Last week in the Eastern Upper Peninsula we had a few days of sunshine. There wasn’t much warmth, but there was sun and that was enough to inspire me to begin spring cleaning. Remember the days when we were young? The month of May meant only one thing — time to clean the house from the attic to the basement. Mom started in our kitchen. It was time to empty the cupboards, wipe every crumb from each shelf and lay new contact paper. This was a simple task until the paper refused to cooperate and came in contact with itself instead of the shelf. Let’s just say that’s when the feathers flew.
But once the cupboards were spotlessly clean inside and out and the shelves had fresh paper, we tackled the walls. If the wallpaper was still in good shape, there was no need to repaper. Walls only needed a good dusting with a clean rag. We didn’t have fancy tools that extended to the ceiling. We stood on ladders and wiped dust and the occasional spider’s web from every corner. As we descended step-by-step, we wiped the walls, the picture frames and all the pretty calendars.
Then we started on the wood stove. As oldsters know, the stove wasn’t made of wood. It was a wood-burning stove. Once the fire was out and the top of the stove was cold, we removed the tea kettle and dishpan and dusted the burners. My sister and I were handed clean rags to make the burners shine like new. We put black stuff on them and rubbed until our arms ached. If any metal trim was around the oven door or the box that held the ashes, we cleaned those areas as well.
I don’t remember who tackled the oven. Maybe Mom. Neither my sister nor I wanted any part of it. One of us used a whisk broom to sweep woodchips or sawdust from the wood pile next to the stove while the other cleaned behind the stove. Chips and sawdust went into the metal dustpan and back into the stove. Winter jackets were aired on a clothesline before going into a closet.
We washed all the curtains and windows, dusted the windowsills, defrosted the refrigerator, cleaned it inside and out and completed lots of various small tasks I don’t remember. Prior to scrubbing the floor, we tided the pantry. Ours was a little room off the kitchen. It was always filled with items other than foodstuffs. It held an old milk separator, a steamer trunk that had been my maternal grandmother’s, a pie safe and dozens of miscellaneous items.
The kitchen and pantry floors remain the most memorable of our spring cleaning operation. In a house with no plumbing every drop of water had to be carried in pails from the wellhouse. We had an electric gizmo that we placed in a pail of cold water and heated it. We carried the hot water to the kitchen, added soap, got on our hands and knees, plunged sponges into the pails and started scrubbing. Our pantry and large kitchen floors required many pails and much effort to clean and rinse the linoleum. Once this was done, we waited.
When Mom gave the signal, we waxed the floors. More rubbing, more backbreaking work. Finally, after a week of manual labor, our kitchen was so inviting Dad said we could eat off the floor. We didn’t, of course. We moved on to other rooms and continued spring cleaning. By the end of May, our house sparkled as much as an old house could. School was out. Summer beckoned. After morning chores were done, the day was ours to do with as we pleased.
Thankfully, my spring cleaning days are over. Only the memories remain.
To contact Sharon Kennedy, send her an email at sharonkennedy1947@gmail.com. Kennedy’s book, “The SideRoad Kids as Adults,” is available from her or Amazon.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: The art of spring cleaning | Opinion
Reporting by Sharon Kennedy, Community Columnist / The Petoskey News-Review
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