Thread Number: 81709  /  Tag: Vintage Automatic Washers
who remembers the washer dryer set there grandmother own when alive or still alive
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Post# 1057164   1/10/2020 at 17:08 (1,560 days old) by pierreandreply4 (St-Bruno de montarville (province of quebec) canada)        

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hello to all aw members do anyone remember what kind of washer dryer set there grandmother own in there life time i will start

my grandomther own a 3 cycle push to start inglis liberator no water level but 5 wash rinse temp knob if she own other brand before my birth i do not know with dryer then a 1988 belt drive kenmore her last washer before illness was a direct drive whirlpool washer with matching dryer own by my cousin today this set to be pricise feel free to share your memorys as well


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Post# 1057165 , Reply# 1   1/10/2020 at 17:15 (1,560 days old) by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.)        

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My maternal grandma had a 1956 GE FF and matching dryer and my paternal grandma had a yellow Bendix Economat TL and a 1956 Norge Timeline dryer, which she almost never used, but instead hung out everything on the clothesline. The Economat was replaced by my Dad with a 1959 Montgomery Wards Signature FL and we took the yellow Economat to our summer cabin.

Eddie


Post# 1057166 , Reply# 2   1/10/2020 at 17:31 (1,560 days old) by wayupnorth (On a lake between Bangor and Bar Harbor, Maine)        

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Mothers mother had a total BOL 24" Kenmore automatic from the 50's. She always washed and stopped the machine when it filled for rinse on Sunday evening and finished the load Monday morning and out on the clothesline.

Post# 1057176 , Reply# 3   1/10/2020 at 18:53 (1,560 days old) by jamiel (Detroit, Michigan and Palm Springs, CA)        

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Father's mom: 1951 Whirlpool automatic with the aluminum nameplate and the two white dials (center button to unlatch top). 1956-ish Rheem Wedgewood clothes dryer (the one with the lifting top to an area where you can dry things flat). Mom's grandmother, I vaguely remember a bolt-down round-front KM, but then she quickly got a new-generation Maytag (with black agitator). She didn't have a dryer until a little later when she got a big WP Imperial (with the full-width door) about 1970.

Post# 1057179 , Reply# 4   1/10/2020 at 19:34 (1,560 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)        

My grandmas were both born in the 1800s. One had a Maytag Master purchased for her by her older daughters. The other had a round Maytag Chieftan which replaced one of the el cheapo green, straight-wall Maytag wringers from decades earlier. Both used clotheslines for drying.

Post# 1057180 , Reply# 5   1/10/2020 at 19:43 (1,560 days old) by CircleW (NE Cincinnati OH area)        
No grandmother's to remember😥

My dad's mother died when he was very young, and his stepmother passed away when I was only a month old. My mom's mother died when I was less than two, so I don't have any memories of them.

The closest my sister and I had to a grandmother was Ellen H., known to us as Hoppy. She was our sitter from the time I was around three until we were older, and no longer needed watched. She usually came to our house, but occasionally we went to her's. She and her husband lived about a block away in a large older two story house with basement. Their washer was a Speed Queen wringer machine, probably from the late 40's. It was kept in the basement, along with double wash tubs on wheels. They never had a dryer, so the wash was hung either in the basement, or on lines in the back yard.





Post# 1057181 , Reply# 6   1/10/2020 at 20:36 (1,560 days old) by eurekastar (Amarillo, Texas)        

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My maternal grandmother had two washers that I remember.  The first was Maytag wringer washer that she had since the 30s.  In 1967, she purchased a Maytag Automatic to ease her workload when my grandfather was dying with cancer.  She never owned a dryer -- just a clothes line.

 

My paternal grandmother had a GE Filter-flow and matching dryer from the 70s.  That's all I can remember her having.


