "after doing breakfast dishes and getting the kids to school."
Here's the dilemma: I have to go to work on weekdays after clearing away the breakfast things. I won't get a chance to give every room in my house a daily cleaning. Those kinds of chores are going to have to be folded over into a once weekly thorough cleaning of each room, but making the bed may just need to be an exception. It's not really true to the spirit of the '40s to come home to rumpled bedcovers. If I make up my bed after clearing away the breakfast things each morning - just before going to work - am I giving my bedding enough time to air properly?
4 comments:
could you not fold the bedclothes down neatly so that when you come home it's easy to just fold the up again?
i usually just let them air long enough for us to have a shower and get dresses
Well, you know, that'd be a great idea if I wasn't as much of a tosser and turner and neat-bedclothes-destroyer as I am! My sheets, etc. are usually such a rumply mess by the morning that I might as well make the bed anew as to get them back into some sort of shape where I could just fold them down neatly... Otherwise, I think that'd be a great compromise solution. I think I'm just going to have to suck it up and start making the bed in the mornings - either before I start breakfast or after I've finished clearing the breakfast things away.
I'm curious about the "airing" as well. What is the point? I venture to guess that folks in the 40s didn't take daily showers...? Since we do, how important is the airing out?
Answers, we need answers!
I'm in New England. You're heading toward a white Christmas!
Roxanne
So I hear!!! I haven't seen snow in two years, so I'm very excited...
There's definitely alot of emphasis throughout the manual I'm using on fresh air and sunshine for babies, air circulation in every room, etc. In addition to turning back the bedclothes every morning, mattresses and bedding should be aired by an open window (or hung out on the clothesline) once a week and pillows should be aired once a month. Hampers and garbage cans should also be aired out in the sun once a week! Big believers in the power of sun and a fresh breeze, I guess.
Post a Comment