nichepoetryandprose

My great-aunt’s diary shows she cleaned her house with regularity.  She had a big two-story house on the main street of the village, with a porch on the front.  On the main floor the rooms included a kitchen, pantry, storeroom, dining room, small front room and sitting room.   There was also a ‘little porch’ and a ‘little entry’ where the wood box was kept.  Upstairs she had the main bedroom, a ‘spare room’, a bathroom, and other rooms, joined by a hall and a ‘little hall’.    The house had a cellar, and an out-house.

Each year, she punctuated her regular cleaning with a vigorous bout of spring cleaning, beginning in late March and lasting through May.  She also did another round of ‘doing up curtains’ and ‘cleaning storm windows’ in October.  Her spring cleaning was methodical, involved a room or a couple of smaller rooms each day, and went from floor to ceiling.  Painting was included as part of the process. 

In 1957, the diary entries related to spring cleaning are: 

Mar 26             ‘cleaned my kitchen ceiling walls’

April 1             ‘I painted some in pantry… I washed dining room ceiling.’

April 2             ‘I painted some this a.m.’

April 3             ‘I finished painting the pantry.’

April 5             ‘I cleaned china closet. linen drawers.’ 

                              (I have one item from her linens, an embroidered table runner with her initial)

April 8             ‘I painted one rocking chair.’

April 15           ‘I cleaned the small front room.’

April 16           ‘I cleaned sitting-room.’

April 17           ‘I cleaned dining-room.’

April 18           ‘I did the dining room curtains up also the tidies in rooms. went over the house. ’

April 27           ‘we took the storm windows off cleaned windows on the out side. 

                               I also cleaned ½ store room.’

May 1               ‘I finished store-room cleaned bath room.’

May 6               ‘I did the spare room  washed curtains got them up. ’

May 7               ‘I wash[ed] my bedroom curtains this a.m did them up this eve.’

May 8               ‘I cleaned the back front rooms upstairs. washed ceilings did the floors.’

May 14             ‘cleaned the bathroom little hall’

May 15             ‘cleaned hall stairs.’

May 21             ‘I cleaned little porch.’

May 23             ‘I cleaned the cellar  

                               painted window sills upstairs windows wood-box down stairs in little entry.  

                               also cleaned out-house.’

House cleaned, she turned her attention to the garden.  On May 20, she wrote ‘I planted my glads dahlias.’  and on May 25, her husband made and painted a new flower box for her.

~

~

cobwebs

~

bits of cloud spellbound

by ceiling

they mesmerize

and float, dust appended

to spider’s web, thought appended

to tongue, nothing built on nothingness

rumours banished by a broom

~

© Jane Tims 2012

a linen table runner, embroidered with scalloped edges and her initial, made by my great-aunt