Post# 1057187 , Reply# 7   1/10/2020 at 21:05 (1,560 days old) by countryguy (Astorville, ON, Canada)        

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My grandmother had a wringer washer...I don't know what make it was. It had 4 legs but definitely not a Maytag. There was no electric pump...it drained by gravity.
She did not have a clothes dryer. Then when my mom got her Maytag automatic washer in the mid 60s, she gave her wringer washer (which I think was a Beatty) to my grandmother. It did not have an electric pump either. Then in the 70s my grandmother got a Simplicity washer/spin dryer with the regular style agitator. I remember the control knobs on top were square. She used this machine up until about 2007 when she had to move out of her home.

Gary


Post# 1057202 , Reply# 8   1/11/2020 at 00:50 (1,560 days old) by tolivac (greenville nc)        

Kenmore-The washer had the pregnant RS agitator-loved watching the washer work-she encouraged me to go outside an play instead-still snuck in views!That was SO LONG AGO!!!

Post# 1057212 , Reply# 9   1/11/2020 at 02:07 (1,560 days old) by jons1077 (Vancouver, Washington, USA)        
I still have the photo

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My grandmothers 1969 GE set. I used the photo to find my first collectible set.

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Post# 1057217 , Reply# 10   1/11/2020 at 05:23 (1,560 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)        

Who's a precious boy?

Post# 1057244 , Reply# 11   1/11/2020 at 09:35 (1,560 days old) by e2l-arry (LAKEWOOD COLORADO)        

My Grandmother on my father's side had a 1952 Kenmore automatic. It was the same as my mom's except mom's had a straight 3 vane agitator and Grandma's had what looked like the later roto-swirl agitator. Mom's had suds return. I don't think Grandma's did. No dryer. Clotheslines in the backyard and basement. On my Mom's side, Grandma had a Speed Queen wringer. My Mom get it new 1948 and sold it to her folks when she got her 1st automatic. That began my love of wringers. So much more fun and activity because it was so operator dependant. Grandma was one of the old timers that just didn't believe an automatic could get clothes as clean as her wringer. She got a basic Kenmore dryer for the kitchen when Grandpa died in 1956 and her kids didn't want her going out to the back yard in the winter to hang clothes. Both washer and dryer are still on the property today, though no longer used. My cousin lives in that house today.

Post# 1057247 , Reply# 12   1/11/2020 at 09:57 (1,560 days old) by norgeway (mocksville n c )        
Dads Mother

Had a maytag Master wringer washer, Mothers Mother, who we lived with, had a 55 Frigidaire Pulsamatic until I was 4 then we got a WCDAN Custom Deluxe solid tub Frigidaire in1969


Post# 1057258 , Reply# 13   1/11/2020 at 13:09 (1,560 days old) by abcomatic (Bradford, Illinois)        

My grandmother had a 1930's General Electric wringer. Aunt Ada had a 50's GE and no longer used Conlon wringer from the 30's before the GE.


Post# 1057262 , Reply# 14   1/11/2020 at 13:44 (1,560 days old) by rpms (ontario canada)        

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My Dad's mother had a G.E wringer out in the wood shed off the kitchen. It had the rinse tubs on a wooden cart I assume she rolled into the kitchen. I never saw her use it.Only a clothes line.
My mom and dad had a huge fight when mom got her dryer. Mom was working and had hung her clothes out in the winter. The wind broke the line and she came home at lunch and waded in snow to get the wash.
When she told dad she had bought a dryer he was furious. He said his mother never had one.

My mom's mother had a Beatty Washwell wringer. It had a black bakealite agitator with holes in it.It could really whip up the suds. The pump was incredibly noisy.She had a Norge time line dryer that her son gave to her when he got a new dryer. It was the first dryer she ever had. After the wringer started peeing on the floor my mom got grandma a used Kenmore with Roto Swirl.
Uncle Bob was mad about that.He didn't think she should get an automatic. Not sure why?


Post# 1057263 , Reply# 15   1/11/2020 at 13:58 (1,560 days old) by DaveAMKrayoGuy (Oak Park, MI)        

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Well, the dryer, a Kelvinator BOL with a knob offering 120-minutes of Timed-Dry and a Heat On/Heat Off toggle-switch, designated by (1) and (2) and all that mounted horizontally easily outlived the washer that I remember being put out to the curb when the General Electric washer arrived, boasting a left-opening lid, and somehow Grandpa and even Grandma said the washer was a front-loading Sears Kenmore that I never saw, coming most-likely before the Kelvinator pair did...

