THE MACKEY PLACE AT CLYDE, TEXAS

I’m not sure when the Mackey clan settled in Clyde, but I’m pretty sure they were the first members of the family to move there.  The  Lone Star Gas Company had a small sheet iron building on Cherry Lane.   If you were going north on Cherry Lane, you took a right at the gas house.   Grandpa Mackey and Aunt Elmy (as I called Aunt Elma) lived about three quarters of a mile down that road, which ran parallel to present day Interstate 20.  The last time I was by there, the house was still standing, although it has been enlarged.

They lived on about 10 acres of land where they made a living at truck farming.  Grandpa Mackey covered the place with fruit trees.  He had a large number of grapes on the west side of the house; fruit trees on the south side the house and a vegetable garden on the east.  My favorite place was the huge grape arbor just behind the house.  In the summer time, it was a cool place to gather, especially in the summer time in the pre air-conditioning era

They had a Maytag washing machine.   This was long before automatic washers, but it was fascinating to me because it was the first washing machine I ever remember seeing.  The general level of poverty was such that most people boiled their clothes in a wash pot, scrubbed them on a rub board, rinsed them in rinse water that was turned an interesting shade of blue by Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing.   The rinse tub was a number 2 galvanized  washtub. 

The tubs had other uses.  You could water your horses in them or you could ice down soft drinks.   Hopefully, they got cleaned out between applications.  The clothes were then rinsed again, wrung out by hand and hung on the line to dry.  

The Maytag enabled the laundry lady (it was nearly always the woman of the house who did the washing) to bypass the washboard and the wringing out process.  She still had to do all the rest.   The water was heated in a pot, because  the Mackeys had no running water.   The hot water was poured into the tub of the washer.   The clothes were run through a ringer (which is where the expression “run through the ringer” comes from) after initial washing ,  after bluing and after rinsing.  It was still a lot of work, but it was much easier than the other way.   I loved watching the whole process.   Sometimes I wanted to “feed the ringer.”  but I was told that was a good way to get your fingers mashed.    The washer was powered by a small gasoline engine which ran on “white” gas.