Three Generations of Flatwork

A small black object gathers dust on my shelf. This mundane household device has not been used for its original purpose for ages. It’s been a door stop and a book end, but hasn’t done any ironing since before I was born. Before using it, my grandmother heated it on her cast iron stove. Not an electric stove. Not a gas cooker. A big black cast-iron wood and coal burning stove (now serving as a TV stand). The family used the stove for heating, cooking and for warming up the iron. I can’t believe anyone could make clothes look good with this heavy old black thing.

I wonder how many hands have grasped the textured handle of that old iron. How many women have tried to occupy their minds with higher thoughts than, “I wish the ironing would do itself today”?


Grammy liked to have her children keep her company as she ironed. The hot work made her thirsty and she’d ask them to bring her a glass of water before the work was completed. She’d stick her finger in her mouth and quickly touch the wet fingertip to the hot iron. A sizzling of the moisture told her the iron was ready. I’ve been told she even ironed underwear. Shocking. I would have quit before doing the undees.

I joke that I’m allergic to ironing. I hate it. In this small way, I’m like Aibileen, the “colored” maid in the novel, The Help. She does all the white family’s ironing, but her heart sinks as she notices a garment she had painstakingly ironed: “She already got the blue dress on I ironed this morning, the one with sixty-five pleats on the waist, so tiny I got to squint through my glasses to iron. I don’t hate much in life, but me and that dress is not on good terms.” I feel Aibileen’s pain on that one. What a shame it is to perfectly iron something only to see it wrinkled in minutes after being worn. The horrible truth is, I’d rather clean toilets than do “flatwork.”

Not so with my mom. She loves to iron. When I was little, she was one of the few women in our neighborhood to own an Ironrite Mangler Ironing Machine. That's right, they actually called it a mangler. The operator, Mom, sat in a chair and moved the on-off lever with her knee. Turning the machine on caused a long padded roller to rotate and come into contact with a three-foot heated plate. The rotating motion would draw the fabrics and garments into the machine. As a child, I was afraid of it. I imagined that monster grabbing my arm and mangling fingers or maybe even a whole arm. But Mom enjoyed the ease of it so much that she even ironed our sheets and pajamas. Now that’s love.


Mom tried to train me up right by having me iron Daddy’s handkerchiefs when I was young. I enjoyed making Dad happy by doing that task, but the training didn’t stick. The joy of ironing left me in the 70’s when I started donning blue jeans with frayed hems. It never returned.

I'm sure I should be grateful that I don't have to use a lump of iron to remove wrinkles, but my modern iron isn’t special at all — contrary to the claims on its box when I chose it. It’s downright frustrating. At times it hisses and spits brown spots. It refuses to get hot enough to remove wrinkles from men’s dress shirts. It can melt many modern day fabrics, something I did only a few weeks ago. A brand new pair of flowing polyester/spandex black pants still had tags on them – and store wrinkles. A quick touch up and I’d be out the door. But the iron was too hot. At the first contact with the fabric, the iron boldly melted a permanent shiny shape of itself into the pants. I cried.

I doubt if future generations will keep my iron on their shelves of nostalgia. They better not. If I were an iron, I’d want to be a cast-iron antique, aging gracefully and remaining useful through all the days of my life. Wouldn’t it be great to adapt to different jobs as we age: iron, door-stop, book-end? And to be admired by future generations would be more than I can hope for. What will I become as I move into my antique phase? Hope I don’t scorch anybody. I promise I'll try not to hiss at anyone either.