If only I could show you the dream I had about going to their house and looking down then going down the basement stairs to all those washers and dryers there—paired Kelvinators of that vintage, the GE washer with its matching dryer, and even Whirlpools and Frigidaires, and everything in white, as the real stuff there was...



— Dave


Post# 1057265 , Reply# 16   1/11/2020 at 15:10 (1,560 days old) by DADoES (TX, U.S. of A.)        

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First recollection of paternal grandparents is a 1956 WP Imperial washer.  No dryer. 
Then they got a 1968-ish WP Supreme 80 washer (white, backlit timer), and a few years later a Supreme dryer (avocado, two-speed drying [not tumble speed]).  I don't know what the step-grandmother had there after Grandpa died.

Maternal grandmother had a flat-top Kenmore and a KM wringer.  A neighbor gave a 1958-ish Kelvinator to her that had continual trouble with blowing its fuse so she didn't have it for long.  A 1970 Kenmore 70 was next, then a 1972 WP dryer added (her first dryer).  The washer was replaced with a 1984 WP Design 2000.  Those stayed until 1999 when I passed on my 1991 KitchenAid set, then my 1999 F&P set when I upgraded to the IWL12 and topload dryer.


Post# 1057268 , Reply# 17   1/11/2020 at 15:49 (1,560 days old) by revvinkevin (Tinseltown - Shakey Town - La-La Land)        

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My grandmother (mothers side) had a 1954 or 1955 Westinghouse washing machine, similar to Roberts beautiful set in the photo, but her "dryer" was the clothes line in the back yard. When ever she was doing laundry I could be found on the "back porch" watching the washer.... that is until she saw me and would tell me to "Kevin get out of there, go play outside".

Kevin


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Post# 1057269 , Reply# 18   1/11/2020 at 15:50 (1,560 days old) by cfz2882 (Belle Fourche,SD)        
Maytags

grandma had a ~1967 maytag set,but would never use them-always used the Hoover twin tub of about the same vintage instead...Asked what was wrong with the Maytags and grampa just "hemmed and hawed" :)

Post# 1057279 , Reply# 19   1/11/2020 at 17:29 (1,559 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!)        

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Velma always had Maytag that I was around to see.  Her first automatic was a Kenmore set from the early 50's.  The gas dryer was rarely used and the washer got a hiatus from duty for about a year when she had ( ) surgery and was unable to climb stairs.  She had a twin tub in the kitchen and then a 2-speed, Filter-Agitator Maytag Highlander was purchased in 63-64 with a move to a new home.  She used that until another Maytag was bought in May 1975, which I later inherited.  The Kenmore dryer lasted until we sold the house after their passing in 1987, the new owners used it for several more years. 


To hear tell it, she suffered terribly with declining satisfaction in washers since Multi-Motor Gray Ghost in early 30's.  Born in 1908, it was her first-ever powered washer, there was no electric service in that area until after WWII, so it seemed like a literal gift from the heavens.  Her least favorite automatic was the KM.  The tub was too low in the cabinet, and it used far too much water.  She made heroic efforts to save (hot) water and detergent, but strangely never had a suds-saver.  She surveilled and meddled with  the Highlander timer with the cunning and vigilance of a warrior.   The '75 power-fin agitator never entirely earned her approval either, skeptical of the fins not attached to the base.


