I groaned when my alarm clock went off this morning, but - as I was toting all that dirty laundry downstairs to the laundry room - I found myself thinking of my great-grandmothers... Alice, widowed with seven children during the Depression and doing laundry with only a woodstove to heat her water. Margaret, the daughter of Irish immigrants, who proudly wears such a sparkling white apron in the only picture I've seen of her. How hard she must have worked to keep that apron so white! Agnes, a Canadian immigrant who roomed in a boarding house near the lumber camp where her husband was working. Did she have to do her wash in her landlady's kitchen? Addie, who did her washing for herself while "baching it" on a homestead claim on the plains of South Dakota. She must have scrubbed her clothes clean with water from a well.
All these women must have faced Monday mornings with trepidation. Wouldn't they would have been astounded to know how easy their great-granddaughter has it! All I have to do is tote the laundry basket up and down stairs, move two loads from washer to drier, and clean a lint trap or two. My great-grandmothers would probably have grown faint at the thought of the luxury Wash Day has become by 2009. It makes me feel very lucky. The only real sacrifice I have to make is waking up a little earlier than normal.
I treated myself this evening to one of my favorite vintage radio programs, The Great Gildersleeve. Have you ever heard this program? It's a wonderfully sweet comedy which made its premiere on NBC in August 1941. A spin-off of one of radio's best-rated programs, Fibber McGee and Molly. Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (played by the amazing Harold Peary) was a neighbor of the McGees and proprietor of Gildersleeve Girdle Works. In 1941, he moved from 
Wistful Vista to the city of Summerfield, where he became guardian to his niece and nephew, Marjorie and Leroy Forrester.
Gildy finds work as the Summerfield water commissioner and dates up every attractive lady in town. Though little Leroy never ages, we see Marjorie grow up, marry, and eventually become a mother before the series ended in the mid-1950s. (Marjorie was first played by one of radio's hardest working women, Lurene Tuttle.) Gildy continually butts heads with the local judge, though deep down they are fast friends. And the local pharmacist, Mr. Peavy, always steals the scene - and a roar from the audience. It's such a thrill to hear these programs delivered before a live audience! Kraft was the longest-running sponsor for the program and ran a number of popular promotions during the late '40s and early '50s.
Wistful Vista to the city of Summerfield, where he became guardian to his niece and nephew, Marjorie and Leroy Forrester.Gildy finds work as the Summerfield water commissioner and dates up every attractive lady in town. Though little Leroy never ages, we see Marjorie grow up, marry, and eventually become a mother before the series ended in the mid-1950s. (Marjorie was first played by one of radio's hardest working women, Lurene Tuttle.) Gildy continually butts heads with the local judge, though deep down they are fast friends. And the local pharmacist, Mr. Peavy, always steals the scene - and a roar from the audience. It's such a thrill to hear these programs delivered before a live audience! Kraft was the longest-running sponsor for the program and ran a number of popular promotions during the late '40s and early '50s.
If you've never listened to any OTR, this is a wonderful place to start!
