18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, May 13, 1913: Started to earn my dollar washing off the kitchen ceiling. Want to get it finished by tomorrow. The Bryson girls were down.
Blanche Bryson (Source: “Cut” from picture in History of the McEwensville Schools by Thomas Kramm. Used with permission.)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Really?? Washing the kitchen ceiling?? Why?? I’ve knocked a few spider webs down from ceilings, but I’ve never washed a ceiling in my life.
Whew, it must have been a lot of work, if it was going to take two days. At least Grandma got paid for doing it. $1 back then would be worth about $24 today.
The Bryson Girls
One of the Bryson girls would have been Blanche. She was a friend and Grandma’s and her sister Ruth, and is mentioned several places in the diary. Blanche was a teacher at the Keefertown School, a one-room school house, near McEwensville. Both Blanche and Ruth went to the Sunbury teachers’ meeting that I showed a picture of a few days ago. I’m not sure what the other Bryson girl’s name was.
A Hundred Years Ago 
Kitchen ceilings, (and I have washed some) would become dirty I think with smoke or grease from cooking fires and fly dirt.
That makes sense. Your comment reminds me of how we used to hang sticky fy paper from the ceiling when I was a child to catch the flies.
Yes, and wasn’t that paper horrid? 🙂
It would be a little harder to wash our textured ceilings of today :-).
How true 🙂
I’ve heard that years ago, they washed down the walls, etc. With the houses being much more open, it probably required more cleaning than we think of today. I remember my aunt saying that she woke up one morning as a child, and there was snow on her bed. We just can’t imagine…
snow on the bed! . . . brr. . .
I have washed walls and even a ceiling. A paddle fan that is constantly in motion with open windows does a great job of distributing dust and dirt on the ceiling. 😦 She earned her $1/$24!!
I never thought about how the lights with paddle fans might distribute the dust.
I’ve washed ceilings!
It sounds like hard work. I’m impressed. 🙂
I’m too lazy to paint hahaha!
If the heated with coal or wood the ceilings get dark and stained… we washed ceilings at our cabin and even in our home since it was heated with a wood furnace. It is hard work! We didn’t get paid.. lol
They would have heated with either coal or wood. So it makes sense that they’d need to wash the ceilings.
I’ve washed a ceiling, but only once (thankfully!). It’s amazing to think that only 100 years ago $1 was worth so much.
There sure has been a lot of inflation over the past 100 years. There are several online inflation calculators where you can figure out how much inflation there’s been over different periods of time. One of them is at:
http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php
We have to wash our bathroom ceiling on a regular basis (just not enough ventilation even with a fan). But I would imagine back then with wood or coal stoves they would need to wash walls and ceilings.
My ceilings probably need to be washed– but they are textured “popcorn” ceilings, so I try not to look too carefully. 🙂
Yes, the ceiling was probably dirty from the cooking and they may have burned wood or coal for fuel. I am glad I have never washed a ceiling.
It makes sense that they got dirty from the cooking and the method of heating. I’m also glad that I’ve never washed a ceiling.
Nope, have never ever washed a ceiling, either. I think many people were better housekeepers back then.
Or at least more thorough when they did major cleaning. Sometimes I think that I’m better at picking up on a day-to-day basis–but less good at dusting, cleaning all the corners, etc.
My mom used to do ceilings and walls every spring.
I’m impressed.:I get tired just thinking about washing ceilings and walls.
Me, too! My neck can’t take that kind of work any more.
Blanche’s sister was Magaret Bryson Wolfe Snyder, called Sis. She was a nurse.
Thanks for the information. There are several places in the diary where someone named Margaret is mentioned. Until now, I had never been able to figure out the last name.
Now your grandma has me looking at my kitchen ceiling! Should I wash it? I think not! There is much to learn from the past. 🙂
Ugh…sounds like way too much neck breaking work! I would have a serious neck ache if I had to wash the ceilings! I’ll be interested to see if your next post mentions Grandma’s sore neck. 🙂
I think that my arms would also be sore. It’s so tiring to hold my arms above my head for long periods of time.
Hi. I rarely wash a floor, let alone a ceiling. Perhaps it was spring-cleaning time. I wonder, does Helena ever say that she wants to go to work after school? Did she ever consider going to college? I know we are now in different times, with different goals for women. Jane
Yes, goals were definitely different back then. She didn’t go to college.
Some of the old instructions and ads you’ve posted make me think this wasn’t such an odd thing to do back then, whether it was necessary or not. Maybe they were messy cooks? 😛
Imma catchin’ up to yoooouuu!!!
I see–you’ve been busy. 🙂
😀
I wonder if the ceiling needed cleaning because they used a wood stove? Or even had Kerosene lamps for light? Tough way to earn $1 though.
They would have had either a wood or coal stove.Coal was mined about 20 miles from where Grandma lived–and was often used in Pennsylvania instead of wood. And they would have used keresene lamps for light.