Post# 1057303 , Reply# 20   1/12/2020 at 01:54 (1,559 days old) by aircub (Huntington, AR)        
memories

My grandmother on my dads side had a mid 60s WP supreme washer and then late 60s she bought a Montgomery wards dryer which was very loud she used them till she died in 1975.

on my mothers side my grandmother had a maytag wringer that was in the basement and then my mother gave her 63 ge ff to her after the timer went out and had it replaced my mother bought a Montgomery wards washer, but my grand mother said the ge used to much water so she would put a load in it and go to the basement and do the rest of the washing in the wringer. until she got along in years and the ge pump went out she bought a 78 KM and used it till her death she didn't have a dryer and my brother and I bought her a used KM and she would not use it ever it used to much electric. I still have her maytag wringer that I got my arm caught in when I was 5 and still have the scar, such fond memories.

Darren


Post# 1057308 , Reply# 21   1/12/2020 at 05:54 (1,559 days old) by toploader55 (Massachusetts Sand Bar, Cape Cod)        

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1953 GE.

Washer First, Dryer Later in which my Grandmother gave the Dryer to my Mom. Her Model was almost Identical except hers had the "DeLuxe" Logo and the Dryer Door Handle was different.

That Dryer was so hot you could smell the cotton being singed And too hot to handle.

Photo from the AW archives Imperial Thread

www.automaticwasher.org/c...


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Post# 1057312 , Reply# 22   1/12/2020 at 08:12 (1,559 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)        

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Neighbours of us had that 1953 GE too. In the fifties American washers were rather popular here, they were about the only options when you wanted a fully automatic machine.

Picture #1 shows the Zanussi frontloader my maternal grandmother had. Picture #2 the machine on the left is the Miele toploader my paternal grandmother had. The machine on the right is the Miele twintub (H-axis), the one on the left the same machine but no attached spin dryer. It would wash (prewash and main wash) and rinse 6 times. Then you could take the wet laundry out and put it into a separate spin dryer.


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Post# 1057350 , Reply# 23   1/12/2020 at 09:29 (1,559 days old) by turquoisedude (.)        

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My maternal grandmother in the UK never owned an automatic washer or dryer! The first washer I recall seeing at her house back in the 60s was a single tub Hoover with a hand-cranked wringer.  In the 70s she upgraded to a Hoover twin-tub which was still working when she passed away in 1990.

 

Eddie - I have the GE washer that your grandmother had!  It's on my to-restore list for 2020.


Post# 1057354 , Reply# 24   1/12/2020 at 09:47 (1,559 days old) by appnut (TX)        

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My paternal grandmother had a GE washer.  I only saw it from a distance a couple of times as it was in the garage.  I remembered what it kind of looked like.  And the memory flashed back to my consciousness when Robert found his 1947-1949 GE automatic washer.  My dad knew of my fascination with Frigidaire Unimatics.  He remarked that grandma's washer spun just as fast as the Frigidaires, but didn't tangle the clothes into a rope like the Frigidaires did.  I thought he as just pulling my leg until Robert found his washer and gave out its specifications.  She had that washer until she had to sell her house and move out of it in 1964 to make wasy for a future freeway in Houston that didn't become functional until after I'd moved out of Houston in 1986.  My other grandparents never had home laundry.  I remember going to the washeteria with my grandfather a couple of times where they had Bendix double loaders.  


Post# 1057357 , Reply# 25   1/12/2020 at 10:20 (1,559 days old) by angus (Fairfield, CT.)        

Interesting question. My maternal grandmother died well before I was born but as my mother told it, she and her next older sister were responsible for the family wash - that was 10 kids and no washer. That meant scrubbing on a washboard in the bathtub and boiling in a huge stovetop kettle. And this was in Brooklyn in the late 30's and 40's. Then she and her sister saved and bought mama a bolt down Bendix. My grandfather built a cement slab in the kitchen so it could be bolted, etc... However after only 4 or 5 washes, mama decided the clothes were not up to her standard of clean - so back it went and the washboard came out again.

Nana, my paternal grandmother, also someone I never met (she died in 1958 when I was less than a year old) never had a washer either. However, she was second generation American having been born in Stamford, CT (I never really thought of her as Italian, being so Americanized. However she was very progressive. She had only one child, my father, and my grandfather didn't suffer as much during the depression as others. While not in any way wealthy, they were actually pretty middle class. She crafted a rather nice life for herself. They lived in a small apartment but she was meticulous in housekeeping and did most of the daily laundry herself on a washboard. Things like dress shirts, towels, sheets, and other "flatwork" were sent out to a commercial laundry so she did things like underwear, shorts, socks, kitchen towels, etc... by hand.

She also went downtown Brooklyn every Thursday for a matinee at the RKO Albee theater, shopping at Abraham and Straus, Martin's and Loeser's, with lunch at either the Garden Room at A&S or Junior's. Odd family...


Post# 1057366 , Reply# 26   1/12/2020 at 11:59 (1,559 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)        

These stories are fascinating. Who realized the social research that can be accessed through washing machine ownership. I hope that many of us with older grandparents will take to time to reflect on the hard work our forefathers and foremothers did to make life easier for those who came after than it was for them. Who would have suspected that the appliances that attract us so strongly correlate to the welfare of our families. Some decades ago I read that when modern women were asked about the most important electric appliance in their household lives, the automatic clothes washer was the hands-down winner.

Post# 1057373 , Reply# 27   1/12/2020 at 13:35 (1,559 days old) by sfh074 ( )        
Dad's mom .....

had a brand new BOL '62 Frigidaire washer when I came along.

Proudly positioned in the kitchen directly opposite of the stove. With iron hot and cold water pipes outfitted with outside type spigots at the ends, mounted to the cider block wall to supply the water. The house was built by my grandfather in the mid 40's with handmade cinder blocks. I remember seeing the block molds in the barn years ago and how beat up they were from the hundreds of cinder blocks he and my Dad made to build the little 2-story house back then. They never owned a dryer.

Although not the very '62 machine they had after they replaced it in 1986, but here a pic of the same model I acquired a few years back. I am nearly done restoring the poor thing .... just waiting on the lid and top to come back from being re-porcelained and getting the control panel background reprinted.

Bud - Atlanta


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This post was last edited 01/12/2020 at 13:54
Post# 1057381 , Reply# 28   1/12/2020 at 15:46 (1,559 days old) by fan-of-fans (Florida)        

I do not remember seeing the machines my maternal grandmother had at the first house she lived in when I was born. When she moved later she bought a late 70s duplex with the original GE appliances including the laundry set. There was a Filter Flo washer and dryer. I think the machines were almond but maybe white.

Something happened to the washer (either a leak or pump issue, I don't recall which) and it was replaced with a Kenmore direct drive in the late 90s. A high MOL model with about 4 dials. The original dryer was still there when the house was sold and she moved in with my aunt in 2007. Since then the house sold again and in the listing photos the washer had been replaced with a front loader but that GE dryer was still there.

At the very first house she owned around the early 50s the washing machine was on the back porch, but I don't know what kind other than it was automatic.

My paternal grandmother had a GE Filter Flo washer also and a Kenmore Soft Heat dryer, both from around the late 80s in the shed at the house she lived in when I was really young. When I was about 6 they moved into a new house with a laundry room and brought those machines over. At some point the washer started leaking around the late 90s and that was replaced with a Whirlpool direct drive MOL. The Kenmore dryer was replaced around the mid-late 2000s, also with a Whirlpool. I'm not sure what was wrong with it. And those are both still in use.


Post# 1057394 , Reply# 29   1/12/2020 at 18:35 (1,558 days old) by twintubdexter (Palm Springs)        
Another interesting topic...another boring story

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Don't remember grandparents. Father's parents died before I was born. Mother and her sisters were raised in a state-run Catholic orphanage in Oakland CA. The nuns were nothing like the ones in "The Sound Of Music". They beat the kids up and threw them against the walls when they were thirsty and ran out of communion wine. They eventually were "farmed out" as teenagers to a family from Italy who owned a huge fruit orchard in what is now prime San Jose real estate. It was very valuable back then too. They were fed and clothed and attended school in exchange for working the ranch...sort of a  legal form of white slavery. No socializing or after-school activities. It was go right home and get to work. They received a nickle at Christmas. I do remember the wrinkled Italian lady having an old grey Maytag wringer with strange levers on the side. It smelled like Ivory soap. These were people that could have afforded the most expensive laundry equipment you could buy in the 1950s/60's and not blink twice at the price. Oh were they cheap!

 

If you remember your grandparents you are lucky. Even more so if you still have them.


Post# 1057450 , Reply# 30   1/13/2020 at 09:39 (1,558 days old) by Unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)        
When I was young.

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My maternal grandmother had a 1958 Frigidaire Pulsamatic washer that I just adored! Before that she had a 1950 Westinghouse Laundromat that was replaced with the Pulsamatic before I was born.

My grandmother on my Dad's side had a 1957 middle of the line Kenmore with a straight vane agitator and water-fall lint filter.


Post# 1057453 , Reply# 31   1/13/2020 at 10:18 (1,558 days old) by vacerator (Macomb, Michigan)        
Mom's had

Kenmore model 70's from 1959 0r 60 until 1970 when replaced with new Kenmores. Her old wringer washer and Ironrite were still there. I never saw Dad's mom's basement in Pa., so I don't know. I was 6 when we moved away. I doubt my older cosuins remember. She lived in a duplex until I was in high school, and used a laundromat, then moved to a brand new apartment with coin op.laundry, then to one with it's own, and Dad found her a lightly used set of compact Kenmores.

Post# 1057461 , Reply# 32   1/13/2020 at 12:09 (1,558 days old) by robbinsandmyers (Conn)        

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The ONLY washing machine my grandmother ( RIP 1988 )ever owned was a Blackstone 150 she bought new in 1950 and it overflowed one day not long after she bought it and she was too scared to use it again. She went back to the wash board in the bathtub. It sat 30 years before I got it in 1988 and sold it to gansky in 2006 when I moved. I'm sure its happy in its loving new home after traveling half way cross country lol.

Post# 1057471 , Reply# 33   1/13/2020 at 12:39 (1,558 days old) by luxflairguy (Wilmington NC)        

My Grandparents (Dad's side) never had a dryer. The one and only washer Grandma ever had was a early 30's Easy wringer washer with a copper outer tub and 3 suction cups inside that went up and down and then rotated. It was a thrill as a child to get to push the red "on" button, hear it buzz and then throw across the knob that activated the cups. Was in college before I was allowed to operate all by myself!
Grandparents lived in a flood plain- on a river and I can't count the times the washer got wet in a flood. Gramps would removed the GE built motor, wrap it in foil and put it in the oven to "bake it out" and replace on washer and it would work! I sadly, gave the washer to a museum in the late 90's! Took lots of work to do a load! Miss it!! Greg


Post# 1057483 , Reply# 34   1/13/2020 at 14:01 (1,558 days old) by gmpayne (INDIANAPOLIS, IN)        

I remember grandmother on my mothers side was a Speed Queen wringer washer, it had a pump. Then she would hang the clothes out side.

My grandmother on my dads side had a Maytag square sided wringer washer, I never saw her using it. She use a wash board and made her own soap.


Post# 1057499 , Reply# 35   1/13/2020 at 18:33 (1,557 days old) by akronman (Akron/Cleveland Ohio)        
1968

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Grandma had been gone 2 years, but her unmarried daughter still lived in the house:
mid-60's model aqua-blue(ish)Hotpoint automatic paired with a Hamilton Gas drier from the early 50's. I remember the tall side door on the right of the clothes door, just like my 1952 or so electric Hamilton. When some load of clothes, hotter than hell fresh from the drier, started on fire, the old drier was replaced with a new Kenmore, Sears got lots of business from Aunt Pat. And I remember the washer as DIRTY, like no one ever wiped the top clean. Clean clothes just dragged out across 5 years accumulation of underwear dirt, dog bed dirt, etc!
There was also a GE Mobile Maid in the kitchen, mid-50's rounded edges type as opposed to the squared-off 60's era. Bow-tie impeller, not a spray arm.
And a 30" Hardwick range, as close to BOL as I can remember. Would the cheapest have had all 4 gas burners the exact same size? I seem to remember that. No clock, nothing electric at all, and I think the pilots did not work and everything had to be match lit. Lol, maybe some more money should have been spent at Sears.


Post# 1057503 , Reply# 36   1/13/2020 at 19:17 (1,557 days old) by lotsosudz (Sacramento, CA)        
Memories

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My Paternal Grandfolks had A matching Westinghouse laundromat, W/matching how dry I am dryer. Later when my Gramps passed, she moved into an apartment with a 56 GE filter flo pair, Later she inherited a 59 80 series Kenmore washer with an old mechanical timer Norge dryer. My Maternal Grams had a Voss Wringer, Bendix Economat, then a 1963 Lady Kenmore washer.

Post# 1057516 , Reply# 37   1/14/2020 at 00:08 (1,557 days old) by seedub (South Texas Hill Country)        

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Shown here is a representative of my Grandfather's (maternal) Laundromat stacked pair, bought new in 1964. His were white in color. They replaced the early '51 Laundromat pair that were my family's first automatic laundry machines. My Aunt claimed he bought them solely because Betty Furness was hawking them.

The architect of the house that the family built in 1962 committed malpractice and designed a laundry closet that had a 220 volt outlet for a clothes dryer...but no room for a dryer. We used a clothesline until the washer died.

Despite what I've seen here at AW about spotty reliability, we were very lucky - ours had only two repairs, and outlived Granddaddy; and I went from Watching The Clothes Go Round at age 3 to washing the last load at age 20, when we decided to replace the thing rather than repair it. The dryer was replaced three years before with a 1981 Spacemates.


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Post# 1057517 , Reply# 38   1/14/2020 at 00:23 (1,557 days old) by seedub (South Texas Hill Country)        

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On my Dad's side, my Grandma had two sets of machines, loosely represented here. The Kenmore I saw at the age of 4 for a total of two hours (she and her husband lived on the other side of the USA from me) in the first house she moved in when she arrived in Los Angeles. It would be another three years before I visited my Dad; by then, Grandma had relocated to a bungalow that had a Westinghouse stacked Laundromat pair. Hers were yellow, and more deluxe than these, with the multicolored pushbuttons. I last was in California in 1976. When I visited again nine years later, she had replaced the washer with a gold unit circa mid '70s. It featured a tub light and a Weigh-to-Save drop down door which locked during the spin portions of the cycle. She still had that and the ancient yellow dryer when arthritis and Alzheimer's forced her out of the bungalow and into my Aunt's house.

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Post# 1057518 , Reply# 39   1/14/2020 at 01:00 (1,557 days old) by thomasortega (El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciúncula)        

My both grandmothers had washboards, they never had a washing machine.

My mom (always decades beyond her age had a Bendix Economat (bought in the USA) and a Brazilian Frigidaire front load washer (Which I could never see again) It was somewhat similar to a Bendix, i mean, huge, and had a tiny door, the detergent "dispenser" was in the middle of the top and very similar to a Bendix but it had a bleach dispenser on the top right front that reminded a GE.

She also had a "Prima Turbowasher", a semi automatic washer and a Mueller Pioneira, her very first washing machine, made of wood, and it refused to die until today (My sister still has it and still uses it and the only part that had to be replaced was the power plug.

I don't remember the dryer brand, but it was bought here in the USA 15 years before the first dryer was officially released in the Brazilian market. It didn't last too long. My mom hated it because it would burn and shrink the clothes like crazy and fill the laundry room with lint. She then bought a whirlpool dryer here in the USA (BOL model, electric) that was quickly trashed because of a broken belt (now I know it's super easy to replace a belt)

Anyway, then she ended up buying a Brastemp Super Filtromática (It's basically 24-inch whirlpool with the tragic-mix filter and the super surgilator) and a Consul compact dryer (which is basically a Whirlpool compact dryer). Kevin has a washer that is somewhat similar to it, but 27 (or 29?) inches. My mom's was blue.




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